Whattaya know – there’s a term for it!

When DH and I cooked up this scheme of dividing our time between the city and the country, it never occurred to us that there was already a term for that. I recently came across an article in our local newspaper that, to my surprise, described almost exactly what we are hoping to do. There’s a term for folks like us: “double nesters”.

The New York Times published an article on the concept, although their representative couples are doing it in considerably higher style than we plan to. One featured twosome own a fully furnished home in Florida and a similarly furnished condo in New York. Rather than driving a mere 90 minutes between homes, they have to fly.

The Times article notes: “Of course, this new lifestyle is largely open to people who have outgrown the obligations of young families.” I had to giggle at this. More appropriately it is not open to people with children in school, where regular attendance is required. Those of us without such constraints on our kids’ time can at least contemplate the idea. I mean, come on! That alone should make people go “wow, we should homeschool!”, lol.

And while, in our area, it does require an income level that many would consider high, one could certainly do it for alot less if living in a region where real estate is not as pricey as it is here. And it’s not like we have a luxury, decorated apartment in town nor a furnished, decorated country home. If all goes according to plan we’ll likely end up living in a yurt on our property. And if we were to decide to buy the city home now, with our current budget, we’d be looking at a one bedroom apartment and seriously asking whether we could squeeze us all into a studio (hey, just for 2 or 3 days a week?)!

One thing that irked me about the Canadian article was the emphasis on “having two homes to decorate”. Sheesh, is that really the primary reason for having such an arrangement? I’m so far away from thinking about decorating either place – I’m in this for the chance to get away from it all on a regular basis but still retain all the benefits of living in the city (exposing my kids to diversity, both ethnic and sexual orientation-wise, just for example). Being able to “try out different colour schemes” is really not up there on my list, ya know? Being able to make enough compost to grow my own vegetables? Now that is appealing.

But there is one commonality between the focus of these articles and our situation: there is no doubt that advances in technology have changed the way people work, and have allowed this situation to become possible for people who aren’t retired. DH can work from home part of the time, and I can work from home virtually anywhere. All we need is an Internet connection and a post-office within a reasonable distance (for me) and we’re both good to go. Certainly the ability to “telecommute”, even partially, has opened up possibilities like this for many people.

So anyways, there ya go. We’re wannabe double nesters. Huh…kind of sounds like a cocktail I think.