Marveling

A few years back a guy in New Jersey who was heavy into charitable work came across our radar. I was assigned to do some research on him...When I found his address, I Googled his house (Not the one above) and zoomed in as far as I could...and was speechless. It was...a manor? A compound? A grand stretch of real estate that I couldn't even begin to comprehend. I moved the little navigation tool around and peered down at his neighbors and their massive expanses of house including pools, tennis courts, etc. My my...

Every so often, I play "If I won the lottery" and search out ridiculously sized homes in areas of our state where I know the ultra-rich reside...The above home is in Franklin Lakes (Real Housewives of NJ area)...

Here we have a nice little cottage in Mendum...which I've driven through before and almost got into a few accidents whipping my head around to oogle at the homes along the way...

Mendum again...

Princeton...

Short Hills...

Chatham...

Bernardsville...

Now, I am in NO WAY coveting. I look at these places to marvel, to wonder, and to view the interior rooms and astonish myself at how they are decorated. What do these people do for a living that allows them to live like this? How many people actually live in these places? And, most importantly, who the heck cleans it all!? Try it! It's actually kind of fun.

I dated a guy whose family lived in Marin County, California. The first time I visited his house I was unimpressed from the outside, even though they lived in a gated community. What I hadn't realized (we arrived at night in the dark) was that the house was built into the side of a mountain and therefore went out and down, not up. When I got inside I was stupefied. Grand furniture, works of art, a library, a wine cellar, at least 6 bathrooms, all of it "House Beautiful" ready (they had a cleaning lady and a gardening crew). Although it was neat to visit, I felt very out of place.  On one visit they (the parents) were considering moving (all the kids were out of the house). As I browsed through some of the MLS sheets of the homes they were considering, my jaw dropped at one that had 13 bathrooms. What do 2 people need with 13 bathrooms???  

Mom gave me a book one time called "The Joy of Simple Things"(I think that's what it was called...) and on one page they talked about "Enough is a feast". YES! I do not begrudge wealthy folks and their giant homes, especially when I know the ones who give back to others. I love to marvel at the NJ Housewives in their monstrously-sized estates and their expanses of designer furniture and museum-like rooms and conclude, "Have at it! I have enough rooms to clean". I do enjoy the simple. I love our home and what we have which is plenty for us, more than enough in fact. I would not begin to know what to do in a larger space except to fuss over more places to clean and my lack of creativity in interior decorating. It's fun to imagine living in places like this...but then I look around our house and at all our things and am quite satisfied...more than content...and I'm thankful for "enough"...which is indeed a feast.