Where has the time gone?

I wish i had a really good excuse for not posting in the last year and 4 months, but the truth is i've just been carried away enjoying my life here in Roncesvalles Village, and busy with work, renovating and life. So where did i leave off, oh yes that's right i had set out the grand master list of renovation projects. So have we managed to get through our list? Stay on budget? Will we ever re-coup the costs we've spent on renovating? Stay married through out the process? Now that i've re-discovered my blog, i'll answer those questions and share some of our experiences.

It's been a pretty crazy 16 months! There was a credit crunch, stock market crash, bank failures, recession, corporate malfeasance, collapse of hedge fund/ponzi schemes and government bailout of the auto sector and financial services sector, all bad news for real estate values. There was a new property tax introduced in Toronto and as i write this blog our city is cleaning up from a month long garbage collection strike. And where have real estate values gone in our city? Way up - crazy i tell you.

On the home front, i personally went through much uncertainty working for a U.S. based Investment Dealer during the darkest days on Wall Street, however i was fortunate enough to have landed a new opportunity in a large stable Canadian pension management company. We also managed to take some time out for a 3 week trip to India to get away from the pressures of work and renovating. And fortuitously a few months ago my brother, whom i often recruit to be my reno helper, bought a house 8 doors down (after a long drawn out bidding war, of course). His is a fully detached 1 and a half storey Gothic Victorian house (also known as "Ontario Cottage" style). So who knows maybe there'll be a Roncesvalles Victorian Reno Diary part 2, but first i really should catch everyone up on Part 1.