Hello my dear family and friends (and anyone who might stumble on my blog),
So here we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere Northern Texas. It has been a VERY long time since I have posted or even checked my blog but I hope that this will become at least a monthly thing. Now that we've settled into the community a bit, I hope to reach out to all who are far away a little more.
So how do I feel about Texas? One thing that I noticed about my fellow Green-Living/Bohemian friends living in Texas is that the transition is not so smooth. Here, you take a conscious living-all you need is love, human being and throw them into what appears to be "I love meat, God and my truck" country; literally. Indeed, the first question I'm asked by people upon meeting is, 'what church do you go to?' At first I was launching into a descriptive narrative about churches, religion, and maybe even politics (as religion sometimes has become a political issue) and how I feel about it all. As you can imagine, this either goes over well or like a lead weight. Upon further contemplation on my honesty in this subject to my piers, I've decided now (my opinion might change tomorrow), that I'll just skirt the issue unless really pressed to expound on my beliefs. Do they really care what I, some person in the park, thinks anyway? So what I finally decided is that just like if I were to move to Greece for example, I would dig into the culture and see it from a curious point of view. At first blush it does appear that you join a church or no one talks to you, but I realized that being friendly here in Texas is really all that's required. There may be a whole lot of Conservative-Bible-Based Republicans, but they are all mostly HAPPY Conservative-Bible-Based Republicans (for whatever reason I found some Arizona Conservatives to be more hostile). I've seen a lot of big hair and fake nails here than I've ever seen in my life but it's kind of charming and flashy in its own way. I'm also delighted to say that I've encountered more generosity in the first two weeks here from total strangers than I have anywhere else. So all in all, we are pretty content here. The only thing I think this town could use is a bit of variety culturally and otherwise...the most important thing I'm missing is an honest to God bakery. Fresh bread, a cappuccino...a bit of a chin wag as they say; I have a 'freak out' about once a month, do my best version of Baguettes and Cappuccinos at home and talk at the wall like Shirley Valentine.
What's new at the moment? I'm busy with my two little ones and Halloween. There are a number of things going on about town and at school. I actually went out of my way to buy a wig and some ears for myself so as not to be a kill joy and Issa is thrilled that we will be 'dressing up' together (pics to come).
Issa is doing well in school. We received our first 'report card' a few weeks ago and it stated that Issa was below average in counting. I was taken aback to learn that my little one was to count to 100 in 60 seconds (that seems a bit fast to me). As those who know me can imagine I'm a bit torn between the Waldorf based learning system, that I was raised in, and this one. But, I figured that she's in public school and we might as well adapt to it. Issa insisted she was just not good at counting, so we discussed what practice means. If anything, now she is understanding that folks very rarely just come out of the womb spectacular at anything and that they work to become good at things. So we practiced counting every night and morning and she came home thrilled to the brim this Friday because she received great marks for counting to 100.
Aramis and I have cozied into a pre-school group here, just independently run by a few moms. He's always happy to go and comes home feeling like he's as big and important as Issa now (especially when I'm not with him). Yes, yes, he's "not a BABY," he's BIG (he's taking a nap on the couch right now).
So, it's safe to say that my saving grace as an adventurous person in a small town saturated with Texan spirit has been the world-wide web and the cooking/traveling/food channels. When I feel culture sick, I hop on Facebook and read posts of friends living in exotic places (or who are just an exotic place all unto themselves). I bring a French Cafe into my house with Pandora and fresh baked things. Mexico is also never far away while Efrain has been spoiling me with his cooking. I have a small balcony and you know it's full of plants, twinkle-lights and a small fountain.
So I'm signing out for now but until next time, as my Scottish ancestors say,
May the best you have ever seen, be the worst you will ever see, may a mouse never leave your girnal, with a tear drop in his eye, may you always keep hale and hearty, till you are old enough to die, may you always be just as happy, as we wish you always to be.
So here we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere Northern Texas. It has been a VERY long time since I have posted or even checked my blog but I hope that this will become at least a monthly thing. Now that we've settled into the community a bit, I hope to reach out to all who are far away a little more.
So how do I feel about Texas? One thing that I noticed about my fellow Green-Living/Bohemian friends living in Texas is that the transition is not so smooth. Here, you take a conscious living-all you need is love, human being and throw them into what appears to be "I love meat, God and my truck" country; literally. Indeed, the first question I'm asked by people upon meeting is, 'what church do you go to?' At first I was launching into a descriptive narrative about churches, religion, and maybe even politics (as religion sometimes has become a political issue) and how I feel about it all. As you can imagine, this either goes over well or like a lead weight. Upon further contemplation on my honesty in this subject to my piers, I've decided now (my opinion might change tomorrow), that I'll just skirt the issue unless really pressed to expound on my beliefs. Do they really care what I, some person in the park, thinks anyway? So what I finally decided is that just like if I were to move to Greece for example, I would dig into the culture and see it from a curious point of view. At first blush it does appear that you join a church or no one talks to you, but I realized that being friendly here in Texas is really all that's required. There may be a whole lot of Conservative-Bible-Based Republicans, but they are all mostly HAPPY Conservative-Bible-Based Republicans (for whatever reason I found some Arizona Conservatives to be more hostile). I've seen a lot of big hair and fake nails here than I've ever seen in my life but it's kind of charming and flashy in its own way. I'm also delighted to say that I've encountered more generosity in the first two weeks here from total strangers than I have anywhere else. So all in all, we are pretty content here. The only thing I think this town could use is a bit of variety culturally and otherwise...the most important thing I'm missing is an honest to God bakery. Fresh bread, a cappuccino...a bit of a chin wag as they say; I have a 'freak out' about once a month, do my best version of Baguettes and Cappuccinos at home and talk at the wall like Shirley Valentine.
What's new at the moment? I'm busy with my two little ones and Halloween. There are a number of things going on about town and at school. I actually went out of my way to buy a wig and some ears for myself so as not to be a kill joy and Issa is thrilled that we will be 'dressing up' together (pics to come).
Issa is doing well in school. We received our first 'report card' a few weeks ago and it stated that Issa was below average in counting. I was taken aback to learn that my little one was to count to 100 in 60 seconds (that seems a bit fast to me). As those who know me can imagine I'm a bit torn between the Waldorf based learning system, that I was raised in, and this one. But, I figured that she's in public school and we might as well adapt to it. Issa insisted she was just not good at counting, so we discussed what practice means. If anything, now she is understanding that folks very rarely just come out of the womb spectacular at anything and that they work to become good at things. So we practiced counting every night and morning and she came home thrilled to the brim this Friday because she received great marks for counting to 100.
Aramis and I have cozied into a pre-school group here, just independently run by a few moms. He's always happy to go and comes home feeling like he's as big and important as Issa now (especially when I'm not with him). Yes, yes, he's "not a BABY," he's BIG (he's taking a nap on the couch right now).
So, it's safe to say that my saving grace as an adventurous person in a small town saturated with Texan spirit has been the world-wide web and the cooking/traveling/food channels. When I feel culture sick, I hop on Facebook and read posts of friends living in exotic places (or who are just an exotic place all unto themselves). I bring a French Cafe into my house with Pandora and fresh baked things. Mexico is also never far away while Efrain has been spoiling me with his cooking. I have a small balcony and you know it's full of plants, twinkle-lights and a small fountain.
So I'm signing out for now but until next time, as my Scottish ancestors say,
May the best you have ever seen, be the worst you will ever see, may a mouse never leave your girnal, with a tear drop in his eye, may you always keep hale and hearty, till you are old enough to die, may you always be just as happy, as we wish you always to be.
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