Thread Drift

[Crankin]

Oy.
There are morons everywhere, but I lived in the south long enough to know the probability is a little bit higher there. I got tired of being told I was going to burn in hell for not believing in a variety of things.
Try to enjoy your day!

[OakLeaf]

So sad for the daughters. Sorry you two had to hear that.

Good on the waitress and management, though.

[Trek420]

We're nearly to 2,000,000 views on TD. Long live TD.

[Crankin]

Going to try and revive this thread, since I have 2 pieces of news that seem appropriate for here. I miss the conversation on this thread!
First, we have been trying to decide, where our future living quarters will be, when we sell our house. We really love western MA, but don't want to move there after DH retires, with no experience living there, except for vacations. We started looking at real estate there, and then started casually looking at condos/townhouses here, too, just in ads. We finally decided that we are good with having 2 small homes for awhile, so we can make a good decision and take our time deciding. DH had been very against townhome living, but came to see my point of view, on his own, really. So, Sunday we went out to look at 4 condos in Concord and Acton. We had never been to an open house in Massachusetts; wow, totally overwhelming. Lots of young couples, families with kids trying to get into communities with good schools, and people moving here from other countries, mixed in with a few couples like us. So, cut to the chase, we are now the (almost) owners of a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo, with a loft, den/sunroom, and full unfinished basement, about 6 miles from where we live now. It's on the edge of west Concord, about 2 miles from the village, 15 units, and very flat roads! We will put our house up for sale at our leisure, and when it sells, pay off the rest of the condo. The good thing is, we can do the renovations we need to do, before we have all of our stuff in there. It's not anything major, though, just take down some ugly wallpaper and paint the bathrooms and kitchen, new appliances and counters/vanities. There is beautiful hardwood throughout. We haven't told anyone yet...
My other news is that my former exchange student called me yesterday, to tell me that I am "kinda going to be a grandmother." I was really surprised! They are moving back to the US next month, to California, where she is from. He has his immigrant visa all set. When I asked him how his mom reacted to the news, he told me that she had a "typical Germanic reaction, like yeah, so what, so I called you right away." In an email to my DH, he said that he hopes his kid will "be smarter than me and do something else besides ride a bike."

[IBrakeforPastry]

Congratulations, Crankin, on both pieces of news! I know we've talked about Cape Cod before, and although I don't think I want to live right on the Cape, I do often think of moving back to New England. Have fun renovating!

[Helene2013]

Congrats!

We are just 5 years (if not sooner) from young retirement and this is a "regular" conversation at home too. I want this type of living and he wants something - but not sure yet. But his "dreams" are much bigger than mine. I just want minimal and be freer of my time. I could care about home ownership anymore. At least in the current form. I'd live in my motorhome, in Canada in summer and in USA in winter. No more "maintenance". Just need to find what will suit us both. But next summer, our month vacation will probably be planned in trying out different parts of West Canada to see if we'd like it enough. It is a big move when you're over 3000km from your original place. A big change. For me, I was "raised" staying all over Canada. But hubby never moved until he moved in with me and it was always near his childhood area. And for him to move where not a lot of French (alhtough he does ok in English), is much harder. Me...bah...anywhere in North America I'm good. hihi

[shootingstar]

Hope renos for your condo goes well, Crankin and sale of present home at a good price.

Most likely Helene, you and hubby might do best living somewhere in Canada that's not too far from an urban centre that's diverse. I was surprised to learn of some historic francophone towns in Saskatchewan and Alberta.. One just never heard about them in the news/history books when I lived In Ontario. The level of awareness about francophones right now here in southern Alberta, strikes me as low. People here don't think of govn't services in French....whereas in Ontario there was some awareness.

My preference honestly is to live an urban area of Canada that is quite diverse in its local people and cultural offerings. I don't want to be in old age stuck in hearing/learning in 1 local perspective and people dominated by a similar background. I have a good close friend who is close to 80 in Toronto and I can see her own vitality, in addition to her interests, she loves learning..and that has been gained by meeting people from a wide spectrum of backgrounds regularily. She no longer travels outside of T.O. much because of cost, no longer has a car...but a strong network of friends who help and who also like her, want to keep on learning.

