PH and I have always talked about going back to Nova Scotia some day.
After all, we don’t like that our son is growing up away from his grandparents and all of his cousins.
We don’t like that he may not know all the words to “Barrett’s Privateers” before the age of ten.
We don’t like that he may not know a Halifax donair if it fell on his shoe.
Most of all, we just think of ourselves as Nova Scotians, so obviously, SOME day, we want to “go home”.
But in the future.
You know.
Like, not right now, but maybe some day.
Sometimes, when I get really frustrated with living in the city, or when homesick for old friends, or for my mother, I have wanted to go home RIGHT NOW.
But usually it’s… “maybe in a couple of years”.
So when a job came up in Nova Scotia that PH would be perfect for, we didn’t know what to think.
I mean, what, leave Vancouver?
No more mountains? No more sushi? What about Owl’s awesome daycare? What about our diaper service? What about all of our friends, whom we would leave behind?
And yet…
The job was in a perfect location. Just half an hour away from my parents, and a little over an hour to his parents.
And then we looked at housing prices and we just started SALIVATING.
2,000 square feet and an acre of land for half the price of our current 1,000 foot townhouse? NO PROBLEM.
So we made a pros and cons list. It looked like this:
- PRO
- close to family
- cheap houses
- VERY cheap houses
- close to Carol’s old friends/boy cousins
- same salary, lower cost of living
- Carol either doesn’t work or does dog training at home
- No daycare/Nana Daycare
- Have we mentioned the house pricing?
- Cause it’s cheap, you know
- Seriously, $70k for a three bedroom HOUSE
- not condo, HOUSE
- CON
- moving expenses? How cheap is PH’s company?
- Negative equity in house currently YAY GLOBAL RECESSION PLUS SCREW YOU MORONS
- No Happy Nappy
- All of our Vancouver friends go byebye
- Daycare lady would be sad 😥
- No vet tech job for Carol, probably
- Carol would have to take up prostitution
- or dog training
- one or the other
- but probably prostitution
Ultimately, we realized that the universe was calling our bluff. When fortune just hands you the thing you’ve always said you wanted, you have to go for it. We’d be chicken not to.
So PH applied.
Well, it turns out he’s the best candidate by a country mile and they really want him.
What they aren’t sure of is whether they can afford to help us move out there.
What WE aren’t sure of is whether we can afford to sell our house right now, because the housing values are down and we don’t want to end up in a negative equity situation.
All of this is causing me massive anxiety because you KNOW how much I love uncertainty.
And change. Don’t forget my love of change.
I keep alternating between dreams of a big house and a dog-daycare that I run out of my own home, and joy at the thought of leaving my job… and complete panic at the thought of leaving all the people here, not least my awesome daycare lady who had gone above and beyond the call of duty for me and Owl.
I waver between excitement and terror.
I don’t want to go!
I don’t want to stay!
I want to go, I just also want to stay!
And then, the next morning, I woke up in a sweat and shook PH awake.
“I just realized. We CAN’T go to Nova Scotia.”
“Why not?” he mumbled into his pillow.
“THERE’S NO ANTON’S IN NOVA SCOTIA.”
If By Yes 
Ah, the insanity of these kinds of adventures! I’ve been through it all pretty recently so I understand all the craziness. I wouldn’t worry quite so much about the moving expenses. You have lots and lots and lots of options of various prices and levels of efforts. Mostly I’d focus on the condo.
But overall, you either go or you don’t. And the pros seem to outweigh the cons. And you’re going to somewhere you know. (So jealous of that, moving to somewhere I didn’t know at all sucked SOOOO hard.) Either way is good, right? Picking from two good choices can only yield good results.
Good luck, and keep us posted! I have fingers super crossed for you!
Is it possible to rent you house?
This sounds like an amazing opportunity….
(I get where you’re coming from on the change thing, though!)
Yes, rent! (We lost a huge chunk on our house, too – but it’s not worth missing out on a great opportunity!)
We thought of that, but getting a second mortgage would be prohibitive, and we wouldn’t want to rent ourselves. It’s money up the spout, for one thing – we’d rather pay into a mortgage so we can get our money back when we sell – and we never want to deal with landlords ever again. Besides, we could OWN a full house and acre property and the mortgage payment would be HALF of the cost of renting such a place!
What about the Pro of “You can QUIT your job!!!” – and “Actually experience owl’s formative years”.
It sounds like a pretty clear choice to me – but I’m the woman that seems to love challenging herself by making changes. I hate change but I revel in it all the same.
I think it sounds like the perfect time to go back to NS…and be your own boss. When do you have to make a decision by? When would you have to move? Could PH move first and you guys make all the arrangements and follow after? So exciting!!!
That pro is in there, under “wouldn’t have to work”!
