Living Large In Our Little House

I'm really excited today to present a guest post by one of our loyal read­ers, Alexandra Grabbe, an innkeeper of Chez Sven, a green B&B on Cape Cod. If you have ever had the desire to visit the Cape and can do so in April, Alexandra is offer­ing 10% off the room rate for Living Large read­ers. Just men­tion us when you make your reservations! 

Chez Sven B&B

I’m thrilled to address the read­ers of Living Large in Our Little House, one of my favorite blogs.  My house is not as small as Dale and Kerri’s, but it isn’t big either, and I’m proud of that fact.

My hus­band Sven and I live in a tra­di­tional three-quarters Cape, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, an old house that once belonged to my par­ents. We actu­ally have too much space for my taste.   I wanted to keep this mar­velous house in the fam­ily, so five years ago I started a green bed & break­fast called Chez Sven.

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Before I get to this morning’s post, I wanted to show you pho­tos of the real snow we got yes­ter­day. The Christmas Eve dust­ing was noth­ing com­pared to this snow, which mea­sured 4 inches and it is still snow­ing this morn­ing. This would be a good day for Dale to be retired and not have to brave the roads to work.

Now for today’s post…

We enter­tained in The Little House on New Year’s Eve, not because I really wanted to, but our neigh­bors have us down to their house quite often and my mom taught me it was nice to rec­i­p­ro­cate. Besides, Rae, our friend and neigh­bor told me it was time. “We’re com­ing down to your house next time we’re down,” she said. They still live in the city and are down at least twice a month.

I sug­gested they come down for din­ner on New Year’s Eve, but I also reminded her there’s a lot more room at their house.

“You know we don’t care about that,” she said. I know they don’t mind the small space, but at our house, it’s a bit tight and I think every­one must feel as if they’re in an air­plane seat when they’re try­ing to eat. Our small drop leaf kitchen table is just 21 inches wide with­out the leaves and 42 inches long. As well, it’s pretty hard to cook when there’s extra peo­ple in the house. Cooking in front of oth­ers makes me a bit ner­vous, even when I have plenty of space.

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“Are you ner­vous about next week­end?” My friend, Rae, from the present asked me about my impend­ing slum­ber party with two friends from my past.

I shrugged. “No,” I won­dered, should I be?

“I have known Shelly (left in the photo) since Kindergarten and Lora since junior high, why would I be nervous?”

“Well, 27 years is a long time,” she said. “You don’t really know them anymore.”

I thought about her ques­tion all week.

Was I liv­ing in a time warp, hop­ing that when I met these two peo­ple again in my dri­ve­way that things would be as if we had parted for a shorter period of time than nearly 3 decades?

Yes, 27 years was a long time and in some respects, it does feel like the life­time ago that it was. Still, I couldn’t make myself feel ner­vous. Continue Reading »