2016 Together

I gotta level with you folks: 2016 was pretty rough on Ellen and me. Geo-politics and other tragedies aside, we faced a series of challenges that we’re still struggling to deal with.

A year ago, Ellen’s neighbour announced that he had decided to sell his two properties–both directly upwind of her, one next door and one behind–to developers. This was the thing we’d been fearing most since the City of Waterloo began the process to rezone Ellen’s neighbourhood, and it happened mere months after we’d gotten married with the intent to move Ellen out of a house that had worked well for her, but had become increasingly confining and problematic as more construction happened around her and more and more neighbours moved in.

We had already stated the process renovating my house to sell, but also maybe to give Ellen a temporary place to escape from the problems in her neighbourhood. With that in mind, we took on renovating my bathroom. It was a bit of a trial to see if we could do renovations Ellen was reasonably okay with.

The renovation was funded largely from the generosity of our wedding guests, who we still haven’t properly thanked. For that, we apologize. Ellen still wants to send cards! I’m also sorry you couldn’t see the bathroom for yourself.

It turned out pretty well, too, as you can see. But as Ellen’s neighbour’s sale went ahead, we made the decision to sell my house, so we could have a downpayment if we managed to find a place we could share. The bathroom was a big part of the quick sale of the house.

We haven’t found that house yet, but we’re still looking.  It turns out that air quality like Ellen found when she first moved into her house is very hard to come by.  We’ve been to quite a few properties now, but with our requirements, combined with a very… active… real estate market in Waterloo Region, our home together hasn’t materialized.

A few weeks ago, Ellen addressed Waterloo city council to talk about how the developments are affecting her (skip to about 56 minutes in):

I finished my first full year employed at Netsuite Waterloo. Netsuite was acquired by Oracle late in the year which, while the process added a little additional unwelcome uncertainty in our lives, was completed successfully and the equity I held in Netsuite gave us a bit of a boost in our downpayment fund. I still greatly enjoy working with the people in the Netsuite Waterloo office, and it looks like very little of that is changing with the acquisition.

Aside from house hunting, my major extracurricular project this year was my second year on the oranizing committee for Maker Expo. As well as chairing the committee, I coordinated our social media efforts and our awesome team of photography volunteers.

You can see a whole pile of photos from the event here:

This was probably my favourite moment of 2016: in September, Ellen and I finally took a road trip to Grand Bend. We’d been talking about going to a beach on Lake Huron for years, but in 2016 we finally packed up a picnic and drove out to Ontario’s west coast for some clean air and clean (if cold) water.

But, of course, just as it seemed like we were making some progress in house hunting and getting past all the crises, this happened, on my way to Certified Scrum Master training in Waterloo:

My morning. (Nobody’s hurt. Just my poor car). pic.twitter.com/fe5qRrPSAl

— Darcy Casselman (@flying_squirrel) October 20, 2016

Unfotunately, this is the only car in the world Ellen can comfortably ride in. It took two months, and altogether too much wrangling with the insurance company, but I managed to get my little Corolla fixed up and picked it up just this week. I’m claiming that as a victory at least.

Mission accomplished! I’m back on the road! pic.twitter.com/PNqgsq592Y

— Darcy Casselman (@flying_squirrel) December 29, 2016

For those we’ve seen and talked to and supported us through this year, thank you so very much. It means a lot. If we haven’t been able to keep in touch, maybe we can correct that in 2017. Things aren’t going to get much less hectic any time soon, but you all mean a lot to us and we’re happy to have you in our lives.

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from Darcy and Ellen.