Ch-ch-ch-changes

As the iconic David Bowie once crooned, "Ch-ch-ch-changes ... time may change me, but I can't trace time." 

You'd think that retirement would be pretty stable without the ever-present tide of change lapping at your shoes, but you'd be dead wrong, or at least from the lens I view it through. 2022 has been fraught with new happenings and events from returning to the hardcourt as a referee, our first "Snowbird" experience, the return to supply work in Simcoe County, and the beginning of emergency supply work in Guelph, but easily the most significant will be pulling up our relatively shallow roots and moving to "The Beach".

Yes, you read that correctly.
"The Beach" 

... as in Wasaga Beach .

.. the world's best and longest freshwater beach 

... the gem of Clearview Township 

... situated on the eastern shores of Georgian Bay. 

Yes, THAT beach.

How that BIG CHANGE transpired is a little bit of a story.

As regular readers of this Blog will know, Joyce and I sold our Barrie home of 30 years in the spring of 2020, and I convinced her that a move to Guelph to experience the charm of an old, established central Ontario city, the beauty of the surrounding Wellington County, and the buzz of a university town was what I really wished. What we found over the past 10 months more than met our expectations as we explored as much as the area had to offer. Thinking with financial prudence, we decided to rent a condo on the off chance that it wasn't what we anticipated after 30 years in a detached 2-story, but we soon came to the realization that it was silly to pay someone else's mortgage when we had a sizeable chunk of the proceeds from our house sale to apply to a new place to call our very own. 

We knew that the search would require someone who knew this area and it's real estate peculiarities better than us, and based on the recommendation of our realtor back in Barrie (BCC old boy Tomas Sample of C21), we reached out to Nick Fitzgibbon (Coldwell Banker), an old hockey buddy of Tomas', for guidance. As it would turn out, Nick was a total pleasure to work with, was extremely knowledgable and insightful, and quickly started sending potential properties our way. As the months passed, we viewed a number of potentials that checked most of the boxes we had determined were important to our future, some of which we almost pulled the trigger on, and we successfully pruned the branches to reveal the neighbourhoods that were the most desirable. 

The sad truth of the matter is that we LOVE the city and would gladly choose to establish a permanent base here, but the realities of this cursed real estate boom have resulted in ridiculously swollen costs for the properties that we would consider and we begrudgingly acknowledged that Guelph may have to come off the list. During the soul searching about which path to take, we came to the realization that some of the reasons we chose Guelph were not longer topping the list, giving birth to the notion of returning to Simcoe County. We were still adamant that we would forgo returning to the city of Barrie, but with so many awesome communities in Simcoe, we figured that there was a wide assortment of choices. In the end, the lure of "The Beach" proved powerful and we enlisted Tomas' assistance with the search. 

Our time in Guelph cemented our resolve that a condo was the choice for us for a wide variety of reasons, and after a couple of viewings we established a list of Wasaga neighbourhoods and sat back to patiently wait for a desirable listing. The top choice on my Google list of recents searches quickly became the popular Realtor.ca. After a few weeks of searching, an offering that checked almost all of our boxes appeared, but soon after our viewing, it sold conditionally in less than 36 hours. We kicked ourselves for not being ready to pull the trigger, but as karma would have it, the following week an even more desirable unit in the same building popped up so we immediately set the wheels in motion for a viewing, and after numerous discussions, submitted an offer that was quickly accepted, much to our surprise. Cue the scramble to put our ducks in a row!

You know that it couldn't possibly go smoothly, correct?

After the email flurry with our investment guy, Tim Laine, to make the deposit funds available, and scratching our heads over why in these cyber times one still has to pay for a physical bank draft to be able to transfer the funds from one bank to another, we were told that the teller at our bank had filled out the draft incorrectly, beginning a back and forth between our bank and the real estate bank that thankfully resulted in successfully giving away 1000's of our hard earned dollars in the form of a deposit. Following the legal ballet involving the status certificate, Tomas delivered the exciting news that we would be moving just before the summer holidays!

I don't mind sharing that this whole process was charged with nervous energy since the last time we purchased a home was 30 years ago, and the financial commitment was SIGNIFICANTLY less. Don't get me wrong, we're Uber excited by the whole affair, but we'd be lying if we didn't acknowledge the anxiety.

As I alluded to earlier in this post, one of the other BIG CHANGES was a return to the classroom in the role of supply following our winter in sunny FLA. SCDSB asks that all teachers on their regular supply list declare a minimum of 4 schools to be available to, but the reality for me is that I limit myself to only one location, partially because of the comfort of familiarity, but also the sensible reduction of exposure to Covid. While I love returning to Barrie, the 4 hours in commute often prompts the necessity of staying over one or two nights, and thanks to my mom's continuing generosity and her condo on the waterfront, the problem is solved. In an effort to solve the travel woes, I twice applied to the UGDSB to join their supply list, but was curiously ignored, a stab square in my ego. As luck would have it, during a catch up with a an old BB friend, Bill Price, after refereeing at his school, he introduced me to his VP and the conversation eventually wound its way to the glaring lack of supply teachers in Guelph. 48 hours later, this old fart was on the list of "emergency" supply teachers for Bill's school JF Ross!

 Perfect! I didn't wish to to fill in at multiple schools anyway. 

I recently accepted my first couple of days of emergency supply and I don't mind admitting that it was indeed intimidating being in a new school, navigating a new layout, meeting new colleagues, interacting with new students, and developing new expectations. Definitely NOT afraid, but decidedly anxious. Thankfully, the anxiety proved unfounded as I quickly settled back into the groove and shared a bunch of giggles and laughs with the new students. Now all I have to do is keep the supply requests from SCDSB and UGDSB organized! I'm choosing to work a number of supply days between the two because (a) both boards desperately need the help this spring and (b) the extra cash will help with funding the Snowbird account for next winter.

"Time may change me, but I can trace time."