My Town

I was just sitting here thinking how much I love my town! When I first drove through it, I have to admit that I was not impressed. It seemed way out in the boonies, and run down, but it also seemed "right", so I invested myself. A few weeks ago, Fred and I had to do a few errands in town. Jordan needed some cultured stone for a city council presentation so we stopped by a small home improvement store here and asked if we could "check out" some samples to use. The owner just handed us a big display board and told us to bring it back, with no paperwork, just a handshake. We then went to the local hardware store for some fence tools, where one of the city councilmen was working and recognized us and asked about Jordan being at city council that evening. He was excited about Jordan's proposal and project and we left with a "good luck" to go to the hometown grocery store, where Abe's soccer coach was our checker and reminded us about practice the following evening. We drove home on the main street that has no stop lights and just felt privileged to be a part of this "podunk" town where everyone feels like family.

On these cold nights, we can hear the weekend football announcers over at the high school and the trees "over the river and through the woods" are turning brilliant colors. Until the weather turns nasty, the older girls and Abe all walk or bike to or from school and I feel safe because they are surrounded by friends and people who are watching out for them all across town. Our little library "hall" has finally broken ground for a building extension that will double it in size and with a nice little library we will finally be daily life sustaining. We have to leave town to do any shopping, but that is only 15 minutes away and we like the traffic and all of the commercialism to stay in Nampa instead of here.

Of course our dream would be to live out in the country here, but we do have a huge canal bank in back of our yard that we take walks on and pretend is our little wildlife refuge (we see muskrats, herons, snakes, red-winged blackbirds, geese, and ducks) and that ends at a big, open field that has been sold for future subdivision expansion, but which is Olive's dream world right now. And we love our neighbors, who are all friendly and look out for each other, so it is probably a good thing to be here, where I am forced to interact and not allowed to be a home hermit (which I am rather prone to).

It has truly been a blessing in our lives to be here, though it took much traveling to reach this destination. I won't say that we'll never leave, because I've learned my lesson about pretending that I'm completely in charge of my life, but we're sure happy here right now! As soon as we figure out how to simplify more and learn to enjoy the here and now better, as President Monson encouraged us, we may even find peace and true joy.

I am so looking forward to the Harvest Party and all of the months ahead that focus on gratitude and family, and in sharing in Mom and Dad's mission and Mys and Dave's daily adventures.


(The canal bank which extends along the back side of our house and subdivision)