BASECAMP 06.24.15 ... " My THIRD Epiphany "

WE took occupancy of an unfinished home in August 2007 and in May 2015, after painting out the trim in the Audio Video Room, we had officially completed it ... close to  eight years later! 

It's interesting to note how much time, some of us spend, out of our lives, maintaining a home and property. Taken over a period of years, that accumulated time can be substantial. This is the fifth home that we have owned in 42 years. We have spent various amounts of our combined time, energy and money on them all. This last residence and property have been the most enjoyable for us to live in and on. We spent a few years prior to construction, establishing site services, we designed the home, acted as general contractors in partnership with a builder and invested our labour in several major segments of the project. We invested more of ourselves in this one than in any of the other 4 we have owned. 

This will be the hardest for us to leave because of that level of involvement ... but it's time. 

Soon after returning from a recent, medium length road trip, I had my third epiphany! When you're absent from a 25 acre woodland property for a few months during the summer there is a lot of maintenance to address. After completing that maintenance, I recognized that, on average, we each spend about 1 day / week, working for this home and property. Major duties include; keeping the house and all the outbuildings in good repair, attending to the garden areas, grooming our forest trail system, removing snow on a 1/2 km driveway and harvesting firewood. 

THIRD Epiphany: ' That's 52 additional days each year, that each of us, would much rather spend travelling! '

And that's only one year and that's only one house; we've been doing this for a long time now. 

My dad was always fond of saying, 'We spend the first 50 years of our lives collecting stuff and the remainder of our lives trying to get rid of it all.' 

That's where we are now ...

The house is on the market and we are seeing interest. These days, most of our time is spent dealing with all ' That Stuff ', my dad referred to. We have lists of things that are For Sale on Kijiji, Free Stuff has been piled out at the curb, donations are boxed up and ready to distribute, which family member or friend gets what have all been identified and we've started to create pick-up truck loads of unusable, unwanted, valueless items for the local dump. 

We've even started to discuss and evaluate our next real-estate options, clean out the rooms in the house and begin packing, all in anticipation of selling.

Crusty ...