Terri - the biggest problem with leaving one place behind and going to the other is that it takes a while to remember that the fabric I'm looking for is in the OTHER house. The AZ room is much neater, because the house is all on one floor! It's easier to just let everything hang out on the 2nd floor!
In CT, a good friend & neighbor, who is also the guy who does the annual on our furnace, checks our house WEEKLY and whenever there's a storm or power outage. Our postman does double duty - waters houseplants and mows the lawn as needed before we return in the spring.
I email a good friend who also loves to clean and pay her to remove all signs of mice before we return in the spring! Love her :lol:
In AZ, our neighbors are watchful, and we have a deal going with one of them: DH buys the Roundup (weedkiller) for both yards, and Jeff sprays our 'natural landscaping' - mostly gravel, with a few cacti that he DOESN'T spray- as well as his. That keeps the city of Tucson and the rest of our neighbors happy, and our house doesn't look abandoned!
I've gradually built up my sewing supplies in AZ using JoAnn's and Michael's coupons and on-line sales plus many things from my Mom's sewing room. While she was still alive and living in a retirement apartment with 2 big bedrooms (we were using the house she and Daddy retired to from CA in 1978), we shared one of her BRs, which was HUGE as a sewing room. That was GREAT. DH knows that the most peaceful way for him to live is for me to have a Pfaff, so he gave me one in AZ several years ago.