Dude, are you sure you weren't a southerner already?

I'm telling you, when I first visited NOLA last May, it felt like home right away!

For people with/with access to summer/weekend homes, what happens to those homes during the times when you're not using them? Do they just sit empty? I'm always boggled by the idea of having multiple houses, because I have trouble imagining places sitting empty most of the time.

My sister and her husband had a summer home while they were still married. They just closed it up and turned off the water when they weren't going to be there. They had a duplex/condo thing, so their neighbors, who were year-round residents, were right there and could keep an eye on the place.

I was totally picturing you being a pet first aid/cpr instructor. Just had that image in my head. It's more than cool that it's working out.

See? That's the power of the ~ma and good wishes in this place. And, moreso, in your heart. Thanks for your faith. It's going to be fun!

My aunt and uncle have a second house in the Rockies. They rent it out when they aren't using it.

My brother got the vacation house in Florida in the divorce, and when he or another family member isn't down there, he just leaves the water off and lets the neighbors know that it'll be empty for a while (they are good people who keep an eye on it if they're around, and he gives them a few bucks each month in appreciation).

The people I knew on the East Coast with second houses, had places that were uninhabitable in the winter. I taught with a guy who had a summer house in Maine, but it was on an island and had no electricity or insulation. So you cooked on a woodstove and used oil lamps at night. But it was worth it, because you also got to wake up and swim in a gorgeous lake each morning.

J's Aunt and Uncle converted an old condemned farmhouse to a country place, and that was also heated with a woodstove, but they and their four kids spent almost every weekend there. The first few years they were doing the actual work to make the place livable, then just hanging out. Two of the kids ended up going to college up there and lived in the house full time.

I'm telling you, when I first visited NOLA last May, it felt like home right away!

This is what happened for us in Bellingham.

I had the plan to visit NC this spring, and as the time got nearer, I just felt less and less inclined to go. I feel like I escaped where we had lived all those years, and now I don't want to go back, in spite of the family and friends who are still there. I don't want to leave home.

Plus, I read about the 90 degree temps and remember the humidity and am totally gleeful about the fact that the thermostat is set at 64, and the heat still occasionally kicks on at night. That I find I like grey days, and appreciate the sunny ones more. That there's such an abundance of dynamic landscape here I don't miss the one I was steeped in for decades. This is home, and I love it.

Scrappy, your friend's Maine house sounds a bit like the one some family friends have up on Washington Island in Door County (WI). They did eventually get it insulated, but it's still a bit drafty for permanent winter living. They're usually done with the annual visits by the end of October and don't come back until Easter. Since the wife was a SAH mom, they would take the kids and head up there as soon as school got out and stay for the summer, with the dad driving the six hours on Saturday morning a few times a month.

They were lucky and had bought the house for cheap back in the late '50s, before Door County took off as a tourist destination.

For people with/with access to summer/weekend homes, what happens to those homes during the times when you're not using them? Do they just sit empty? I'm always boggled by the idea of having multiple houses, because I have trouble imagining places sitting empty most of the time.

Mom and Stepdad would rent out the condo to college kids until they retired. Now they are selling the house in the city and planning on moving to the beach condo all year long. They were lucky in that when they married in their 40s they both already owned homes of their own.