FAMILY MIGRATIONS

Throughout my life my family has lived mostly apart.

I started out in Ontario but have live in British Columbia for most of my life.

I have an older sister that stayed in Ontario when the rest of us moved West as she had a family of her own there.

Eventually she, and her family moved West too and it was wonderful. Then my other sister moved away for many years. We did not see her often. She was living up country and a good portion of the year the roads are not for the faint of heart.

As the years went by the eldest moved away to Vancouver Island as did her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughters. Not that far away but it was an expensive and trying ferry trek to get to the island. It was not a trip that was made often, in either direction.

Boy were we cute!!!!

My nephews and their families stayed in the Lower Mainland but the nieces did not…for a while.

During most of this time we stayed in the same house in a Vancouver suburb. Thirty two years to be exact.

Then, as it is with families, children grow up and move out. The children and grandchildren made their way back to the city and suburbs of Vancouver. Babies were born. We moved further out from the city to an area none of us would have ever even considered 10 years ago and then it happened.

Gradually my sisters both came back. By mid April this year they will both be within a half hour drive from us as will most of the other family members. At this time in our lives we are all living close to our families again, the kids, the grandkids.

This is giving me great insight to researching family trees. Those moments when people seem to disappear from the family and how to understand the thought process to see which family members they may have followed somewhere. Then to follow the path of their children to see, perhaps, where they ended up.

It has also brought me great joy to have my family close together again. To be able to meet up for a quick dinner. To pop by for a visit to see their new digs.

Do you live close to your siblings? Is that a good thing? Family ties can bind or they can bind… take it any way you like.

(There is a brother in this family as well who has chosen, some years ago to no longer be a part of our family no matter how hard we have tried. He is living not far away although he doesn’t even know that we know that. Hey… I am a researcher after all.)

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

One more sleep.

We have lived here for 31 years, 6 months, 12 days.

1645 weeks

11,517 daysFriday 13th we will living in our new home although we will still have our old home until we put it on the market.

We have made many changes in our home over the years. We completely landscaped the quarter acre lot and filled it with garden beds and trees. New fences. 2 new roofs. 2 new hot water tanks.

A brand new kitchen about 12 years ago. All new double paned windows and steel doors with a beautiful French door out to the back deck.

One, soon to be 2, remodelled bathrooms. A huge deck in the backyard that hosted many, many parties.

But we are also giving up terrible traffic noise, having to lug laundry up and downstairs,  groceries upstairs, lack of closet space and all the garden maintenance that is too much when you work full time. We are trading it for a home in a quiet, gated community overlooking a golf course. It has the garage, laundry room, powder room, living room, kitchen, dining room, office and master bedroom suite with a full bathroom and walk in closet all on the same level. It also has a full downstairs with 2 more bedrooms, bathrooms, rec room, den, media room and sitting area to use when we need the space for parties or guest visits.

The grass area is minimal and so are the garden beds. I will garden in pots which is so much easier.

We will sleep well at night once we get used to the quiet. We will replace our old furniture over time as we decide how we want the rooms to look…and when I say we I mean me lol.

We will have friends and family over for visits and will barbecue on that top deck overlooking the golf course and a magnificent view of the valley. I cannot wait to watch a thunder storm from there.

My excitement level has reached such a high level I have to remember to breathe. When I next talk with you I will be living here…..

   

TRUST ME ON THIS

Listen to me my friends... no really, really listen. I want every one of you to go into a drawer, cupboard, closet or pile in your house right now and choose one thing to get rid of. Toss it. Yup toss it  out. Unless you know you are going to actually take a pile to a charity or have a pickup scheduled already you are going to toss it in the trash or recycle bin. Trust me. Nobody wants your stuff. You don't even want it. Then you know what. You are going to do the same thing next week. Choose something and remove it from your home. Keep doing this week after week. You will thank me for this wisdom one day when you are going to move.

Garage sales are usually a total waste of your time and energy. We carried so much stuff down the stairs and outside. Lots of it was heavy. We were sweating like waterfalls. We were exhausted before we even started.

We sold a bit of stuff but it really wasn’t worth it. Not worth our energy. Not worth our time. Not worth the frustration. Not worth the jerk who looked up our address online and phoned the house the day before to see what kind of stereo equipment we were selling. He then showed up 25 minutes early on a sale that specifically said do not come early and wanted to scope out the stereo equipment. I told him to get out of the driveway and wait until 9:00 like everyone else had to. When his buddy walked up at ten to nine and said let’s go in my husband heard him say…”no…she yelled at me”. Lol.

Well my friends. There you have it. My advise. My wisdom. My experience. Purge that house one piece at a time. Start now and when you have to move some day you will not have to entertain the insanity of a garage sale.  

WHAT CENTURY ARE WE IN

I was going to start this post now but I am in a very angry mood at the moment and will need to walk away and come back when I am a little more composed……..

6 hours later:

I understand privacy policies with businesses. We have them at my work and I know how annoyed people get when we won’t let them have access to someone’s account. I am the toughest one at work and won’t capitulate to demands of non-account holders when staff come to me to approve it. Yes we know you are the wife and you pay all the bills. Doesn’t matter… and I get that.

