Last December as we were preparing for Christmas, I became aware of how empty our house seemed. We moved to Peterborough 6 years previous when our children had begun their lives outside our home. We had many elder family members in the Peterborough area so we decided to relocate to be closer to them. Fast-forward six years later and we found ourselves alone once again. The elders had passed on and our children were a bit too far away from Peterborough to make visits convenient.
I am blessed that my job allows me to work from any location as long as I have internet, so for me, relocation is only a matter of down-time. For my husband though, relocation means starting fresh - which has its challenges when you're a mature age. Even with this challenge it didn't take us long to make the decision that it was time to move again. I knew I would miss the many friends and connections I had made through my involvement with TVCOGECO and the Peterborough crew will always have a spot in my heart, but we missed our family connections more.
The process of preparing our home, more specifically the DECLUTTERING stage took its sweet time and I URGE anyone who thinks they may move one day - start now! Don't wait. So many of us have an emotional connection to our clutter, and the process can take a while. I've seen it done on TV where a counselor guides the family through the process, but when you've got a houseful of memories collected from elders who have passed, it's a very stressful operation to extract the needed and useful from everything else. If it's possible to do it gently over a period of time, it helps the grieving process.
The next stage was to update and refresh the house so that it presented in the very best light. We are perfectionists ... so enough said. After all was said and done, we had missed the spring peak selling time and things slowed down. Thankfully our wonderful agent @TrudyWilson was a very hard working gal and was willing to do open houses weekly to get the traffic through. We sold in a respectable time frame and our Peterborough home now rests in the hands of a lovely young couple and I'm sure they will enjoy the area as much as we did. We have left them with all of the business contacts and brochure we could get our hands on.
I had a "time frame" in my mind and thought we should be in our new home by June at the latest, with plenty of time to plant a veggie garden. We were looking for a bungalow with a very large yard. It's amazing how you may not get what you want - but what you really need instead. We now have a lovely 2 story semi - so I get my exercise up and down the stairs, a small yard for a manageable garden, close to a school yard and trailway for more exercise and in a fabulous friendly neighborhood close to our family for the companionship we so missed.
I am truly blessed.
