If anything could make me regret downsizing to a small house, Easter would have. And it almost did.

We can squeeze eight people into our eat-in kitchen. Our family now numbers 16. You do the math.

By Good Friday, I was thinking about putting up a table for eight in our living room (which would require moving furniture out of there first). The living room isn’t connected to our eat-in area, so it would be like having two separate parties. Bummer.

We couldn’t use the finished basement like we usually do because it’s so darn cold down there right now (it was a long winter) and Grandma and Grandpa get too chilled in the basement even when the rest of us think it’s comfortable.

So, thoughts of “What were we thinking buying such a little house?” began to surface.

But here’s the thing. We love this little house, and 95% of the time, there’s more than enough space for us. It’s only when the entire family gets together that it feels a little too cozy.

• All year long, I enjoy the low utility bills.
• All year long, I love that it only takes me a few hours to clean the entire house.
• All year long, I enjoy the mental freedom of knowing that we have no mortgage. (We chose a small house so that we could remain debt-free.)

Weighing those things against a little coziness made it clear that we were thinking just fine when we bought this house. In the end, it didn’t matter. We had our first 80-degree day of the year, so we were able to have our family Easter gathering on the patio. What a lovely day!