I mean, we've... moved??
Yes, it happened exactly that quickly and with that many question marks.
Those of you following the Morden Bound Facebook page will remember, first, my urgent appeal for a pet-friendly, two-bedroom house, and, literally one week later, my disbelief about the impending move.
Which brings me to: What is up with the housing market in Morden?
Lease ending December 1? Toronto rules: Start looking three months in advance; provide (usually) 30 days' notice to the landlord; plan your move for about a month (packing, hiring movers, finding some unwilling friends or relations to help); THEN move.
Morden? Start looking three months in advance. Tell landlord. Landlord prefers spring. Landlord agrees to a fall move if we find an appropriate sublet. Landlord warns that no one will move in the winter, so say good-bye to December.
Insert one unconvinced Torontonian: But... there's no way we'll find a sublet and a home and actually move for October 1, which, if you aren't aware, is two weeks away.
Insert Morden: Oh, yes you can!
And folks, thanks to a few not-so-small miracles, we did!
Miracle #1a: Population
Morden is not Toronto, with its 1,000,000 applicants per unit. It's also home to an incredibly casual rental environment (see Miracle #1b below).
Aside: Two of our rental options were homes that were in the process of being sold. How long will they be on the market? Maybe weeks? Maybe months? Maybe (insert Torontonian's first brain explosion) a... year? No one could tell us for sure, which is reasonable—and also population-related—but the range of possibilities felt enormous. In the end, we weren't prepared to risk moving and potentially re-moving both our abundance of things (more on that later) and my partner's mother, who arrives from Ukraine in about a month.
Miracle #1b: Movement of population
Like the local deer pictured above (which, incidentally, appeared across the street from our previous home), Mordenites are apparently ready to move at a moment's notice.
October 1 a week away? Yep, that's no problem.
Umm... what?? (Insert Torontonian's second brain explosion.)
Miracle #2: Timing
We were approved for early move-in, which was only useful (and miraculous) because the move unexpectedly coincided with my being in town.
The packing and unpacking of all small things started on Tuesday and ended, for the most part, on Friday.
To be clear, packing and unpacking happened all day, every day: first, during our workday (I, at least, had the benefit of doing all this during a not-too-busy remote workweek); then, when my partner came home, and, in full exhaustion, moved another million boxes.
Over those four days, I packed, labelled, and unpacked in my sleep.
Fun fact: My obsessive labelling has resulted in stacks and stacks of boxes named "Kitchen", "Bathroom", "Internet", and, of course, "Potatoes" (among others).
Aside: The childhood trauma of excessive moving (a total of five homes by the time I was in high school) has instilled in me a healthy, adrenaline-fuelled drive to get through a move as quickly as possible while irritating the fewest number of people. This is because my father's discomfort with being in a "messy area" always counted as the discomfort of, not one, but three people.
Miracle #3: Unexpected kindness
My partner's colleague generously loaned us a large truck and, along with very willing friends and relations, helped with loading and unloading. This all happened on Friday night, ahead of the weekend. I nearly wept with gratitude. Because this meant that we had all of Saturday to clean and move the full contents of the garage.
And my goodness did we need a full day with that garage. Because, unless a Torontonian has a cottage, there is decidedly LESS in the garage. Maybe a few bikes. Maybe a few tools. Winter clothing. Maybe some gardening supplies if you live in the suburbs and are blessed with green space.
Morden: Insert fishing gear. Swimming gear. Paddles. Blow-up boats and various floating devices. Blow-up swimming pool. Buckets. Shovels. Not one, but two tool kits. Abundance of sporting... gear. Skiis?? Clearly, I have nothing to do with these outdoor activities, and they have nothing to do with me. (Sitting outdoors is fine; there is no gear associated with this easy-to-relocate-in-future activity.)
In short, I'm surprised I didn't find a second home in there that also had to be packed up in four days.
End of miracles
Of course, there were still tomatoes that had to be picked, trees that had to be transplanted, and mowing that had to be done.
By Saturday evening, we were more or less settled and things more or less in their rightful place—minus the abundance of mattresses, collected during my partner's first months of settlement and the accompanying adjustments in bedding.
The mattresses are now living in our second bedroom, which I've temporarily labelled "the mattress room."
How does one end up with a mattress room, you ask? When one is not sure which bed goes where due to missing parts and the indeterminate need for a box spring.
In any case, it's over. We did it.
Or, as my partner so beautifully noted: We survived.
Please enjoy this selection of beauties to commemorate our first home in Morden.
С новым домом, с новым счастьем
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