[Freeda]

We started off with two cars when we moved here 3 1/2 years ago; I could not at that time imagine not each having our own car, as we always had had up north, which is what I think of Kentucky as being. (In fact, up north my husband was used to having two vehicles just for himself). We initially had a courtyard villa with 1 1/2 car garage and parked one car plus the golf cart in there; the other car was always on the parking pad in front of the garage. After about a year it dawned on us that only rarely was the garaged car out of the garage; in fact, we even weirdly began storing things in it. (For example, items that we planned to take 'up north' to our kids' on our next trip went in the 'garaged' car; the extra cd's we weren't listening to in the 'used' car went in the 'garaged' car; our beach towels and beach chairs were stored in the 'garaged' car for easy access to move them into the 'used' car when we went to the beach)!! It became like the treadmill that people sometimes end up using as a clothes rack.

For us, the solution was to downsize to one car and we have been happy with that; we figured that for the rare situation where we needed an extra car for one of us to go out of town, etc, it would be easier just to rent a car. (We've never had to do that, either). I know that is not a solution for everyone, but for us one car has worked out just fine.

Changes in attitude about what is important take time as we adjust to a different lifestyle here; what we have always wanted or needed might change over time; it is different for all of us, and changes occur at a different pace for different people. Now, when I look back to all the years that we had multiple vehicles I just think of the time involved in maintenance, etc; not to mention the expense of the insurance, etc; and for me they symbolize not a luxury, but instead a more hectic fact-paced, stressful lifestyle that we had then which necessitated multiple vehicles because we had to be apart so much of the time, which I am happy to be free of now.