I’ve seen a marketing campaign with this slogan on a huge banner against a newly built Belltown apartment building or condominium, and it sounds rather appealing to me at times.
Bryan’s been working downtown Seattle since late last year, which is a marked improvement from his commute to San Jose a couple years ago. However, his working downtown has amped up my itchiness to move back to Seattle from our suburb in the south.
This summer in particular has been bad. We’ve taken advantage of his locale, and at least once a week we pick him up after work and and have a picnic at Seattle Center, or Gasworks Park, or some other city destination. The kids love it, and of course, so do I.
I love it so much, in fact, that we end up driving into Seattle as much as three days a week, which is not easy on the gas budget. We sometimes drive him in to work in the morning and have fresh mini donuts at Pike Place Market. Sometimes we drive in for the free summer movies at Regal Cinemas’ Meridian 16 theater. Sometimes we drive in to visit the Children’s Museum.
We drove in so often this summer I justified the need to move there, and began looking into it. I won’t go into details regarding the scandalous number of hours I spent wasting time researching homes and condos for sale. Let’s just say I’m well aware of the Seattle condominium market for units over 850 square feet.
Yes, I talked myself into downsizing from a 2200 square foot 5 bedroom house with an office and family room into a 1000 square foot two bedroom condo in the middle of Capital Hill – where you would not be able to visit me, by the way, because parking is TERRIBLE on Capital Hill.
I was completely sold on this idea, and even began complaining about how rough I have it in my giant castle. I CAN’T CLEAN ALL THIS SPACE! WE HAVE TOO MUCH JUNK! WE DON’T EVEN USE ALL THESE ROOMS! WE DON’T NEED A PLACE THIS BIG!
I had visions of traipsing to the park with my kids, grocery shopping daily for only as much as I could carry, and taking the bus everywhere. After all, my kids are headed off to school this year, so it’s not like I’ll have crazy toddlers running under foot all day.
And then?
Last week it rained for three days straight, and my kids ran from top to bottom in this house. They jumped on the couches, they swung on the swing in our basement, they climbed on the rope ladder, and they used every. last. inch of this giant house before they even began to tap into one tiny little nerve.
And then?
All my tomatoes came into harvest. And my carrots. And zucchini. And I put a kiddie pool at the end of the slide on our big toy in the yard. And we made s’mores in the fire pit on our deck.
It didn’t take much to remind me I have all I need to be content right here.
i never need to blog because i can just read yours and you say everything so much better, and funnier. I own that little Capitol Hill condo… the good thing is that after 9 months of pissing your neighbors off with your noisy kids, it is easy to find renters who will cover your mortgage so you can move back to a house in the ‘burbs. Oh man, but I miss Seattle, too.
Ha! I totally thought of you when I wrote this. And I miss you. The next week and a half is crazy, but let’s get together after that. Seriously. I have to see that baby.