In planning for our move I am taking on the responsibilities for our accounts everywhere. Hydro, phone, cable, credit cards.

Unfortunately these were all set up with only my husband’s name over 30 years ago when we lived in previous century. If I recall correctly there were dinosaurs roaming freely at that time. Now with computers and the internet we are able to manage things more easily but in some cases we are still archaic. I would do it all online except that we are keeping our old services active past the date we move as we will put the old house on the market later. We need services until we sell in the old home but new services in the new home.

Let’s start with phones.

Called phone company. Account is in BB Guy’s name but I am a contact. I can change the account and add an account but I cannot close the original account. They were very good to deal with except that the new phone will stay in his name or we will lose the lower rate for being a long time customer. We cannot have it in both our names. Cable company. Same thing. I have set up the new account but it is just in my name. Again I will lose any long time customer benefits. This is not fair as I have been part of the original account since 1982 but not in name as my name didn’t matter at the time.

Home electric bill. Online I am listed as the account administrator. Have been since 2008. I cannot do anything over the phone however. Only online. This would work except we are not cancelling our current service. We just want new service set up. Since the house we are buying has been vacant for a while we also have to supply them with a purchasing agreement to prove we are “new people” and not who the place is listed under now.

I was going to just set it up in my name and add BB Guy as the contact but since I am not a current customer
DIDYOUHEARME…NOTCURRENTCUSTOMERFORTHELAST31YEARS….I will have to pay a security deposit for an account in my name. That is where she lost me. I was not very polite and as someone who works in the service industry that is totally out of character for me. I WILL NOT PAY A SECURITY DEPOSIT WHEN WE …. YES I SAID “WE” HAVE BEEN PAYING THE CURRENT ACCOUNT FAITHFULLY FOR 31 YEARS.

Lets move on to a credit card. All I have to do is change the mailing address. Online again because the primary cardholder is whatshisname… (are you sensing the tension?).

Cardholder name and card number…right from the statement…. nope….. it doesn’t match….How can it not match when it is the information they are sending us and they specifically say that you need to have the statement handy to complete this.

Honestly I just don’t have the patience for this stuff. I do have my own credit cards and do have a credit history of my own but all this stuff that we have to move was set up over 30 years ago and housewives were not recognized as contributing members of a marriage.

Of course we want anything new to be set up with both our names but the companies won’t do it because they use credit information for one primary person only…. well if that is the case don’t come looking to me for payments if the accounts were ever to go in the toilet. Oh wait… I am liable for the bills if something were to happen… Hmmm funny how that works.

(BB Guy came home early from work to deal with all of this and everything will be set up on time. The Hydro guy stated someone 16 years old or older has to be at the house for them to set it up. BB Guy replied “ NO PROBLEM, MY WIFE JUST TURNED 16” Groan… at least I had one laugh today)

SPENDING A LITTLE–SAVING A LOT

While reading Jen’s post at Muddy Boot Dreams this morning she got me thinking about some things we are changing in our lives soon.

If all goes according to plan we will be in a new home by June 12 or 13. We have made some decisions that will save us money. This is a good thing since my commute to work will be quite long and will consume a lot of fuel for sure.

We are not keeping our home phone. We will be using our cell phones exclusively. For my BB Guy this is nothing new as he is on his phone from morning til night already for work. His is paid for by his work.

For me it will be more of a challenge since I rarely use my phone. I cannot have it on at work so for most of the day it is off. I check for messages on my lunch break. Usually anyone who wants to phone me calls the house.

My cell phone plan includes 10 free long distance numbers. Perfect. I couldn’t even fill the list and soon there will be more people living close by that I will no longer need long distance for anyways.

Monthly savings = about $50.00

Next item is our daily newspaper delivery. When I was at home full time I read the paper every day but since back in the work force I no longer take the time to read it instead getting my news online. My BB Guy does read it though. He agreed that when we move we will no longer get the paper. It is a waste of paper and a messy nuisance.

Monthly savings = $30.00

Since we are moving to a place with very little lawn to care for I will be taking this task on myself. I don’t mind mowing a small yard but could not take care of our 1/4 acre lot we are currently in. With the many garden beds to mow around an electric mower was not an option and with my short little arms I cannot start a regular pull start mower. The electric start mowers never ever work for long and like a barbecue started soon become useless. Since my BB Guy is often not here there was no other choice but to hire a lawn fairy for our big lot. We will get a small, light rechargeable mower. No electrical cords, no pull start cords, no buttons. It will also be a mulching mower so no grass to dispose of either. Good for the environment and for the wallet.

Lawn fairies do not come cheap and with the fertilizing, moss control, mowing, weedwhacking etc. the monthly bill could be in the $250.00 range most months.

We are empty nesters now as well. Our electric and gas bills will be cut in half at least. Showers, laundry and dishwasher runs will be fewer (okay we are still showering regularly but not for half an hour at a time) . I think there are enough savings here alone to justify not switching to those disgusting CFL lightbulbs which for the most part are useless for lighting.

