The avalanche of decision...

Kee and I are definitely not big-ticket item compulsives.  We've been in our 1970s large brick ranch for exactly 25 years.  But we were at, unknowingly, the crossroads of several turning points when the cottage came loose from it's founding American family. 

How crazy that important things happen from a random grouping of people, drinks at a friend's house, chance topics of conversation.... you're there, someone else is there.... last summer, in August, sitting at a friend's house, over a bevvie I mentioned how long I've been fascinated by the old Tudor beach cottage across from another person's house. 

And then... someone there told me about the American family who've always owned it, just using it as a summer cottage... how the elderly husband had just died the year before and the widow - a long-time friend - spoke of having difficulty with maintenance of a cottage 3 hours away, across a border, especially as now she was alone, "getting along herself", had small health concerns that were adding up and was really wanting more and more to be with her daughter and grandchildren in Seattle.  She was thinking, sadly and with regret, of selling the cottage that her husband's parents had built in 1932.

What immediately followed, I'd like to think it was a gentle mental nudge from Fate, so something that should be passed on to the right caretaker, was.  Without thinking twice, I asked the neighbour if the owner could be contacted.  She could be and was.  Kee was open to checking it out, he's always wanted to move back to the lake, where we lived when we first were married.  He too was intrigued by the old Tudor cottage.

Blur of action:  owner is contacted, she prefers real estate agent liason; we offer  well known local who's accepted; owner sets price; we view house/we counter offer; she accepts.  Summer of 2009.  We've bought the faux Tudor.

We now have two houses.  This is not the best time, in current personal and global economic history, for us to own two houses. 

Our house goes up for sale.  Six months later [insert multiple life and career trip-ups...] it sells, satisfactorily.... but in the meantime... the action-filled autumn and winter of '09 and '10.

I'm talking a long, lovely, warm September of exciting starts:  ideas to develop, research to do -  energy grant research, historic colours research, digging up the gardens...

Followed by a chilly winter of dark 5 pms, changing work clothes, then down to the cottage for endless evenings of what I call "RE", doing the rees, replastering, repainting, rewiring, rebuilding, restoring....

Then, in early spring of 2010, removing our quarter century of life from our current home, down to the lake. 

Rethinking, reinventing...