California

 Everyday on my drive to work I marvel that I can see both "mountains" (I know they are really foothills but they're mountains to me) and palm trees.  California is beautiful!  I love the smell in the air when we pass Concordia Irvine, it reminds me of nights spent on the volleyball court my 19 year old summer.  I mentioned it once to Brendon and now when we pass it he rolls down the windows so I can breathe in memories. 

 I have fallen in love with the landscape and weather of every state I've moved to...which isn't that many really but, Ohio foliage is lovely especially in the summer and fall.  Beautiful dogwoods bloom in the spring.  The problem in Ohio is that noone escapes developing allergies.  It has one of the highest pollen and mold counts...yuck. Oklahoma you could see the horizon everywhere you turned.  Forests or farmland or flat suburbs made up the landscape.  There was no smog and a million stars, even in the city! Although, in all honesty, I cursed the frigid wind everymorning when I had to trek across our campus to class and it was a very small campus even.  I adored the Chicago summer, I wonder how I would have liked the winter? Summer proved warm but not scorching and provided me with awesome thunderstorms.  One occured right in the middle of "The Taste of Chicago"!  Jenny (my college roommate) and I were holding icecream cones when the downpour began.  Tee hee.  And California.  How did I live without so many palm trees? And orchids!!

I have always assumed I was a city girl.  At the very least a suburbs girl.  I love being surrounded by things, people, places, 24 hour supermarkets and Dennys ;)  But while I was jogging on Saturday, I thought, wouldn't it be nice to live with a little more nature? a little less gravel and things to occupy my time?  I started imaging what it would be like to live in Colorado or Missouri...