We are also seeing the end of a few other payments that total far more than what I will be spending on gas to go back and forth to work. In the end we are coming out ahead financially even though we are upgrading in our home to a larger, 7 year old one from a home that is about 40 years old.

What have you done to keep more money in your wallets? Share your tips.

HOUSE BUYERS BOOGIE

Obviously to those who read my blog regularly I have not been around.

Between the 10 hour shifts and everyday things that need to be done we are buying a house and getting ours ready to sell.

What a production. We have made an offer on a house and pending subject removals we have a deal. I will share more about that when it actually happens.

We are also clearing out 31 years of living from our current home. OH….MY…. GOSH…

We have been bad. We have not kept things up the way we should have. I said to my BB Guy… why do we fix things up now and clear things out when we didn’t bother to do this while we lived here? We should have been more diligent in our home.

Take care of the home you are in. Fix the little things as they come up. Doing a couple chores now is easier than having a list of 20 things to down the road when time is an issue.

Get rid of the the junk, clutter and stuff you don’t need. It is exhilarating. It is an eye opener.

Anyways… stay tuned for some upcoming news as to whether we complete the deal or not. Next step is the home inspection of the new house on Saturday. We hope there are no surprises.

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR….OR SALE

We are planning to move. Not downsizing other than the yard. We just don’t have the time to take care of the large yard and garden we have now.

We know what we want and what is a deal breaker. We have come close a few times to finding something that meets our criteria. It can be either a house or a townhouse.

• large rancher – with or without a downstairs. All that matters is that the garage/entry, kitchen, master bedroom and laundry room are all on the same level.
• somewhat private
• modern

We have viewed a few places. I do a lot of research online before choosing a place to see. I make up my mind very quickly.

The first place was a townhouse in a gated community perched on a hillside. It was very large with two levels but all the main stuff is on the entry level. The master bedroom had two huge walk in closets. The view from both levels was fabulous.

Then someone made an offer on it before us. I was very disappointed but then the deal fell through…because there are 2 conflicting engineers reports. Seems like there was some cracking in the adjoining unit and the first engineer said the hillside erosion was the reason. The second engineers report said it was just building material failure. We were not willing to take the chance.

Keep on looking. Okay. Not too far from the first one I found this one. It is a house with a small yard. I figured the yard upkeep was doable. Beautiful windows, nice kitchen with an interesting stainless steel backsplash. Hmmm maybe.

Oh wait… what is that? Big cracks at the ceiling. Even bigger cracks in the slab patio outside the lower level. My husband didn’t like the slanting lot and I had to agree but the real kicker was the awful odour of natural gas outside. Not coming from the house but not sure where from. Well another one bites the dust.

So many that just are not suitable. They are too small, too close to their neighbours, too old and dated. I start to get panicky and start to look further away than we had planned.

I found a beautiful place. It is on a golf course. I located some virtual tours and the house is great. I was decorating it in my head but the reality of my husband and I both having to drive an hour to work and an hour home again knocked this one off our list. For a brief moment though I thought I would do be able to do it.

Time to move on….just not moving in.

Oh look what we found. Beautiful. Big. Modern. Close enough to work. What could go wrong?

Power lines! This beautiful home is right next to the giant power lines. I know!!!!! Just not something we can overlook. Even if we put something on that side of the deck so we didn’t really see the tower what about the health issues associated with these towers? So many conflicting reports on their safety. Just too close for comfort.

 So the search continues. We are not in a hurry but in my mind I really am. I want to move and I want to move soon. It is hard to be disappointed each time. There have been a couple more I have viewed but didn’t include them here because they wouldn’t have been suitable like these would have been if not for the deal breakers at the end. 

So we will keep looking. I am not going to settle….yet. 

I am joining in with Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. 

Stop by there to see what is going on today. 

 

LET’S GET MOVIN’

I have to say I am feeling out of sorts lately. I don’t like it when things are up in the air. I like to know what is going to happen when.

I don’t like it when I am at the mercy of the decisions of others. When I have to wait upon others to do things or decide things it makes me cranky.

We plan on selling our home this year. I think. Yes. No. YES.

So now we have to get it ready to sell. Do we do it before our son moves out, working around him and his ever growing collection of his own furniture and household items he is amassing for his move or do we wait until he is out before we spruce up and show a house?

Do we sell and then not find the right place to move to when it is time to give up possession? I don’t want to be rushed to move out buying a place that really isn’t what I want. No! I won’t do that.

So do you buy a new place and hope like hell you sell your old place? I would prefer to find the place I want…which I did but it sold before we made up our minds…that is another story….move into this new place at our leisure and clean out our old place and do the necessary repairs and fixes on an empty house so we don’t have to work around furniture and stuff to get it ready to sell.

I really don’t want to have to keep things clean and tidy, ready for inspection (doubt that I could) nor do I want to have to finish working a 10 hour day only to have to vacate my home so someone can poke through it.

The housing market in the Vancouver suburbs is always booming. That is not a concern. The concern is that I am part of a family and I don’t get to make all the decisions….otherwise… we would be already talking about my new residence! Lol.