first steps

I have taken a number of steps already to adjust myself to living again in a place where it is necessary to drive almost everywhere, where there are almost as many cows as people (2:3) and where a lot (it seems like a majority) of people here have  lived in the same place their whole lives as did their parents and their grandparents.  For example, my husband's cousin's children are the 10th generation in their family living in the same county, not even the same region, but the SAME COUNTY.  


However, I do not want you to get the impression that this is all about rural bashing.  If I disliked it that much, I would move.  There are many aspects of rural living that I love, and having straddled the rural/urban divide while in college, I recognize that there are misconceptions about both, as is very funnily illustrated in the 30 Rock episode, "Stone Mountain."





I will surely spend more time about why I choose to live here, but for now I will get back to my first steps:

• Instead of living out in the woods, where I really did need to drive to get anywhere, I now live in a very small village with a couple of key amenities, like sidewalks, a public access lake, a post office and a playground.  
• I went back to school and studied rural planning in order to effectively contribute to the rural place in which I live.
• I now work from home, so I do not need to spend a huge chunk of my day commuting to a more urban place for work.
• I make a point of going to cities occasionally to get my fix and whenever possible I do this by train.