The Rambling Post

I haven't been able to post anything lately, but I have a little time now so I'll just ramble on (reflect) about the past few weeks.

We have been in Colorado Springs now for about 2 weeks. Even though the weather has been a little out of the ordinary (a lot of snow and cold), we are all in agreement that we made the correct decision to move out of southern California. The way I look at it, if this is the worst that it will ever get here in the winter, then we have been handling it well and we will be able to survive the 'normal' winters. That seemed to be the biggest concern for Lisa.

It is all about perception. We are temporarily living in a furnished apartment until our home in Harbor City sells, then we will have funds to purchase a home here. It is kind of funny that a couple of the 'locals' here have said to be very careful because we are living in a bad part of town. What? You do not know what a bad part of town is. In the LA area, this would be considered one of the better neighborhoods.

We have gotten a few offers on our home. What we have found is that the people interested in our home are looking for a starter home. Can you believe it? $390,000 for a starter home in Los Angeles. Offers have fallen through because potential buyers have poor credit or are trying to buy with no money down or just can't afford it. A starter home here in Colorado Springs would probably be around $150,000 or so (I'm guessing).

There is definitely a different culture here. I have noticed that (w/o exception) the people here are a lot friendlier. The employees in stores actually look like they enjoy their jobs. It shows. There seems to be a lot more teenagers working in positions here that would be taken by people working because they need the income to live in Los Angeles. For instance, in the grocery stores, the cashiers are young high school or college age kids. In LA, these positions are taken by people who have been working at the store for 15, 20, or 30 years.

Speaking of grocery stores, you cannot buy wine and they have a very limited selection of beer there. You must go to a liquor store. And because of the law, all liquor stores are closed on Sunday.

I have seen the following message on at least 3 different billboards around town: "Abortion is always wrong. --God." This is something that would be out of the ordinary in LA. It seems to be the norm here.

Lisa started her job on Friday. It seems that she will really like her job. I drove her into work during a snowstorm. I am getting used to driving in the snow and ice. We actually 'discovered' that our minivan has front wheel drive! Something that was not too important in a warm weather climate. We hit a major traffic jam on the way to work. Luckily we left a little early because of the storm and we got to her work in 10 minutes instead of 7.

Things that we still need to do (pray for us):
--sell our home
--buy a home here with at least 4 bedrooms and a big back yard.
--find a parish
--decide whether we will continue to homeschool
--continue to enjoy Colorado Springs' awesome scenery