Tag Archives: Toronto Real Estate

I could really use your advice. Can you hook me up?

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Ever get that feeling – although, sure, it’s not original – that time is moving faster than you are?

We bought the house – which, as it turns out was built in 1895 and not 1908, like we had thought – thinking that it was in mostly move-in condition. Uh, ya, it is… but apparently that’s not how we roll in our family of two and a half (Rob + me + cat).

Decades-old floors have been yanked and torn from their roots. Walls will be bathed in fresh paint soon. Walls will come down to make way for a hers-and-hers (ha!) closet to fill with shoes and purses and clothes, oh my. (And a pedestal sink that Rob doesn’t know about may have sort of been purchased and has yet to be installed.)

Yes, life is moving faster than I am these days, although I swear I’m moving as fast as I can.

To boost my energy, I’ve upped my spinach in my daily shakes (really not as bad as it sounds). I’m taking my vitamins and drinking lots of water so that I can make it to the Finish Line of my day each night before hitting head to pillow to recharge and do it all again the next day. I’m writing things down incessantly, although I have tragically lost my daily planner and have been a bit lost. In fact, I’m pretty sure I stiffed someone on a meeting this week, although I can’t be sure because, well, I’ve lost my schedule that was in my planner. Shit me.

But still, I feel I’m too slow.

We purchased a house; are renovating it; are moving; are traveling this month (me- New York, Rob- Sasksatoon); I’m taking not one, but two courses! And, of course, there is the 40+ hours of work each week. Oh, and Rob is playing in another round of this Battle of the Bands and possibly gearing up to play a music festival this spring.

Yes, so life is moving quickly, so why the hell do I feel like I’m not?

I always say, “Better to be busy than bored”, and I genuinely feel that way, I do. But sometimes – and I’m not necessarily saying this is me right now, although it does cross my  mind – sometimes we can get busy being busy doing things that just have us spinning our wheels. In other words, what’s the point of Tazmanian Devil-ing yourself into a whirlwind of endless ‘things’ only to come out of that spin cycle only to realize you’re exactly where you were before you got busy. Make sense?

When this crazy month is over, will I look around and feel as though I’ve made leaps forward or made an ass-plant into no place at all? Physically, I’ll be in a new home, with a new lease on life via my surroundings and I’m excited about that. But the other stuff, those things that keep us busy beyond breathing and seem to creep into every crevice of productivity, making you feel farther and farther away from really getting anything done, it’s that stuff that seems to slow us down yet keep our heads spinning all at once.

(PS, I swear I haven’t been drinking, although I could really use some vodka.)

So, what do you do when you feel time is moving faster than you are? I could use a little advice.

Sneak Peek: Our backyard, but not our car. The previous owners gave us this shot. Kinda cute, huh?

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Things I learned at 29: How to be extraordinary (and shop for a coat rack.)

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The extraordinary rack.

I learned something about being extraordinary and now I have to tell you. I learned it from a coat rack.

We’re moving in three weeks.

We’re leaving our quaint and trendy little neighborhood – Roncesvalles Village, home of the Cherry Bomb and Revue Theatre – to move 10 minutes away to a neighborhood we never thought we’d live in. It’s one of Toronto’s “in transition” neighborhoods, which is sort of the real estate market’s way of saying, “don’t walk there alone after dark… but good investment.”

After much deliberation, we’re okay with it. Mainly because we have to be – the house is bought and there is no sense in crying over spilled mortgage papers (if I ever write those words again, I implore you to stop reading this blog.)

In a city like Toronto, you have million-dollar neighborhoods book-ended by areas that we Torontonians affectionately refer to as “up and coming”. These “up and coming” pockets house everything from couples like us (the brunching, weekend thrifting, mid-week dinners, drunk on Sundays, random weekend trips kind) to Ladies of the Night and hobos to what we refer to ’round these parts as “crack hoes”.

Ah, the city.

I was tempted to put “Buy a house” on my List, but felt that was cheating, since I knew purchasing was inevitable this year. Wanting to buy again had less to do with turning 30 than it had to do with Rob and I not wanting to get too comfortable. So it didn’t go on the List.

And screw comfortable.

Our renting days are over and we just feel like it’s time to plant some roots again – oh, you know, paint the walls my preferred shade of not-so-white and hang vintage chandeliers in strange places – that sort of thing.

When I tell people about the “planting roots” thing, they immediately think we want kids, which we don’t. Not now anyway. “So why do you want to settle down then and buy a house?” they ask, which is valid, I guess, although I’d like to think that we’re not buying a house for any other reason than to just live a little more extraordinarily than we do right now.

But what is extraordinary?

Let’s face it, the word arrangement is all wrong for something that’s supposed to be so great: extra-ordinary. I mean, c’mon. Being just a little ordinary not enough?

Interestingly, while shopping for a table made of reclaimed church pews and then stumbling on this coat rack creation, I just sort of figured it out…

Extraordinary is like adding nice hardware to cheap Ikea kitchen cabinets or wrapping a vintage scarf around the handles of a an old handbag that you love. It’s like adding hot fudge to plain ‘ol vanilla ice cream or writing a love letter instead of an email. It’s taking something as ordinary as marriage and giving it the details of warm morning kisses, coffee made just the way you like it and wearing his shirt to bed because you couldn’t possibly fall asleep without his scent.

Extraordinary, I learned, simply means taking something ordinary and giving it that little something extra, even if it’s just a place to hang your hat and coat at the end of the day.

Make it extraordinary.

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