[Crankin]

Real estate person is coming tomorrow, to help us set price, etc for our house. Sadly, the woman we used for all of our other homes here died about 7-8 years ago. She was the best. We will use the woman who sold us the condo, who appears to be similar. Houses in our neighborhood have been selling quite well this summer. But, we are always realistic about price!
I also prefer to stay near an area where there are cultural activities and lots of restaurants, as well as good cycling. While Great Barrington in the Berkshires is a town, it has an awesome downtown, in a rural setting, and near all of the cultural attractions, and is a 4 season recreational paradise. The down side is, that despite being in Massachusetts, the area is overrun with New Yorkers, from the city. That can be a bit much for a New Englander like me, but, it's mostly second home owners. However, I just am not sure I want to make a permanant move away from here, as I just love it. If we can swing having 2 places, at least while I am still young enough, that's what I want. DH now thinks he will retire at 62, which is only 3 years away. We will see. I am not sure if I want to permanently stop working, even then, because if I stop, I still need to take continuing ed to keep my license up. I will be almost 65 when he retires, so I really don't know. I could easily work 1-2 days a week in either place.

[Catrin]

Congratulations Crankin, and good luck with everything!

[OakLeaf]

Good luck! That's a big step. It's nice there are condos with space for all your toys - that was the limiting factor when we were shopping. We don't need the living space of a house, but there just weren't condos with storage space, and a lot of them only even had one parking space, so we'd have had to use that for motorcycles and park the car off-site, never mind they usually forbid wrenching (even wrenching on bicycles that don't have a lot of potentially toxic fluids) in shared garages.

FWIW, I kept my license active for two biennial cycles before I came to terms with being retired. It was worth the expense and hassle of taking the CLE, just to be able to process the decision at my own pace.

[Pax]

Sounds like a nice place, Crankin. Plenty of room but less yard stuff to deal with, sounds like a great choice for retirement.

[Crankin]

Oak, we will not have a garage. Some of the units have one; we do have 2 parking spaces, and the lot is plowed by someone else! I have come to terms with cleaning snow off of my car, because it has everything else. The basement is huge. We will be taking a couple of bigger pieces of furniture to store down there (dining room table for one), as well as all of our tools/outdoor clean up stuff, as we may end up buying a small house, instead of a condo in the Berkshires. It seems silly to get rid of this stuff now, when we have room for it. The only furniture we need to get rid of is the kids' bedroom sets and the 2 chairs in the living room, which I know my son here will want. We will use our living set for the smaller sunroom (can't believe it still is in good shape after 35 years) and our family room stuff will be perfect for the living room. We will have to buy a couple of chairs, for that.

[shootingstar]

Good luck! That's a big step. It's nice there are condos with space for all your toys - that was the limiting factor when we were shopping. We don't need the living space of a house, but there just weren't condos with storage space, and a lot of them only even had one parking space, so we'd have had to use that for motorcycles and park the car off-site, never mind they usually forbid wrenching (even wrenching on bicycles that don't have a lot of potentially toxic fluids) in shared garages.

FWIW, I kept my license active for two biennial cycles before I came to terms with being retired. It was worth the expense and hassle of taking the CLE, just to be able to process the decision at my own pace.

You mean your license for lawyering?

My partner gets ticked off at engineers who have long given up (many years) of being an engineer but still wear the iron ring. He believes it's wrong and false, they would have difficult doing certain fundamental engineering calculations, applying certain technical concepts, etc. He himself gave up renewing his license about 1 decade into his working career before moving into pure management.

As for condo storage..yes it's tighter.
I don't have a car but I rent out my parking space. Covers the annual property tax and much...more for the parking space itself.

[Crankin]

There is ample parking (2 spaces or a garage+ one space) for everyone at the condo, and it is only 15 units, so no renting out spaces needed here. I think that is a thing done in cities.
We are moving along in the process. Signed the P&S last night; the closing is 9/28. Our agent is coming over early Monday morning before work, to make a final decision about setting the selling price for our house. After her tour on Wednesday, she said we don't really need to do anything, except get more lighting in the kids' bedrooms (they've never been used, really), which we have already ordered and move DH's shoe tree somewhere else, out of his closet. It was pretty funny when I told her he is the male version of Ismelda Marcos. He had already taken all of his other shoes off of the bookshelf in DS #2 room. DH is doing a bit of touch up painting, too.

[emily_in_nc]

Congratulations, Crankin -- that is exciting! Hope everything goes well with the condo purchase and house sale.