Well, we made it! It’s been a year with many ups & downs, for all of us i’m sure! At the same time it’s a nice time to reflect on the year behind us and count our blessings. Which are many!

Let’s take a look back & count our blessings shall we?

A year ago we had been evicted from our current home as our landlord had decided she was going to move back into the house rather than find somewhere else to live, we were told to be on our merry way! We had boxes & boxes packed and lined along the dining room, the upstairs hallway, etc… yet, we had no place to live yet. To say it was a stressful time would be an understatement. London was in housing crisis, houses were selling like hotcakes (and WELL above what we qualified for) and rentals were obscenely priced. For the size of a home we would have needed, we were looking at almost $3K, then pile bills on top of that… well, there is no way on God’s green earth we could afford anything even close to that!

We decided to take a leap of faith and buy a house, our very first house at that!! I have always been a ‘saver’ and good with money, so we applied to be prequalified for a mortgage and started to look! London wasn’t really on our radar, the homes we could get were not areas in which i’d not have been happy. So we started looking in Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island to be exact. Some of you may remember we lived in Cape Breton a few years back for a short stint, but the timing just wasn’t right, it wasn’t meant to be at that time.

This time, it was… we found a perfect home for us. In fact, it’s a house we used to walk by and I had always envied the huge wrap around deck it had, and would tell my kids, “someday i’m going to have a deck like that!”. Little did I know that I had planted a seed…

The house came up for sale, we made an offer and it was accepted! We were about to move (drive) 2200km+ across Canada in January with our youngest two girls & two very active cats. lol! We were able to put down a 20% cash deposit on our new home, and have funds left to do some upgrades we wanted to! Something funny here: I had told my bestie out here, “I will NEVER move in the winter ever again!” *eek* Umm… never say never. lol!

That has been the biggest change in our lives this year…

Other blessings… my daughter was married this September here on Cape Breton Island & i’m excited to share that they are expanding their family with a new little one! Look at my beautiful girl and her handsome husband! It was such a beautiful wedding on my best friends amazing property overlooking the ocean and mountains!

Then one of my best friends from London packed up her family and drove out here to see me and hang out in September as well! She told me “we’ll visit you, don’t worry!” when I told her we were moving away! The funny thing is, people say that, but she meant it and it meant so much to me that they spent their vacation driving out here to visit me on the very tip of Cape Breton Island with their 3 very young children!! Gives me warm fuzzies just thinking about it!

These are some of the highlights of my year…

Not everything has been wonderful this year though, we lost my father-in-law a few weeks ago and just lost my uncle-in-law (my father-in-laws brother) a couple nights ago. This hurts my heart… It has also been hard being away from my two oldest children, I feel so much guilt for moving away sometimes and not being closer for them if they “need” me, but I realize that sometimes life doesn’t ‘work out’ the way you thought it would.

In the end though, we must look at the good and never let the bad overshadow all the goodness in our lives!

Tell me, what has been the best thing that happened to you this year? Please leave a comment, i’d love to read it!

Have a wonderful & safe New Year’s Eve!!