What I'm NOT Looking Forward To:
-Corn. Corn, corn, and more corn. I'm talking corn fields as far as the eye can see. (That's not really much of an exaggeration, either.) Sure, there's groups of trees here and there. It's not totally desolate looking, but still. And don't forget the soybeans. If it ain't corn, it's soybeans. Don't get me wrong: I realize the importance of crops and growing food for our nation, but I'm more of a tree and woods kinda girl.
Field, field, field, trees, field, field, field....
-Allergies. Other than spring, my allergies have gotten SO much better since living in Arkansas. Even in spring when the pine trees are going crazy here and yellow pollen covers everything, they're still not as bad as when I lived in Indiana. I haven't had to take allergy medicine religiously since living here. I'm pretty sure the whole allergy thing ties in with the corn too.
-Humidity. Don't get me wrong: It gets hotter than hell in Arkansas during the summer. (Which usually ranges from May to October. lol) Indiana gets humid too, though, even if it is a different type of humidity. I don't know how to explain it. Again, I blame corn on this too. :D I'm starting to think that delicious sweet corn is the root of all evil. ha ha!
-No forests or hills. I think I mentioned this one in my last post. The southern part of the state has some rolling hills and forests, but we'll likely be living north of Indy closer to where I grew up.
-Below freezing temperatures in winter. Really, REALLY not looking forward to this one. It rarely gets below 30, if that, during the winter here. My birthday is in the middle of January and we have gone fishing on it at least once or twice since we've lived here. I even went hiking several times during the "winter" this year.
-Winter gloom. It is really gloomy in Indiana during the winter, even when it's not snowing. For the most part, there is a seemingly never ending blanket of cloud. Really not looking forward to that either. It's depressing. Literally.
What I AM Looking Forward To:
-Family. This is probably going to sound bad, but I never realized just how much I would actually miss being close to my family. It has been especially hard since we've had Myka...I'm sure they'll be back to driving me crazy, though, within a few months of moving back. lol
-Friends. I miss having people to talk to. My friends from home and I are bad about calling/texting each other, but for the most part I have friends there that we can just pick up right where we left off.
-Camping. Speaking of friends, I called one of them yesterday to let her know we were moving back and she is already talking about us going camping with them this summer. lol (It's kind of our thing.) We haven't been camping since we moved here, oddly enough. We didn't really have the money to the first year or two we lived here, then we had Myka, AND it drastically switches from spring to summer within a week down here it seems. In other words, there's not a very big window of opportunity.
-Snow. Ok. I realize that may sound contradictory since I said I wasn't looking forward to below freezing temperatures, but I'm one of those weirdos who absolutely LOVES snow. Even when I still lived there, I hardly ever got sick of it. (Although this winter may have been different since Indiana received the most snowfall on record for them if I'm correct.) I'm looking forward to Myka getting to play in it too, building snowmen, going sledding, etc. etc.
-Saving money. This, to be honest, is the main reason we're moving back to Indiana and not somewhere, well, that we REALLY like. (Tennessee, Kentucky) Besides being a little overprotective of Myka when it comes to certain things, I just plain and simple do not trust people here. Most of the babysitters we did have while I was still working were flakier than dandruff. (Hence having multiple sitters across a 4 month time period. Ridiculous, right?) There is something to be said about living close to family and people you trust to take care of your child. Please, PLEASE, don't ever take that for granted! Anyway, unless John gets a REALLY good job (fingers crossed for one at the VA hospital in Indy), I am hoping to work at least part-time so we can start actually saving money and not just scraping by from month to month.
-Real parks. There's tons of parks here in town...many of which are in areas I'd rather not take myself to, let alone my child. Most of them don't have areas for really young kids like Myka either. The one in my home town does. It's a pretty decent park for being in such a small town, actually. Plus I can go for walks there and not worry as much about getting ran over!
-Public pool. While I'm not crazy about being in a bathing suit in front of anyone but my daughter and husband, I love the public pool. I don't like swimming in any type of lake, river, ocean, etc. where other living creatures live, eat, and poop. I'm a pool girl. I miss doing laps. It helped me lose so much weight the summer between middle and high school. Plus I'm excited to turn Myka into a water lover too, of course.
-Less "hustle & bustle". Admittedly, I am NOT looking forward to running into people from school I didn't care for, but it is nice to run into people you know at the store, gas station, Pizza Shack, etc. And while I have no desire to live in MY small home town for the rest of my life, I do like small towns in general. Hot Springs' population is only around 36,000 and that is still too big even for me.
