Should We Stay or Should We Go

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash When we retired, I had a pretty good idea of what retirement was going to look like.  Or at least I thought I did. After almost seven years of retirement, I've discovered that some of my expectations were pretty accurate, some were completely wrong, and some were just plain funny. So here are a few things I thought retirement would be, compared with what it actually is. I thought we'd travel a lot more. Turns out: We love travelling, and we do a fair bit.  But we also really love being home. I’m finding that I’m craving more home time where I can enjoy doing some of the quieter things. I thought every day would feel like Saturday. Turns out: Every day feels like Saturday, except now I sometimes have no idea what day it actually is. I thought we'd sleep until noon. Turns out: Apparently getting older has a way of interfering with that particular retirement dream.  I’m just happy to get a six hour night sleep in one go. I thoug...

  Photo by seeetz on  Unsplash Back in the spring, we did a big purge of the house. We had reached the point where there were just too many things. Things we no longer used, things we had forgotten we even had, and things that had somehow managed to follow us through the years without ever being particularly useful. So we started sorting. A lot of things left the house and ended up in the garage. The plan was that John was going to take part in a community garage sale, sell what he could, and then whatever was left would go to the thrift store or the dump. It sounded like a good plan at the time. The Garage Sale The garage sale happened in June while I was in Newfoundland with my sisters. (Good timing on my part, right?) Unfortunately, it was not exactly a raging success. There were only a handful of visitors, and when it was all over, John had made about $125.  Not exactly the windfall we had imagined. Still, there was a garage full of things that needed to be ...

  Jackson’s Point has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up coming here for summer camps, and my parents had a trailer here. For the last 20 years, John and I have our own trailer here and our own sons grew up spending their summers here. So when I think of Jackson’s Point, I don't just think of a summer destination, it’s our home away from home. We know it well.. What I didn't fully appreciate when I was younger was just how much history is tied to this little community on the south shores of Lake Simcoe. Jackson’s Point is known as Ontario’s First Cottage Country , and its history as a destination goes back well over a century. Long before us, people were coming here by steamer and railway to escape the city and enjoy time by the lake. Today, I thought I'd take a closer look at the place that has been part of my life for so many years, and some of the stories that make Jackson’s Point so interesting. From Steamers to Summer Resorts Jackson’...

  There are some relationships that you don't realize you've taken for granted until something changes. For most of my life, the relationship between Canada and the United States has simply been there. We are neighbours. We share the longest international border in the world, a language, a continent, a history and countless personal connections. And yet, lately, that relationship feels very different. As I write this, Canada and the United States are once again in the middle of difficult trade negotiations, with another U.S. tariff deadline looming on August 19. The United States is threatening additional 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods, while Canadian and American officials continue trying to reach an agreement. I'm not going to pretend that I understand all the intricacies of international trade. There are economists, trade experts and government officials who spend their days trying to make sense of it all. But I do understand how it feels to watch the relati...