Living Large (a post in which I do make it to the point, eventually)

So, my husband and I are looking for a new place. Actually, I think it's necessary to paint a little picture of our financial/housing situation to fully appreciate this post...

You see, back in the day, we lived in Gainesville, FL. That's where we met and I had my brief interlude with a college education. That's where I busted my ass as a waitress and Danny discovered his passion for making (at the time, not-so-) great food. That's where we had, really, a decent income and blew it all eating at restaurants and fixing broken cars. Then there was a pregnancy scare in which we both panicked and started planning how our now horribly ruined lives were going to be carried out. Then I realized I wasn't pregnant and almost immediately after the freakout subsided, the baby-crazy set in. It's actually pretty surreal how that happened. At the time we were both working full-time and planning our move to Orlando where Danny could get some culinary learning and I was to enroll at UCF for art. The baby-crazy only got worse and we decided "not to try, but not to not try." Fast forward one month and you'll see me crying tears of joy, bouncing around the bathroom with three positive pregnancy tests. We told our parents it was not planned.

So, we move to Orlando right about the time the real crazy set in and I became a depressed vomiting hermit. I didn't find a job in Orlando until the vomiting stopped, or rather lessened, which was a little past 5 months into my pregnancy. And then, when I did get said job, it was lousy and I made no money. Colson was born and our financial situation had gotten so bad over the pregnancy that was now a cute baby girl and a not very cute hospital bill that we were a month away from not being able to pay rent. Then Danny got a great job offer, salary, a sous chef for a casino in Mississippi. We took it. We bought a house there and we planned to stay there for at least 5-10 years. We had a lovely fenced in yard and a beautiful garden that produced an inordinate amount of tomatoes. Then Danny was dealt with horribly and fired along with 30 people under him they were gracious enough to lay off. Hourly employees, of course. For the next three months, he was a job hunting machine. And after nothing, nothing, nothing...we had my dad ask a very old family friend for a good word and Danny ended up with a job here in South Florida.

Over the three jobless months, three of the last four of my second pregnancy (the one that really was unplanned), we accumulated credit card debt while we managed to pay our bills until we had nothing left, at which point some of the bills began to not get paid. We rented our house out and then our mortgage went up due to insurance costs and taxes and now we're forking over $280 a month. Anyhow, here we are, paying all our bills again even though we aren't saving anything. We love his new job like no other he's ever had even though the pay is less than fantastic. We love this town and the beach and the gorgeous trees even though our apartment is falling apart. Here we are, crossing our fingers that our house sells quickly come November and that our current renter will go for a month by month deal until that happens.

And we are looking for a new place. What we really want to do is downsize, get a nice one bedroom and save a couple hundred bucks a month. But here's the kicker, it's apparently not okay for a family of four to live in a one bedroom house. Before you start saying how crazy I am for even thinking of this, read on. We live in a two bedroom apartment. Our master bedroom, the one where all four of us sleep in the same bed (a king size, by the way) is huge. We spend about 8-12 hours in there a day, collectively...sleeping. Then the doors are shut so the cats don't pee on the bed. There's a bathroom in there that is used almost exclusively for giving the girls baths. Then there's the girls' room. The main purpose for this room is to accommodate clothes and toys and for Finley to nap in. Sometimes they play in there, but most of the time the toys are brought into the living room that is also my art studio and our office. So I got to thinking about the wasted space we're paying for. But that's the way it's done here. We live in small groups in big houses. We sleep each in separate rooms in separate beds and have separate bathrooms.

I'm not judging those who want to live this way. I'm not saying it's wrong. All I'm saying is that our way isn't wrong either. And, while I can somewhat understand the reasoning behind only allowing so many people in a given space, I do find it a little absurd that we are not allowed to choose to live smaller. I find it a little absurd that someone else can tell me how many rooms or square footage I need. I know it would be different if we weren't renting. It's just eye-opening and frustrating.

So we've decided to move to a small village in the rainforest. No, just kidding.