It wasn't really intentional, it just sort of happened. One day, my casual, occasional survey of homes for sale in London became a real interest. I found myself contacting the realtor who helped my friend buy her home and suddenly, casual glances became active house hunting. How did this even happen?
When I was at the cottage with Glenn in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I heard the words come out of my mouth that I could conceive of staying in London. There are good people here and I have an excellent job in my field, even if it is flawed (aren't they all?). It's very difficult to get meaningful work in the heritage sector right now so I am grateful. I get good press and I am feeling a level of satisfaction with my work that I didn't necessarily feel in the past. So, sure, it would be nice to be closer to the cottage and to my mother, but if I can't be, London's okay. Glenn was pretty stunned to hear me say this and I was surprised, too. Some time in the last six or eight months, something happened. Previously, my emotional world turned around Toronto. I visited over night regularly and thought nothing of killing a weekend in London to be in Toronto. I have been in Toronto all of two times since April, and not once for an overnight since then. My world now rotates around London. I can imagine myself staying here.
So, we come to the question of how do I want to stay? Do I continue renting? Personally, I don't have a problem with renting. I'd like a slightly larger place to live than where we are currently. I have a lot of art that can't go up on these walls. I'd like a bit of space in which to entertain. I'd like to be able to do Hallowe'en for neighbourhood kids and have, you know, kids come to my house because they live nearby, rather than university students coming by and smashing my pumpkins. Does this mean I want to settle down? Not quite. I like the possibility of packing up my family and travelling around the world (cats and all), but I want something more stable. Something bigger, at any rate.
Glenn is of the opinion that if we are going to get a bigger place and potentially spend more money in rent, then we may as well own the house. I hear that. I get it. But I'm fearful of things like property taxes and home owners' insurance and replacing windows or roofs at my own expense. There's also my own level of snobbery. I want a house that I feel reflects my values and my class. I can live in a working class neighbourhood if the neighbours take pride in their homes, but I want more than a little cottage. I want a house we can grow into. I also want a house that is more move-in ready than less. To me, the point of buying a fixer-upper for less and then spending two years fixing it up, only to sell it again, doesn't make sense. I don't want to live in a house that needs work or that we're always working on. The outlay of time and money, though perhaps one I could get back in a future sale, doesn't entice me. I have a hard enough time keeping my house nice. Living in perpetual renovations is not appealing. So, I want a house that is ready to go right now. Then I realise that to get a house in my financial range, which isn't very high, in a neighbourhood both central AND pleasant, might be tough.
So, we're house hunting and I have patience, but at the same time I find it very frustrating to see a house that I really like, only to discover that there is no way we can swing it. My credit is bad. My debts, while not insurmountable, are not good, and I have a hard enough time budgeting. Is home ownership really appropriate for me? I have no idea. I guess I'll find out.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
TEN YEARS?
Holy shit. I've had this blog for 10 years. I haven't used it a great deal in the most recent years, but I never plan to delete it. Maybe I'll back-date my old livejournal entries into it. Maybe one day this will form part of my memoires. I don't know, but I'm amazed I've lasted as long as I did, even though I naively thought I would never call it a "blog" when I started.
I was studying computer animation when I began this journal. The world had changed a month and a half before, when icons of my childhood came crashing down. I was living in Toronto, working at the ROM and at Heretic and just barely existing at the poverty line. I was dating Rick. This blog would see me through that relationship, which taught me how to love a man and how to respect him for who he was, and then it would see me through the tumultuous long-distance affair with Gareth. (By the way, Rick, congratulations on your upcoming marriage to Kat !) It saw me in Toronto, working for a politician, and selling my art (or not selling as the case tended to be) at conventions. It saw me go back to school after a period of finding myself. It saw renewed enthusiasm for learning and direction and personal ambition. It witnessed death and loss, anger and joy and contentment. It saw me abandon security for risk as I moved first for an internship to Winnipeg and then terrifyingly far away to Whitehorse. It followed me back to Ontario into the life I now lead. I can look back and see constants relected here, and the changeable, and the things I thought would be forever that ended up the least permanent of all. I can see myself growing into my skin and becoming a person I both respect and admire.
A toast, then, to longevity and commitment, and the written word.
I was studying computer animation when I began this journal. The world had changed a month and a half before, when icons of my childhood came crashing down. I was living in Toronto, working at the ROM and at Heretic and just barely existing at the poverty line. I was dating Rick. This blog would see me through that relationship, which taught me how to love a man and how to respect him for who he was, and then it would see me through the tumultuous long-distance affair with Gareth. (By the way, Rick, congratulations on your upcoming marriage to Kat !) It saw me in Toronto, working for a politician, and selling my art (or not selling as the case tended to be) at conventions. It saw me go back to school after a period of finding myself. It saw renewed enthusiasm for learning and direction and personal ambition. It witnessed death and loss, anger and joy and contentment. It saw me abandon security for risk as I moved first for an internship to Winnipeg and then terrifyingly far away to Whitehorse. It followed me back to Ontario into the life I now lead. I can look back and see constants relected here, and the changeable, and the things I thought would be forever that ended up the least permanent of all. I can see myself growing into my skin and becoming a person I both respect and admire.
A toast, then, to longevity and commitment, and the written word.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Modernity Comes to the Forest
Since Monday night, I've been at my cottage, which is less a house in the forest and more a rustic cabin. We have some modern conveniences, but also some notable throw-backs.
