May 20, 2018
Well, the first week, to say the least, has felt surreal. I can’t believe we will be living in this beautiful home for the next year! We are going to be more than comfortable living in this three bedroom, three bathroom, two living room (plus kitchen and office) – home with a garden and a yard. Not to mention the incredible view of the mountains that you can see from any west facing side of the house. What a tease as we lie there in bed.
As I unpacked my one duffle bag (which is my whole wardrobe) – that I’d been living out of for last three weeks – into the lovely spacious drawers, I felt more settled. After a couple of days, I felt more familiar with the space. Especially the kitchen. But the appliances! So many appliances (that I didn’t even know existed) live in this house! Bill, Keoma…How? Why? My minimalist brain questions their uses and purpose in life.
Overall, it feels so nice to be in one place. Knowing that we will be here, bunkering down for a year is relieving and comforting. After travelling this past year, it’s an incredible feeling to know you have a place to go where you can cook and store food in a fridge, or shower and wash your clothes whenever you want. These little things are much appreciated. Although Bill and Keoma are travelling more luxurious than I did on the road, I feel that they will come to appreciate the little things as well. Ahhh…yep. I think I could get used to this…for a while anyways!
renee
May 23, 2018
One week ago Renee and I moved into a house together. As mentioned above, we moved into this beautiful, modern, three bedroom home in Tuscany, Northwest Calgary. Why would we do this when neither of us have lived in suburbia except when with parents? We decided to do this because we were offered an opportunity…
Back in January of this year we were exploring how to do ‘housesitting’. As Renee and I share a passion for travel and random adventures, we were learning about this alternative way of living to see if it would fit for us.
I had set up a profile on housesitter.com and we begin to look at places. Interestingly, we were exploring this living arrangement while staying at the beautiful Bodega Ridge Resort on Galiano Island, British Columbia. Through a sequence of events – that are actually based on a network of friendships – we were doing some temporary work there as part of our holiday in BC. But that’s a different story.
By coincidence, randomness, serendipity or aligned energy, at the same time that we were looking into housesitting, a text message came through for Renee from a close friend of hers. It was Keoma.
Knowing that we were looking for a place in Calgary, she asked, “How long are you looking to rent for? We were thinking of asking you to house-sit for us.”
We initially dismissed this idea as neither of us wanted to move to Tuscany, their place wouldn’t be available until May, and we needed a place in February. It didn’t make sense to us at the time.
Even though we thought the timing was a little off the more we thought about this, as well as the more convincing and her convincing text messages that came from Keoma, we started to think that it might be a good option for us.
So we said, “Yes”.
After all, who wouldn’t want to live rent free for a year? Pictured here in April, we enjoyed a meal together to confirm in all of our minds that we were actually going to do this. ![](https://www.oneyearoutofourelement.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/OneYear-300x163.jpg)
Week 1 has been so lovely. The house is very comfortable and was left museum-level clean for us. If there’s one complaint that I could share it’s that I feel perhaps I’m too dirty to live here! But I’m sure we’ll manage that. (They do have 2 waterfall showers after all).
Gazing out at that mountain view is something that I cherish greatly already and I don’t expect a day will pass when I don’t enjoy it. This week we also planted the vegetable garden.
Dealing with the security system has been interesting as they can be intense over the loudspeaker when you set it off by accident. We were warned that this would likely happen within the first three days. I managed to last 4 days.
So we welcome this amazing opportunity to save a few bucks while living in comfort and out of our element.
Let’s see how this goes.
See you at the kegger…
Tony