Downsized: Top Ten Reasons We Are Glad We Moved

10 This neighborhood has awesome landscaping. It's a very small condo complex, gated, and inside is a little wonderland of curving, interlocking sidewalks with tons of trees and grass. Our dogs now have about ten thousand places to leave their poop, and we have a lot of grocery bags we'll be using.

9 Our internet line works. So every half hour, I won't have to turn the fan on high, unplug the cords, wait thirty seconds, replug, and reboot. I predict a lot less cursing, in general.

8 Our oven works. Hello pizzas, cakes, cookies, roast duck! Goodbye Lola's Easy Bake being the closest thing to home baked we can produce.

7 Our neighbors are nice, and there are a thousand girls here for Lola to play with. OK, seven, but still- SEVEN? On the downside, every afternoon after work there are the hoofbeats of wild herds of prepubescent girls thundering up and down and up and down our stairs. 

6 We don't have to landscape. No more agonizing over the broken sprinkler system, mowing, cutting, hedging, trimming and watering. No more patchy brown grass.

5 Dakota moved back in, and said he always wanted to live here, and if he had to live anywhere in this shithole of a town, it would be here! Oh son. A ringing endorsement.

4 Our heater and air conditioner works. Less frying in the summer and freezing in the winter. 

3 DISHWASHER. Less water used, cheaper water bill, and less work. 

2 Hardwood floors all downstairs equal= our dream. On the downside, Lola has already slid Kevin Bacon style, in socks, and landed twice on her hip and elbow. On the upside: Swiffer!

1 Goodbye mice, ants, drafty windows, leaky roof, malfunctioning garage door, bathtub with a big hole in it that our landlords themselves came and 'fixed' with ( and I'm not kidding ) duct tape and a placemat. And all this for hundreds more a month!  You can't imagine how happy we are to be here. I cried leaving, because we have raised our kids there for six years. But the tears are gone. It's a New Year, baby!!!