California Dreaming ~ of leaving?

It has been 8 months since our migration to the "left" coast and we have decisions to make!

With the blood bath the housing market has taken our house still hasn't sold and we are seriously considering pulling the plug on the promised land and reclaiming our life in the midwest.

People think of California and imagine - sun-kissed, west coast paradise, happy healthy living with a touch of Hollywood glamour thrown in - guess what?! It's a myth!

Sanctuary cities, high taxes, bad air, filthy beaches, gangs and crime - California is no longer The Golden State in my opinion.

Deciding to pack it in and head home will not come without a cost. David will still work in California which means the family will constantly be split up.

I want to be there and be the shoulder Dave can lean on when he has a bad day at work and shouldn't he be able to come home each night to a home cooked meal and his family.

I also want my kids to go to a school where English is the first language of most people attending.

The weather here is a constant 70 degrees year round. I feel I value allot of the same things many in California value- a slower lifestyle with less consumption of material things and damn it - I HATE SNOW! I do miss fall though.

As we rethink the California dream allot of decisions have to be weighed....one of them being you can NOT get a decent slice of pizza out here (:

Life in the LBC

Lately,  I've been thinking a lot about "transitions" and how we're all perpetually in one.  It seems like every time I turn around someone is transitioning from one job to another, from school year schedule to summer vacation, from one apartment to another, or even from one mindset to another.

I must admit that part of my preoccupation with transition is that I have gone through some pretty big ones myself, leaving my friends in the midwest to begin a new life on the west coast.  Usually a pretty easy-going person who has moved numerous times to other countries even, I found this move to be the most difficult.

I  am proud to say I am finally feeling more settled in my new home after 8 months but is that because I am changing to adapt to the California lifestyle?  Things that once were so important to me, that constant need to acquire more stuff, is no long what I live for and I am looking at the world around me through new eyes it seems.  Although, I lay in bed at night now wondering if I have unconsciously been poisoning my family with the leaching of BPA's from plastic containers and wondering how big the pacific trash vortex will be when my children start having babies?    I am fully aware that moving to California has opened my eyes to see how small I am in the scheme of things but how my actions can have major impact on the environment.

I guess we are all transitioning, all the time.  We transition personally, as a community, as a country ~ the list is endless. It can be hard, liberating, and overwhelming. What seems to make the difference, what makes transition easier, is when we find support through it.  As I continue to transition to my new home, I am educating myself on an eco-friendly way of life and that can't be a bad thing so I continue to believe I am where I'm suppose to be........I look forward to sharing my adventure with you through this blog, I hope you enjoy!