It’s the Little Things

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Welcome to A Downsized Life. I'm your host, Danny Brown, and in the winter of 2019, my wife and I

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moved our family from a sprawling city in southern Ontario, Canada to a small town 3 hours

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north. This podcast is about our journey to downsizing our lives.

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Lessons learned, successes earned, and everything in between. If you're looking to downsize

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your life, then join us and listen for free at downsizepod.com or wherever you relax with podcasts.

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Today it's just myself, Danny. Jaclyn's down in Burlington at her work offices, and should be home this

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evening. So it just me and the two kids. Ewan and Salem are downstairs having some lunch at the moment

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and, you know, getting up to all sorts of mischief I guess. I'll check in there soon. But today I

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just wanted to talk about what we've been finding. Our initial thoughts on the first

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6-8 weeks that we've been here. Our goals when we moved from Burlington where we came

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from, to Port Sydney where we live now, was a quieter life with less clutter, less stress,

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and being happier overall. Port Sydney only has 800 families give or take so it's a very small

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town compared to Burlington which was about 170,000 people. So a very big change and that's been

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an adjustment, a good one but it's been an adjustment to go from that hectic pace down to this very much

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quieter pace. For an example, where we used to live in Burlington, we'd probably see about, I don't know,

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two or three cars passing the house every 10 or 15 minutes. Now, I'm lucky if I see two or three

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cars pass the house all day. Now, it could be that it's winter and no one wants to go out,

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which I understand. I mean, it is minus 34 after all. So I'll check back in on this come spring.

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One of the things we did notice or have noticed, and maybe it's just me, I'm not sure Jaclyn may

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not have noticed as much, but I'm feeling that the less clutter we're looking for isn't quite

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happening at the moment. Now, that could be down to the move because we're only as I mention

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two months in, so we do still have boxes that are either unopened in the garage or around

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the house. There might also be some books around the house, some DVDs etc, and some equipment

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that we bought for the move that still needs to be unpacked, so hopefully we'll get to do that

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this weekend. But at the moment, it just feels the less clutter we were looking for isn't quite

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happening, and because of that our stress levels are maybe a little bit higher than we

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wanted them to be this time of the move. And I guess I'm just really wondering when

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the stuff will be unpacked and the house will be the way we want it, and what the

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space will look like when it's done. Because at the end of the day, we moved from

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a three-level detached home to a two-level bungalow. Now the bungalow

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ironically enough does actually have the same physical floor space as the

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old place except it's on two levels versus three. So it's a little bit more

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thinking has to go into where stuff goes and what the place is going to look like etc.

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So again maybe that's playing in to the cluttered feel, or the cluttered mindset that we currently

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have at the moment versus where we want to be. We're also discovering things that we

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may not have planned for. My wife's Mac just died. She has a 27 inch iMac and that died in a

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horrible horrible way. So we've just purchased a new one which thankfully arrived today.

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So once she comes home this evening from Burlington that's something to look forward to and

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exciting, but it also means it's going to be an additional box in the house. There's going

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to be two iMacs in her office while we get the old stuff transferred and a bit more

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upheaval and temporary clutter. And it is temporary, but it's still there. I guess the other

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thing that we discovered by speaking to the neighbors and people who've met since moving here

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is that the winters here last a lot longer than the winters back in Burlington. For example,

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winters in Burlington would have started in, say, December and lasted into January and February.

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Winters here start at least a month earlier, and last at least a month longer.

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So we moved in in the middle of November, and it was snowing heavily already.

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Still snowing today, and it's going to snow 'til probably around march, or April.

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And that's a bit of a mindset change and something that we have to get used to.

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Speaking to the parents of one of Ewan's new friends atschool, for example,

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they said that they'd moved here three years ago, and it's only just now that the

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mom is getting used to how long the winter's are, from where they came from.

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So again, a little mindset change and lateral thinking. Is it lateral thinking? I think so.

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But the kids. bless them, they're really adapting to the move and that's great.

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But with the Christmas holidays at the moment, they are going a little bit still crazy.

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Like I said, the weather can be a bit iffy and it's too cold for them to go outside.

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They have to entertain themselves indoors. And it's fine for the most part.

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We got a bunch of crafts they can do. We got them a cool sort of games table.

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That's got six or seven games on all like foosball, table tennis, etc. for Christmas.

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So they use that and they play on that, but there's only si much that they can do before they

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go a little bit loopy and they need more stimulation for their brains. So again, a lot of things

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like that we have to look out for. It also doesn't help that Jaclyn and I still currently

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working during the Christmas Holidays, apart from Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and because we're still

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working we have to be considering what we need to, while still trying to entertain the kids,

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and that's a bit of a juggling act. But despite all this, as mentioned, it is the holidays,

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and despite these little challenges, that's all they are at the moment, they're minor little challenges.

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Little things we have to get over, think differently about.

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Because for all these so-called challenges at the moment, the peace and tranquility

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and just the beauty that's up here makes us confident we did the right thing.

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After all, you don't move from a lifetime of city-dwelling to a small village like this

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and expect everything to be perfect immediately, right?

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Until the next time, live happily.

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And we'll see you next time.