As I mentioned in my last post, Linda and I are on the move once more, this time to my beloved home state of Virginia. The other day we secured a lovely apartment in a circa 1890 building in the historic town of Lexington, home of Washington and Lee University. It is within an hour or so of where I am from and where I have family and friends so it will be a homecoming of sorts for me. Virginia is the one state I have lived that Linda has not so I am looking forward to sharing it with her. And the Atlantic Ocean is only a half-day’s drive away!

One of my favorite sayings of late is that living at an isolated yet iconic lighthouse is not all “rainbows and unicorns,” hence the title of this post. Extreme weather events, tons of tourists, annoying drone activity, spotty cell service, intermittent electrical issues, and other inconveniences represent just some of the challenges people may not associate with lighthouse living. Yet with all that said we are blessed to count ourselves among the very few who can say they ever stayed at a lighthouse, much less lived at one.

Speaking of rainbows, the very day we applied for our apartment God gave us the double rainbow pictured above as a reminder of his goodness and faithfulness. As this blog’s subtitle states, Living Large With Less is about “the upside of downsizing” but one downside of our lifestyle is the search intervals associated with moving from place to place as frequently as we do. And negotiating the  “unreal estate” market due to the insane economy only exacerbates an already challenging environment.

This past weekend marked the eleventh anniversary of the sale of our dream home in Florida that launched us on our journey of adventure. And out of curiosity, I did an online search of our former address and discovered that the folks who bought it from us just sold it for a hefty profit. All of which got me thinking about whether or not our sale of it was worth it. And I must say that I cannot imagine not having done so, especially with the intervening pandemic restricting travel and overall enjoyment of life. It was our dream to live in New England and we got to live at a lighthouse as a bonus, so we are blessed indeed!