When I was a child, I would inform my mother that when I was grown-up, I would winterise the cottage and live here. I had great plans for bringing the little five-room camp into the 20th century. By the time I was in my teens, I had grown quite accustomed to the propane lights and a refrigerator that needed its pilot light lit. Unfortunately, the appliances were getting old, breaking down and it was becoming increasingly difficult to get them repaired. And Superior Propane, long the supplier of the gas we used to run those appliances was no longer close by, but a substantial drive down the highway and not remotely convenient. As my mother priced out replacing the dying propane appliances and compared the costs to electrifying the camp, it became clear we were going to have to modernise. 14-year old me was utterly horrified. As far as I was concerned, there had been plenty of change in my short life and the cottage was a constant. It did not change.
The first summer we had electricity, the camp was struck by lightning and I was electrocuted. See? That would never have happened if we'd stayed on propane. That is a story for another time, however.
As I write this, Glenn is showering outside and the electric pump (which replaced the propane pump that required pulling a beligerant rip-cord to start) clicks on and off, I am admittedly grateful for electricity. For instance, we now can shower with, more importantly, hot water. Amazingly, it took us a full ten years after electrifying of lake and sink bathing to realise we could rig up a shower outside (we do not have a bathroom). So it's probably fair to say that change happens in fits and starts. We also have a splendid toaster oven and a counter-top roaster which we enjoy using for big roasts. I take issue with the microwave that my mother installed, and stalwartly refuse to make use of it for anything but a breadbox. And yet, thanks to Glenn's fancy "spacephone" and the free data usage he gets for working for a cellular company, we have Internet. I find this far less troubling than a microwave. I'm not even troubled by a window-mounted air conditioner, but the microwave makes me furious. And God help us if a TV ever turns up.
Still, when I am here, I feel like I am in a land that time forgot, regardless of whether I write by hand on paper with a pen, or type into my blog on my laptop. Yes, Highway 50 is finally open and, yes, I can hear it, but it's not any less intrusive than the aeroplanes and helicopters that fly low overhead, or the sound of the river rafters' bus and truck passing on the road in the summer. I thought I might be horrified by the 50, but, unlike the microwave, I've adapted to it readily. Go figure.
We leave here tomorrow. Tonight I will put the non-essential pillows away in plastic bags (to keep the mice out) and strip the bedding off the guest bed and the slip covers off the couches. Tomorrow morning, we will roll down the window blinds and shut off the power, put the cats in their carriers and hit the road back to London. Sometimes people ask me if it's worth it to drive seven hours for a week's worth of vacation and I never hesitate. It's worth it. Every bit of being here in this land where time moves in fits and starts is worth it.
Except the microwave.
When I was a child, I would inform my mother that when I was grown-up, I would winterise the cottage and live here. I had great plans for bringing the little five-room camp into the 20th century. By the time I was in my teens, I had grown quite accustomed to the propane lights and a refrigerator that needed its pilot light lit. Unfortunately, the appliances were getting old, breaking down and it was becoming increasingly difficult to get them repaired. And Superior Propane, long the supplier of the gas we used to run those appliances was no longer close by, but a substantial drive down the highway and not remotely convenient. As my mother priced out replacing the dying propane appliances and compared the costs to electrifying the camp, it became clear we were going to have to modernise. 14-year old me was utterly horrified. As far as I was concerned, there had been plenty of change in my short life and the cottage was a constant. It did not change.The first summer we had electricity, the camp was struck by lightning and I was electrocuted. See? That would never have happened if we'd stayed on propane. That is a story for another time, however.
As I write this, Glenn is showering outside and the electric pump (which replaced the propane pump that required pulling a beligerant rip-cord to start) clicks on and off, I am admittedly grateful for electricity. For instance, we now can shower with, more importantly, hot water. Amazingly, it took us a full ten years after electrifying of lake and sink bathing to realise we could rig up a shower outside (we do not have a bathroom). So it's probably fair to say that change happens in fits and starts. We also have a splendid toaster oven and a counter-top roaster which we enjoy using for big roasts. I take issue with the microwave that my mother installed, and stalwartly refuse to make use of it for anything but a breadbox. And yet, thanks to Glenn's fancy "spacephone" and the free data usage he gets for working for a cellular company, we have Internet. I find this far less troubling than a microwave. I'm not even troubled by a window-mounted air conditioner, but the microwave makes me furious. And God help us if a TV ever turns up.
Still, when I am here, I feel like I am in a land that time forgot, regardless of whether I write by hand on paper with a pen, or type into my blog on my laptop. Yes, Highway 50 is finally open and, yes, I can hear it, but it's not any less intrusive than the aeroplanes and helicopters that fly low overhead, or the sound of the river rafters' bus and truck passing on the road in the summer. I thought I might be horrified by the 50, but, unlike the microwave, I've adapted to it readily. Go figure.
We leave here tomorrow. Tonight I will put the non-essential pillows away in plastic bags (to keep the mice out) and strip the bedding off the guest bed and the slip covers off the couches. Tomorrow morning, we will roll down the window blinds and shut off the power, put the cats in their carriers and hit the road back to London. Sometimes people ask me if it's worth it to drive seven hours for a week's worth of vacation and I never hesitate. It's worth it. Every bit of being here in this land where time moves in fits and starts is worth it.
Except the microwave.