The psychology of having a "holiday home"

I was traveling for work last week, and feeling a bit stressed, I sent Sooz a text: "I really want to be back on Aspö".

It was more than a little whine- at the time I wrote that SMS, I didn't just want to be away from my job. I really wanted specifically to be at our little house, not to be away, but to be there. That subtlety didn't come across in my little message, at least I didn't think so.

This weekend, Sooz said to me, pretty much out of the blue, "I know what you mean. I want to be on Aspö, too". She had been thinking the same way, and received the meaning of my message after all, which was nice.

It got me thinking. We're still in the honeymoon period of our little house; we've had the excitement of building and furnishing it, and it's been pretty much a non-stop party once we moved in.

After we're there next month, though, we don't have any firm plans to go back until April. It seems odd to me to leave it empty for 5 months, but it also seems wrong to go to the trouble of visiting just to visit (especially in the winter).

Also, the money we'll be spending on the house going forward won't be as exciting. Paying for insurance, taxes, electricity, etc., isn't nearly as much fun as designing kitchens or researching types of tarpaper (which was fun for me, at least).

So- what's going to happen in the upcoming months? Will the "holiday home honeymoon" be over quickly? Will it be a case of "out of sight, out of mind"? Will I start to resent sending money away to Sweden when I'll have college tuition to pay for?

I posted before about making the transition from a "building" blog to a "living" one. These are the kinds of questions I plan to blog about during the winter months.