What will you do without a boat?

This is what several people asked. We were always so committed to go every weekend, and now there is nothing? Aside from doing more reading (I always fall asleep reading on the boat, or people stop by), this is the answer:

Well, the extra time will be spend getting the house ready for the painters. Means, packing up a lot of stuff and moving it into the basement, or the garage. It's like moving, but not quite. And then you start to wonder ... if we move next year (may be postponed by a year, stay tuned), then why would I unpack all this again and put it back in a cabinet, so I can pack it again after half a year. So, the sorting started already, with stuff in the basement that will stay packed for the "new house" wherever that may be. Also threw out a lot of books and still at it. And not only books, old rags (perfectly fine shirts last year, but not worn for 5 years or so?), towels, kitchen stuff. There is still some maintenance to be done, and we have a neglected garden to take care of. We live 40 minutes from the Pinery, a provincial park at Lake Huron, and planning to go there quite a bit, for walking, swimming and barbecuing. Then we will visit Manitoulin for a few days late June, Marjo may be in Ontario the first weeks of July sometime (dates not known yet), and then 2.5 weeks in Nova Scotia.

And then we will have to decide on a few things:

Do we stay in Ontario? If so, where?
 If we don't move, Tim can continue his business, but we would buy a bigger boat.

 

Do we move to one of our favourite Ontario areas? House market there is crazy because of all the big foreign and Toronto market coming in. We may not be able to afford that and a boat. So, up north in a nice house, but no boat. A canoe? yes!

 

Or, do we move to Nova Scotia, where the property values are more in line with where we live now, actually better? We always thought we would for the first 10 years of our marriage, so this is not such a new idea and has been revisited several times. If we do that, we would buy a canoe. A boat in salt water is too much maintenance.  We are spoiled with our Great Lakes and the "fresh-water-only-boats".

We do know that we will not buy land. We were very close this winter doing that, and then started to ask for quotes, and permit costs and this and that, and the end of the song was that we would not be able to afford building a new house.

Sort of funny not to know what you will be doing and where you will be in a year.