It’s not so much a DECISION – the decision was in the application. Whether or not we go is determined by finances (i.e. the company paying to move us, our house being saleable, etc).
I too think that the pros outweigh the cons. Think of all the ££ you’ll be saving at ‘Nana Daycare’ and at least if you’re dog training etc, you won’t have to put up with the HORRIBLE BOSS. But really I just came here to say I think you may have used Owl’s real name by accident… and if you didn’t and I misread, excuse me. I just thought I should point it out so you could remedy it quick-ish! 🙂
I did! You spotted it! Altered now. Thanks for the head’s up 😀
I say move. Being close to my family would be the deciding factor for me. Yes, of course you will miss Vancouver and the roots you’ve put down there… but you miss NS *right now*. And this time with your family and Owl is not time you can get back.
Sometimes when we have a hard time making a decision like this – like when we made the choice to have me stay home and open the daycare EVEN IF we lose money – we ask ourselves “when we’re 85 and in the nursing home, what would we wish we had done?” To me, the joy of having Owl near his extended family would far outweigh a few thousand dollars in potentially negative equity on your too-small condo.
Well, we applied, and that’s about as much decision as we get in the matter. The rest will be dictated entirely by the moolah.
I just got to the “pro” list, I haven’t read through the rest of it, but I just want to say: Please come home! Please!
Okay, having read the rest of it, I know exactly where you’re coming from. As much as I long for home, and wish that I was living closer to my entire family, when I imagine all the steps that we would have to go through to get there, I get really intimidated. And anxious. And that’s just when someone offers Mr. G a job where we want to live IN MY IMAGINATION. BUT. If I were in your shoes, I would jump on it. Sure, when you look at all the steps all at once it seems overwhelming. You just have to take it one step at a time. Whatever you choose to do has pros and cons. That’s life.
Oh, we did jump. Or more like, closed our eyes and held hands and leaped!
While it’s a choice only you and PH can make, I think you should go for it. It sounds like your heart is in Nova Scotia and being close to family and maybe staying home with Owl AND starting your own business sounds like a dream come true. Plus, you can tell the horrible boss to take his job and shove it!!! As for daycare, I feel your pain. We might be “forced” to move in a year or two if budget cuts at my husband’s work are as bad as he fears and all I can think is we’ll never find as good (or cheap – the cost of living here is so low) daycare for our girls as we do now. Keep us posted and yay for PH for showing others how awesome he is.
ps I think you made a slip and put Owl’s real name in the sentence after “No more sushi?” If that is his name, love it – one of my faves and suits him perfectly.
Is it wrong that my current job really felt like the thing that swung the pendulum? I mean, I could always start a dog training business HERE. But a smaller mortgage would make such a risk… much less risky.
And yep, you spotted his name! I meant to email it or pm it to you at some point, because I knew you were curious, but it was on my backlog of “things I mean to do but never actually do”.
So now you know! Glad you like it.
My vote is NS. I hate change too. But I find once the decision is made it’s easier. Then it’s just getting things on the lost accomplished before it can all happen. If the opportunity good for ph you should jump now. It may now be there again when the housing market is a little better. Remember. That part is only money. The family is what counts.
Unfortunately, the money is the deciding factor. If we can’t afford the move, we can’t afford the move. Once we got to the other side, things would be cheaper, but debt is debt.
Sometimes you remind me of me. 🙂 When I got offered my job as a rec programmer at the nursing home, I actually hesitated because I had already accepted a pharmacy tech job and it would be hard to call them up and turn them down. Never mind that I wanted to do the rec job so much more. Never mind that the rec job was full-time and the pharmacy job was part-time. Never mind that the rec job paid half again as much money as the pharmacy job.
Um, yeah.
My point is — I think it’s pretty obvious what decision you should make here, but I understand why you’re hesitating too. You’re an over-analyzer and what-if-er (as am I). Yes, it’s hard to leave behind your friends and other connections in Vancouver. But Nova Scotia has so much more to offer: your family is there, you also have friends there, the cost of living is better, you can say home with Owl and/or start your own business!
Personally, I’d jump at the chance to move “home”. (Not under our circumstances though. That would mean a ship posting for Chris, so the kids and I would rarely see him for half of every year. THAT’S not worth it. But in your case — I’d be all over that.)
Do it! Do it! Do it! 😀
I know, it feels so horrible to let someone down. Even though I hate my job, I also hate the thought of quitting. The actual boss boss is such a kind man, that I hate to walk out on him, despite the fact that I hate working with the vet he employs.
It’s amazingly how fast the door closes on a big move like that once children enter the picture. Right now, Owl is totally portable – he won’t know the difference so long as the boobas go with him. 😉 By the time he’s three and starting JK, uprooting him will become so much more difficult.
