Thanks alot redwitch. You sound like me. I am career driven and have a %25 share in a company in NJ which demands a lot of my time. I too have traveled a lot since my business is international transportation. And like you, I love making my own BBQ sauces. Still experimenting but I tend towards the hot and sweet ones.
Thank everyone for your commentors. All are very spot on. We considered renting but do not want to go through the hassle of moving yet again. You are all correct about buying into the lifestyle. That is what we like about the Villages even if we cannot take full advantage of it now. We want this to be our last move as we have moved 13 times already and burnt out from it.
Probably the core of our indecission is that fact that we are downsizing considerably. Right now I am looking out of my window at the farm that abuts my property. If I look to the other side I see a horse ranch. Our rooms are large and have more of them than two people need. So the factor of buying a smaller home with much less property is an issue that keeps rearing its ugly head. It is hard to go from always having big homes with lots of land to something smaller. I guess we want our cake and eat it too. This is an issue that we have to deal with regardless of where we move. We are making a drastic lifestyle change and we have to recognize that this goes along with our future plans and we better get used to it.
We both have said that if we buy outside of the Villages we will always be thinking that we should have moved to TV. One thing I have learned in life is sometimes it is best to buy what you want rather than what you need or else you will regret it the rest of your life.
All of your replies have tipped the scale back towards the Villages. Today we were contacted by our buyers and they want to buy most of our furniture. That eliminates the problem we were having about not fitting our furniture into a CYV and trying to decide what to take, etc. Once again, thanks.