Things I Love About Living Here

I have this friend, Renee. Renee and I met through the virtual school where I worked. Renee's daughter is one of my former students.

Several things about Renee~
1. She's amazing. Truly. Amazing.

2. She's living a semi-parallel life to mine.
When I say "semi-parallel," I mean she's also relocating to California after living in the Midwest for a number of years. But she's in the major league where this is concerned and I'm still on a farm team. Because...

Renee is also living apart from her husband. She has three kids. But her OLDEST is the same age as my YOUNGEST. Whereas I am a veteran home schooling mom (meaning I've served in that war. A long time ago.), Renee is active-duty. She is also packing up her own house, trying to get it sold, and is mommy and daddy for three young children--all while teaching three kids full-time.

3. Renee is not a complainer. She's one of the most positive people I know.

Renee does things like make "Top 10 Great Things About Moving to California" lists.

4. When I grow up, I want to be like Renee.

True Confession time--

I. Hate. It. Here. With a white-hot passion.

Everything is complicated here. Absolutely everything.

From taking the kids to school in the morning, to ridding the apartment of roaches, to trying to get C in the correct math class. It's all complicated. Oh, and expensive.

But none of that stuff is as complicated as trying to purchase real-estate in Southern California. Remember how I said that I had hopefully gotten the last You Have So Got To Be Kidding Me With This correspondence about the house we're trying to buy?

Yeah. I jinxed it. We hadn't. We probably still haven't.

At this point, I hope we own this home by the time J starts high school.

I have absolutely no idea why so many people want to live here. This place gets 55 electoral votes. 55! How is that even possible?

It can't be the weather. It was 103 here today.

But I digress.

I've been thinking a lot about my friend, Renee's list.

And I decided that I should start a list of my own. Things I love about living here that I wouldn't have back in Kansas.

Maybe it will help if I can focus on the positive.

And I'm going to put a reminder on my calendar to come back to this list every so often to add to it. If there's anything to add.

So here goes:

Things I Love About Living Here

1. Trader Joe's.
I love that there is a Trader Joe's here. Two minutes from where we live. And there's always a parking spot available.

That's it. That's seriously all I've got. But at least it's a start.



Author's Note:
Yes. I am also glad that our family is "sort of" together again. (We miss you, Mik!) But let's be honest here. Really. If I had dug in my heels and decided I wasn't leaving Kansas, we'd still be living there. All of us.

The best line in the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is

"The man may be the head of the family, but the woman is the neck."