Life in a Small Town

I have come to really love living in a small town. When I bought too many flowers last week, I gave some to the neighbors. One of our neighbors loves to make popcorn, popcorn balls, and cookies and regularly brings some over. Yesterday, the kids and I biked about 1 1/2 or 2 miles to the drive/walk-up ice cream shop for ice cream cones. The kids went on to the park while I biked home. The other night, I sent Ga'Hoole Girl to the store on her bike for salad dressing and parmesan cheese. In our subdivision, we were so far away from everything that we had to drive. Now, we can ride or bike to the library, ice cream shop, park/pool, city hall and downtown, and grocery store. We now even get movies here in town (well, one at a time). The theater is a very old one with the original stage. The seats are old and not as comfortable as they could be - they are also mismatched (one row of one kind and another row of another kind - I think they were purchased used). The candy and soda selection isn't great, although they do sell some less-known brand of bottled soda that my kids love. But, it's within a 5 minute walk of the house which saves a good $8 in gas.

There are some downsides, of course. For one thing, I don't do my main grocery shopping here in town. The grocery store is small and doesn't have a great selection or great prices. I usually shop in the big city every week or two when I'm already there (I found Ancho chiles there last week!). We are also far away from the city. We drive 30 miles to piano lessons/Sam's Club/cheap grocery store. We drive 35 miles in the other direction for dance class. It's not perfect, but I'm very happy right now with our small town.