I’ll go ahead and preface this week by saying it has always been my dream to move away and start somewhere fresh. Somewhere with personality. Somewhere that every major road doesn’t look like the next major road. Somewhere that doesn’t have such predictability…to me, at least. Somewhere with a history but also with a future. Somewhere that is teeming with creative individuals and small businesses. Ideally it would be close to a beach, and laid back. In a perfect world, I could walk or ride a bike wherever I’d like to go and the weather would always be mild enough to accommodate me. I would love an updated historic home, with friendly, accommodating neighbors who take an interest in me and my family. I would LOVE a picturesque street and a place to put a garden and a wide front porch to drink a few cold beers on. That place sounds a lot like Savannah, Georgia to me. That place sounds NOTHING like where I live now.
And now, I’m going to go ahead and say something that I think might shock a couple people- Mom, I’m talking to you. Today, I am thankful for where I live.
I will qualify this statement and say that B and I frequently go back and forth between loving our home and despising it.
But we LOVE the little community around us. It’s not picturesque or historical. If you think strip malls and cookie cutter town homes are charming then, sure, it has charm. But it has become our little neighborhood. Where everyone knows our name, or at least our faces.
Within a mile radius of our house we have SO many amenities, if you will.
We have a major chain grocery store where we know all of the cashiers. I even have a favorite cart and grocery bagging guy. His name is Edwin.
We have a post office.
We have my chiropractor, our dentist, and 2 drugstores to choose from. I don’t know if this is something to be proud of or not, but I’m on a first-name basis with one of the pharmacists.
We have a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts. And a McD’s and a Burger King- though we hardly ever go there. There’s a pizza place and a chinese food spot and a quaint Sushi restaurant that is actually pretty yummy.
We have the dry cleaner (whose last four digits of her SSN are the last four digits of our phone number, so she always has our stuff ready when she sees us pull up), two nail salons, a hair salon, two car wash places, and about 4 mechanic shops.
We have a community center that houses a library, a preschool, a place for P to play basketball, and N to go to Gymnastics.
Our swimming center is at the entrance to our neighborhood, not even a 5 minute walk away.
There are parks a plenty. Two pubs that have decent food and drinks. My favorite massage place in the whole world. And lots more.
Most everything is connected by sidewalks and bike-trails. So we can safely cross the streets on foot or bicycle. The only thing we’re missing is an ice cream shop. And a Trader Joes…
Other than that, it’s perfect for us.
We still have dreams to move away one day, specifically to Savannah. But for now, this is our home. The ones we love live here, the job that pays the bills is here, the home that we are underwater with is here.
And I’m thankful to have this place, our little piece of the planet. Full of friendly faces and meeting all of our needs.
Until Tomorrow,
xoxo
Kyra
Honey, it’s not always where you live that makes it home, it’s who is there. I’ve always wanted to live somewhere warmer as well and along came N, which makes me not so eager to go anywhere right away. Besides this winter and last have been tolerable.
So for now my wandering girl has put down some roots…….