You are in My World Now

I was talking to one of my neighbors the other day and he was telling me that he’s looking into buying a vacation property.

That’s something that my husband and I have always wanted! A cottage by the lake or a beach house somewhere. Oh wouldn’t that be nice?

It seems the dream might come true for our neighbor. He’s leaving sometime this week to take a look at Outer banks foreclosures and he hopes to get a deal on a property. I’ve heard the Outer Banks are lovely so I imagine that he’ll fall in love with one of the sites that he sees.

Do any of you have a second property that you use for vacations or weekends?

Our neighborhood is quite a mix! It used to be pretty much all Greek – since it is of course part of Greek Town here in Toronto, but now that many of the residents are getting older they are moving out (or passing away) and their homes are being filled by young couples from all backgrounds … like my husband and myself I suppose since we bought our house from people who had lived in the neighborhood for over forty years!

Sadly, I’ve noticed that over the last few years a number of our older neighbors have been passing away. We just lost one a month ago and now I hear that a dear lady that lives only two houses away is starting to become extremely forgetful. I have a feeling her daughter will be trying to persuade her to move in with her or perhaps go to a nursing home sometime in the near future.

I also heard from her son that she’s been appealing a decision for social security disability in the last few months. She certainly shouldn’t have to fight for coverage, but it seems that’s the way it is these days.

It’s funny how neighborhoods change over time isn’t it? We’ve only been in our house for about 9.5 years and it’s changed a lot in the last few years.

Have you been in your neighborhood for a long time? Have you noticed that some of the people that have lived there for 30 or 40 years are selling their homes making way for a younger group of neighbors?

My husband does most of the dog walking in this household. Our Lab gets a walk each morning and evening with my husband. If I’m feeling up to it (remember I have Crohn’s so I feel awful quit often) I give her an additional walk in the afternoon.

We try to vary where our dog is walked. It’s never the same route, however, my husband has been taking our Lab to the park just down the street a little more often than he usually does in the dead of winter. Why? Well … since we’ve had an extremely rare lack of snow here in Toronto this winter the park is a great place to go with the dog. Usually the park gets all the excess snow dumped in it in the winter, but that hasn’t really been happening this year. So as long as we don’t mind a slightly muddy dog it’s a great place to take her.

Some of our neighbors must have been taking advantage of the mild winter we’ve been having because our dog has become a great source for used golf balls LOL. Yep, she’ll come up to us with two or three golf balls in her mouth. Someones been getting in a little putting practice it seems.

When you walk your dog does he or she find interesting or unusual items to bring home?