Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Observations from the early days . . .


The granola on the left is store bought, Lars made the granola on the right with help from the kids.

Back before I started this blog, I used to email the family and many friends with monthly updates. This is part of an update I sent out on 08/06/2007, I wrote some updated thoughts in red:
1) Dogs - Lars and I can be walking down the street with our three beatific children and no one says a ding word, however, if we bring Maggie with us everyone stops to bend down and pet her and make baby talk with her. Invariably, someone will mention something about her beautiful, big, brown eyes. Hellooooo? Still so true.
2) Boobs - they're everywhere and they're fake. Uh-huh.
3) Housing prices. Seems like the rest of the continent has taken note of the 'buyers' market' except for San Diego, people have been sitting on their $750K properties since January without lowering the price. Still overpriced, still sitting on properties for long periods of time, but prices have definitely come down.
4) Cars. They're shiny, they're foreign and they're pretty. All of them. Even the day laborers drive pretty cars. Dude, rust was totally okay in Detroit, a little dent in the front bumper . . . no biggie. We are so, so, so embarrassing to ourselves. Yep!
5) Sunny Southern California? Well, let me just say that it's taken until August 1st for the "May Gray, June Gloom" to go away. In defense of the sun, it has been luscious here for about a week now. This summer seemed sunnier.
6) Rich people are everywhere, or they're super-mortgaged out. We're still small potatoes here.
7) Es muy importante de hablar espanol aqui. My Spanish is so much better now!
8) Just when you think you've got the sun all figured out, you go outside and get yourself and your children so sunburned that your skin starts to resemble UPS packing material. Still haven't caught on.
9) Most strangers are rude, they steal your parking spot and they gawk at your muffin-top like you're from outer space. I would just like to say to all these folks out here that I am a Michigan girl and so if my abs resemble a Twinkie it's only because my body still thinks it needs to store up for the winter! People don't feel so much like strangers here anymore, I suppose I don't feel so much out of place anymore either. Plus, I don't have a muffin-top any more. I have a fundus!
10) It could be worse. Things are good.

2 comments:

Mommela said...

It's been a long year and a half for you. I'm so glad that you're feeling at home now--even if your home isn't near my home. You and Lars and the kids are richly blessed.

Carolyn said...

Yay fundus! I'll take that over a muffin top any day.
We do still miss you back here in flyover country.