remodeling this life

I know here in the blogging world, I can find plenty of people living simple and frugal lives and it’s comforting to find people who do so stylishly and with grace. In real life, I have fabulous friends. Really, I could not be more blessed with the friendships I’ve formed since we moved almost 2 years ago (I still can’t believe it’s been that long – sometimes I have to stop myself when I am about to say we’ve lived her for 6 months – time certainly does fly when you’re slaving away on a remodel and raising kids having fun).

I’ve always been a wee bit shy. I know people who *know* me laugh when I say that, but seriously, I am. Well, maybe shy isn’t the right word. It takes me some time to warm up to new people and new situations. I tend to sit back and observe and get my bearings before diving into a conversation with new people. I’ve always been okay with having a few friends and never really feel the need to go out of my way to make more. But in the past few months, I’ve sort of outgrown that. I like meeting new people and even if they aren’t going to be my best friend, I enjoy laughing and talking with people like I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing even a year ago. Maybe it’s maturity, my own growth into a bit more confident and easygoing person. But whatever it is, it has really added to my life.

I have a circle of about a dozen good friends here. Which is really astonishing in relation to the rest of my adult life. I’ve really just had a few scattered friends that I would see a few times a year. I suppose for the mild extrovert that I am, I wasn’t living up to my full friend potential before

So here I am with this wonderful and diverse and totally unexpected group of friends. We all come from different backgrounds and we all are in different places in our lives. I love hearing their stories and their ideas and their ways of life. Last night I went to a girls’ night out. We were all sitting around and trying not to talk about our kids while being away from our kids. We talked about houses and shoes and decor and men and running, all sorts of fun stuff.

Now these friends are cool, I love them all. But sometimes I feel like we just live in totally different worlds. My life isn’t typical by any means but it’s certainly not bad. It’s just *simple*. A friend confided in me last night that they are putting their house up for sale. She said that since they moved here – they came from California and bought a huge house because they couldn’t believe how much house you could get for your money here as opposed to out there in the Bay Area – they have come to realize that just because they can afford their nice big house doesn’t mean they need a big house. She even went so far as to say that she loves my cute little simple home and that she has come to see the value of living with less by choice. I was very comforted. Sometimes it feels lonely living small and simple and frugally when others around me aren’t.

I’m glad to have a friend who’s looking to join me in downsizing, living a smaller life and loving it. She said I’d brought her over to the dark side. I told her she might just find that it’s much brighter over here than she thinks.