The Painted Lady: Summer is a verb

There were two defining factors in our search for a home in Boston – money and location.

The cost of living adjustment from downtown St. Louis to downtown Boston is 45% - however, our experience leans toward an even greater divide. Pete and I started our search in the South End, Boston’s equivalent to Washington Ave in St. Louis; an up and coming, trendy neighborhood with great restaurants and in the heart of Boston. However, the search quickly ended.

It is truly a depressing moment when parking spots are turning up in a property search. And, after spending all of our money on a parking spot, I’m not sure how living out of our Jeep would work.

We found that in downtown Boston, you get half the square footage for more than double the cost per square foot and it comes with no parking, no storage and prepare yourself for something old. To this day, I’m still trying to figure out who can afford $1,000 a square foot. And, while I love Pete, we weren’t prepared to live in 350 square feet. So the search was widened and it was time to seek professional help.

During our first meeting, our realtor asked us a defining and life changing question - “where do you want to summer?”

“Summer?” I've never known summer to be a verb.

In the northeast it means where you have your summer home – the North Shore (the shoreline north of downtown Boston up to Maine) or the South Shore (the shoreline south of the city that extends to the Cape).

Often families even live in that home and grunt the longer commutes to work. Or at least, you spend every weekend at your home during the summer. Northeasterners leave early on Fridays (or work from home on Fridays) to beat the traffic over the bridges to the Cape, make a ferry time to Martha’s Vineyard or head north to the coast of Maine. Every weekend.

So deciding where you'll "summer" is important - it will dictate whether your permanent residence should be north or south of the city - obviously - silly, midwesterners.

While I’m not sure I would be opposed to a mini vacation each week, for now, adjusting to the cost of living is enough for us to manage.