When you live in the suburbs, your self-esteem is intimately tied to your home. More specifically, it is tied to the size of your home. And bigger is better, right, Ladies?
So when we were transferred from (a suburb of) Denver to (a suburb of) Kansas City four years ago, we got pretty darn excited when we saw how much house we could get for our money. The homes we were looking at to buy were twice the size of the basic little tract home we were selling. Yippee!
And since we weren't terribly happy about leaving Denver (but you have to follow the job, right?) it was easy for us to justify buying the biggest house we could afford: we're moving away from our family; we work hard and deserve it; if we have to live here we'll live however we want.
But did we stop to think that there were only four of us? Or that our kids were older, had friends and girlfriends in Denver, and would want to escape Missouri (which my oldest son pronounced "Misery") at the earliest opportunity? Not for a second.
We also didn't think about how much maintenance a large house requires. Or how much it costs to heat and cool. Or the time and energy it takes to care for a pool (yeah, we got one of those, too, thinking it might help convince faraway family and friends that Kansas City is a great vacation destination).
So we went for it and bought a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood. It has four bedrooms and five baths (which sounds cool until you spend a Saturday morning cleaning five toilets). It includes a formal living room, a formal dining room, and a designated guest room--three spaces for which we didn't have any furniture.
And so began what has become a real love/hate relationship with my big suburban home...
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