A Home

It was a balmy -21C up here in Northern BC and the crisp air was creating a burn deep in my lungs with each inhale which was rapidly increasing with each step. In order to embrace our Canadian lifestyle, and to take the edge off my crazy with some physical activity, I diligently followed each of the Hunter’s footsteps up a steep incline. We’re essentially making homemade stairs by following our same footsteps with each climb. The toughness of the seven minuet hike was made harder with all of our gear, but the eight second ride down was even sweeter. The exhale of breath frosted my hair surrounding my face and I could feel the crunch of my frozen dreds as I unzipped my jacket to cool off as I neared our destination.  

On normal days, we had the luxury of T Bars and Chairlifts, but today we got to test our own man power as we climbed with our snowboards swinging lazily behind our arms, and I was anything but cold. The Hunter handed me a Budd and the cold bubbles burned my throat and tasted of victory. The beer was the trade off of having to manually make our way up our own private ski hill as we typically need to rock, paper, scissors who had the luxury of pasengering and who had to sober drive us home from the hill, and typically I was the latter. Today I took extra relish in a sip of fireball and a frosted beer – we were mere moments from our rental so there would only be stumble walking.

The Hunter’s phone pinged as he received a text message (even as I type the sound of his phone going off makes me think of real-estate) “They’re requesting the subjects to be removed within a week.” He looked at me quizzically as I handed him back the beer “I’m going to counter with a new offer and tell them we want two weeks to get the inspection, insurance and mortgage approved.”

I sat down and strapped myself into my board rather slowly to give myself some time to find my breath. He pointed down the steepest part of our private ski hill and told me to “straight line it”, telling me with such confidence that all the powder will slow me down. My nerves made me giggle as I swung my board in the same direction he pointed at. The sun was starting to set and my view was gorgeous. The pink colours were illuminated by our sea of white snow throughout the farm lands. It’s not the first time that day I thought of how lucky we were to be living in Northern BC.

We’ve been house hunting for quite some time and the only thing we were sure of is that we didn’t really know what we wanted in a house. After viewing several houses, it took us admitting that the house we wanted in five years, which would include a shop with property looked awfully different than the house that would suite us best right now.

And then there we were, in between quick rides down the hill, we found ourselves making an offer on a super-duper fixer-upper, located in town and without a storage shed in the back yard. Reno’s will take place slowly but surely and it will make an excellent rental a year from now. The Hunter and I know this opportunity will not come without its challenges: we both know my painting skills are average at best, and I’ve admitted that I have no idea how to, well, fix up a house, but I’m willing and eager to learn. We’ve sat down and detailed the monthly expenses associated to being home owners, and the benefit of purchasing a house that most people wouldn’t care to move in immediately – except we aren’t most people, as neither of us have standards when it comes to materialistic things, such as a house* – we will still be able to pay for a house and travel the globe, which is such an incredible win.

I take a deep breath and rock my board front to back in order to get it moving and I doesn’t take me long for my board to pick up the pace. My insides clench; I hit the first dip with amazing speed and I let out a wild scream, but the Hunter’s promise stays true and the powder slows me down just before the final hill as I let out a final cry that ends in a giggle as my board comes to a stop.

And I suppose that’s our balance: by the end of that day our offer was accepted. The high from snowboarding in our backyard and the buzz from the alcohol continued through the evening from the adrenalin of becoming home owners.

And here we are, we move in later today.

Truly,

Two very happy homeowners

Find someone who is home and an adventure all in one.

*my sister calls me a brand whore when it comes to Lululemon, but I feel like that’s a song for another time.