Missed one. 6 April, 2015

My neighbors are moving which sucks.

Fortunately they are just moving a few houses down which won't change things too much. 

He likes the neighborhood and is just upgrading so to speak to a somewhat bigger house as the three kids he and his wife are raising are getting bigger and likely they feel they need more room.

I commented that in another fifteen years maybe I'd sell them my place after the kids are out of the house and they can downsize. I live in a 1.5 story cape.

 It kind of stunned him for a few seconds and he realized what I was referring to.

As a family grows they seem to need a lot more room. What happens is that they buy a bigger house. This actually makes sense.  

What a lot of couple wind up with after the kids move out is a huge several bedroom place full of stuff. Some people are smart enough to simply get rid of it all and downsize. A lot don't and wind up spending their retirement years living in an expensive, high maintenance situation.

My mother did and I think it was a stupid thing to do. One old woman living alone in a four bedroom home with a huge lawn and garden to maintain. It was ridiculous if you ask me.

I often look at my 1.5 story cape and realize that I seldom venture upstairs for much of anything. I could personally downsize in a New York minute.

EIghty-Four Lumber used to sell small kit homes. Maybe they still do. A nice one bedroom layout with a sleeping loft and a full basement is actually more than enough room for two people. The problem is that we'd have to get rid of an awful lot of stuff which is actually no problem for me.

I could slim down in a New York minute. 

Still, a lot ot people can't seem to slim down. They become attached to things that are just that. They are things. Nothing more, nothing less.

I have a lot of things I could easily get rid of and not really miss them. I am seriously considering getting rid of the Miata in about a year. I only use it in the summer and it sits in the garage for about six months of the year collecting dust and getting in the way.

Selling that would net me a fast two or three grand. As would selling off a couple of unused rifles. I have a couple collectibles I never seem to use and converting them into cash makes sense. Money in the bank is a better deal than a safe queen.

Then again, maybe not. The collectibles will likely hold their value in inflation and go up accordingly.  

Still, there is a lot of stuff I have accumulated that I really have little practical use for anymore.

As I look around I see that almost all of my living revolves around a few rooms. They are the kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and bedroom. That's about it and I imagine that the reason I use the dining and living rooms so much is because of the layout of the place.

For a lot of us, life at home is fairly basic. We eat, sleep and bathe. Repeat daily or as needed.

I'll go off on a tangent here. Most bathrooms are a joke. Women make a big deal out of them. Personally if I could design a bathroom it would be a modular insert with a toilet, a sink, a tub with a shower and a built in pressure washer and built in floor drain to keep it clean. 

I'd probably make it out of either fiberglass or stainless steel. Soap scum on the shower walls? No problem. Hit it with the power washer and spin it down the drain. Same for the toilet, walls and sink. 

Of course, that would be too easy and women would hate it. Maybe when they figured out how easy such a thing is to keep clean they might change but maybe not.

Anyway, back to the neighbor who is moving. It is interesting watching his family grow and will be interesting to see what they do when they become empty nesters.



To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY