Taking a look around

I wanted to start writing this to keep a loose record of the goings on these days. Several months ago, SJMonkey and I decided to get the hell outta Ottawa, we had both had enough. We looked at several different places, looking for work in each and what housing was like in each place. Picking up and moving used to be a very easy thing for me; pack bag of clothes, grab my few tiny possessions, which were mostly made up of books, and go. Simple, uncomplicated, easy. Living a minimalist life has pluses. But, times change.

In June, SJMonkey and I got married. We're a permanent, unbreakable unit now. This can make picking up and moving more complicated. However, being with her makes every aspect of my life infinitely better, so it is the tiniest of trade-offs. We were married in Peterborough, her home-town and quite possibly, one of my favourite towns to spend time in. In fact, while looking at places to move to, we kept using the distance and ease to Peterborough as a measuring stick.

This of course brought up the most obvious thought, 'why not just move to Peterborough?'. For one, job's aren't easy to find. That becomes the biggest stumbling block. However, skip back to February, when I still worked in Kanata, and we find me being contacted by a recruiter who is trying to fill some positions for a very large company. Few months go by, I talked to lots of different people in the company, I drive out to Vaughn (via Misssisauga, accidentally) to meet with someone, and things are good. Come back to June. We say we're going to do it, after the wedding. Move to Peterborough.

I have a lead on this job that I can do in Peterborough, SJMonkey has some leads. Go for it. With a twist. Instead of renting again, we decided to buy. Everyone had advice for us (much like the reams of advice we got for the wedding and wholly ignored) and every piece of advice came with the caveat that 'trying to find a home takes forever, don't give up.' So, 1 week of looking at the MLS, 1 weekend of interviewing real-estate agents to see who we actually wanted to work with, following weekend spent looking at houses.

We found the one we wanted. It was the second house we saw. No screwing around, no BS, we made an offer, got a counter, accepted and began to what we needed so both parties met all the conditions; quickly. The house closes on July 29th, 4 days from now. We're almost completely packed, movers have been hired and we're set to go.

Of course, we're not moving in on the close date. We're going camping first. Not just chill at a fire for a weekend camping, nono, we're going to Blue Skies. We do some volunteer work there every year and it's a long, involved thing. This year, we're doing much less and will be there for only 3 days, but there is still a lot of planning and packing that goes into it. So here we are.

We pack, camp, return, finish packing, have a going away party and then move. Poof! Gone from Ottawa. Now, it isn't that we don't love people in Ottawa, it's just that the city itself has nothing for us. And so many people, oh man, SO many people have been harsh about it. I've heard so many people tell me how terrible living in Peterborough is going to be. How the housing market is shit. How getting jobs is awful. So on and so forth, et al., etc.

But, too bad. Off we go. People who don't like it, suck it up. In any case, we're all caught up now, and I have rambled quite enough. Best of luck to us, best of luck to you. Have a great weekend and if you're in Ottawa, we'll see you at the going away party hopefully. And if you're in Peterborough, get ready for us, because here we come!