When I saw the title of this post, I thought you were talking about your job, and I was all set to say “Go! Go! Go!” even though that might have created some major financial headaches – and now you have the perfect excuse to quit, almost headache-free. Once I realized your post was about moving to Nova Scotia, I was all set again to say “Go! Go! Go!” even though I assumed that employment would be a major barrier. When I realized PH had a good job all lined up … I’m ready to say it: Go! Go! Go!
Yes, it’s that “there’s never a good time” factor. We discussed that. I was thinking “Argh, but we’ll miss seeing so-and-so’s baby grow up, and we won’t get to watch Owl and so-and-so play together, and we’ll be taking him away from a daycare lady who just luurrrves him… but would it be any easier once those bonds are stronger?”
Even though part of me feels like I have things to do out here yet, I know that putting down MORE roots won’t make the move easier in the end.
OMG if my PH had a job in NS we would be out of here in a flash. As much as I love Vancouver I would love to be able to say “Mom can you watch the kids for a couple of hours while I go to the grocery store?” The fact that you can get a huge house with a real yard for a fraction of the price here in Vancouver? All huge pros.
I am so jealous, I would love to be able to go home. I hope everything works out for you.
The good news is, it’s win-win, really. Either we get to stay near friends/great daycare/Anton’s, or we get to be near family and have a house!
So I’m delurking here (Hi!) When I got my move up to the big city job offer the Mr was scared as he’s not big on change either. But this was pre-recession negative equity land that we’re in now. Even today I’d take the $ hit to get us moved.
However at least here in the states we could write off all our moving expenses and the Mr. got unemployment insurance because his spouse made him move. I’m not sure how applicable that is to you but it helped cover the house at home and the renting at the same time. Besides you’d only be renting for a short while worst case?
Hi! Thanks for delurking! Comments are my life blood. Well, that and Diet Pepsi.
And poutine.
Moving on…
Yes, some of that applies here as well. However, I haven’t been back to work long enough to qualify for EI (sadly, but that is not a determining factor – one of the benefits of a lower mortgage would be a decreased need for me to contribute financially).
Today is my first time reading your blog & I can hardly wait to come back,…maybe tonight when the kidlets are in bed & read more….but I just had to say as a PEI girl stuck in calgary all i can say is GO!! LOL!! It’ll work out somehow someway, right?? BUT I do know it’s just not as easy as it should be, or we too would be ‘back home’. GOOD luck on the decision making:)
Thanks!
If we can’t make it out this time, I really hope the opportunity arises again…
Right now, we live in a city I loathe, in a state I can barely tolerate, for one reason: family. We decided we wanted to have kids, and there was no question of having them away from family. It was actually my decision to come back here, which shocked everyone.
And then it took much longer than we thought, and we had actually been making plans to move when I found out I was pregnant. So we are staying, even though I still loathe it, and it is actually stifling one of my PH’s career goals.
But family.
So. I were you, I would look into taking out a loan for moving expenses and such. And I’d buy a smaller, cheaper house to start with until you paid off that debt and could buy a bigger house.
(and that was my far more than two cents…)
The last thing we need right now is more debt. The actual move would be one thing, but don’t forget commission for realtors, taxes, penalties for breaking the mortgage, etc etc etc. We definitely need help from PH’s company to do this.
And the biggest benefit of moving East would be the cheap, cheap housing, so we could get a HUGE house (by our standards) and still vastly decrease our mortgage payments!
😦 Today especially I want to move home to NS too. Take me with you!
I would take NB, if it were in the Moncton area!
TOTALLY GO FOR IT!
Er…not to be dismissive of your fears and concerns or anything.
But, you know, it’d make me happy, which I’m sure is a priority in your life-altering decisions…
Moving on.
If Potential Employer can’t swing paying for the move, could they arrange an interest-free loan to be slowly deducted from PH’s future pay? Are your parents in a position to help? Because I’m guessing the chance to swing things in favour of their only child and grandchild being in the same province as them would be pretty attractive.
http://www.sweet-cheeks.ca/about/ diaper services delivers to HRM and Bridgewater. They’re based in Fall River. You’ve probably already googled the heck out of this, so I’m guessing they don’t deliver where you’re likely to land?
We have no Antons, but we DO have great pitas, vastly improved sushi offerings, the Vines Pasta,and Athens.
There are some great dog training companies around, and doggydaycare has only recently become extremely popular here. Also, vet tech jobs: http://www.evta.ca/EmploymentOpportunities.aspx http://www.pamperedpawsinn.com/ is planning on expanding and may be hiring soon.
Yup, none of that in the area where the job offer is!
I could see asking my parents for help if it was a bit of money, but you have to understand that selling a house, breaking a mortgage, hiring movers, buying a new house, with taxes and seller’s fees etc etc, we’re looking at 15-25,000 bucks. I’m not asking my folks for that!
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