Working on Your Moving Plans After This Year's Weather Extremes?

By Ann Burnside Love

While enjoying the fireplace in our lobby’s sitting room, a lovely neighbor came up to me with a friend who’s moving into our retirement community a few months from now. The friend said she enjoys reading the newspaper column I’ve written for years. When I heard her voice, I realized that I remembered her from a group we both belonged to in our 30s.

“I’m moving this year because I can’t stay on the farm through another winter,” she said. “I can’t do all the stuff required through as much snow and ice as we’ve experienced recently. Actually, I’ve been downsizing for five years, so it won’t be as big a deal to move as it might have been.”

So she’s positioned herself to make the move she really wants to make. And she’s taken steps to make it possible. She’s decided on a retirement community, gotten onto the waiting list, been what we call “right sizing” for years, and she’s recognized now is the time.

I can see she’s still active and thus will have plenty of energy to settle into this community, make friends, find the ways she wants to fit in most comfortably — and not have to live a majorly overstrained life anymore. She’s on her way, and delighted about it.

I’ve heard many versions of her story in recent months. Seniors all over the country have been “all weathered out” this year. Clearly the weather’s been gearing up and letting us know it means business, both colder and messier in cold climates, hotter and dryer in warm climates, conditions lasting longer and experiencing all kinds of extreme storms throughout.

More seniors than ever are wondering if they should still be in their houses when winter gets underway next Thanksgiving. Some can visualize themselves in a comfortable apartment, cottage or villa, with more available services, fewer possessions, fewer responsibilities — and more unscheduled hours and days. But will they face the challenge — and take the necessary steps — to be able to make that happen? Will you?

If you don’t have family to help, do you know there are services available to help clear your home, pack your belongings, oversee the move, unpack and arrange everything the way you like it? And that you can ask your contacts at the community where you’re moving to help you contact these services?

Maybe this is the year to put your house on the market. The market has changed over the last few years, and houses aren’t on the market for nearly as long, or still at the low prices that reduced so many people’s options for many years.

Maybe, for a whole lot of reasons, now is the right time for you. Think about it.

Carry on!

Ann’s blog appears here every Thursday. Comments are always welcome!