Holy Breakfast!

Spotted at the supermarket today-- Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Cereal.

Yup, you read that right. As in the Bible verse, conveniently placed on the front of the box for your perusal. What better way to market your breakfast cereal than to remind shoppers that the Lord has commanded us to "Take also unto the Wheat, and Barley and Beans and Lentils and Millet and Spelt and put them in one vessel and make bread of it."

Well done cereal makers, looks like you covered that one to a T. Now folks can rest easy knowing they are following the lord's (rather specific) food-related commandments as soon as they start their days.

Over Already

As it turns out, I have been rather terrible at keeping up this blog. I have not succeeded in updating friends and family in any sort of regular fashion, and I have not posted hilarious/interesting pictures of our adventures. I have failed at going country.

How poetic then, that the moment our decision to move back to Los Angeles was made, the first thing I could think to do was update the blog. It appears, dear readers, that I work best under pressure. So in my last weeks here in Dallas I'm going to do my best to document what life was like "back when we lived in Texas." 

Stay tuned!

My first cowboy

As I've mentioned before, despite what everyone may think, there actually aren't too many real life cowboys in Dallas. I think they prefer the country country. In fact, I've been in Dallas for a little over a month, and hadn't seen a single person wearing either a cowboy hat or cowboy boots. 

Until this weekend! 

For you enjoyment below, I bring you my first encounter with the elusive Hat/Boots combo. Considering it was in a mall, in front of Zara, and there were no spurs, I was rather disappointed. The hunt for a real cowboy in Dallas continues!

A little of both

Leaving Los Angeles was hard. And getting to Dallas--harder. I was so afraid of what would be waiting for me, what was lying out there in the unknown waiting to envelop me. Turns out it wasn't nearly as nefarious as I'd imagined. 

Yes, Dallas is different. Texas is not California, and Texans won't hesitate to tell you that. But that's not all bad. The longer I'm here, the more I realize that my life doesn't have to be the complete rejection of one culture for the absolute acceptance of the other. It's okay to have bits of both. Don't get me wrong, no amount of time in Texas is going to make me a Glenn Beck girl, but I might be open to new music or foods. 

The tile pictured above is now hanging in our kitchen. (The top portion says Shalom, for the non-Hebrew speakers). It's serving as a reminder that it's okay to accept that there might be some things I like about Dallas--and that that's okay. That embracing aspects of a life here doesn't mean I don't miss or want a life back in LA. That it's okay to say Shalom, and follow it with y'all. 

The first time back

Last week I took my first trip back to LA since the move. And it was.............................nice. I hate to admit it, but it felt really good to be home. I didn't need to look at a map every time I left the house, I already knew which restaurants I wanted to go to, and I got to see family and friends. It was great. So great, in fact, that it made it hard to leave again to head back.

Oddly enough though, when I got back it wasn't so bad. I got to sleep in my own bed again (which is always nice), the weather wasn't that bad (at least that night), and Drew was waiting for me with plans with friends. As much as I miss LA, Dallas is slowly starting to feel a bit more familiar. Coming back wasn't so bad. Maybe distance really does make the heart grow fonder....

Duckies!!!

I love anything in miniature form. They're just so much cuter than full grown things. It's one of the reasons why I love puppies and babies so much. So you can imagine how much I might love baby duckies....

Our apartment complex has a little park area with a stream, where ducks tends to hang out. Very serene. And when we moved in to the apartment there was a duck right outside our windowsill. A few days later we noticed she was sitting on some eggs. 12 to be exact. So each morning we'd peek out the window to see how she was doing, and when those baby ducks were coming.  

On Saturday morning we went for our regular check in, and saw that they had hatched! 

So adorable! They just huddled together and tried to keep warm, and participated in generally adorable behavior. 

By Sunday they were gone, but one little guy was left behind. He was all alone, shaking and basically crying out for love. Broke my heart. So we called Animal Control to find out what we should do. Maybe there was a way to get the mother to come back? Maybe we should put on gloves and take him down to the park area so his mom could see him?

Animal control told us that if he was alone now, it was because his mom had abandoned him. So no amount of gloved transport was going to help. We were told to take him in to the Animal Control office so they could properly take care of him. So we did. Drew picked him up, we placed him a warm blanket in a box, cranked the heat in the car, and drove him to the office. 

By the time we got there, I was completely in love. The little guy was chirping away, and all I could think was how much I did not want to hand him over. But.....I did. When I picked him up for the first time he was almost imperceptible. It felt like he didn't weigh anything at all. He was just one little soft fuzzball of cuteness. This is how tiny he was

We handed him off and drove home. Remind me again why I can't keep a baby duck? :( 

First Impressions

I've been here for longer than a week now, and am slowly getting adjusted. We've done quite a bit of work on the apartment, so there are really only 3 more boxes to unpack. And since we're waiting to get a shelf from Ikea delivered to us in order to do it, they may stay closed for just a while longer.

Mom came into town just a few days after I got here and worked her magic with closets and bathroom spaces and limited storage. She's amazing, thanks mama!

First impressions are often....well wrong. So I'm curious how much of what I've noted up until now I'll still come to believe in 6 months or so....but for now, here are my first impressions of Dallas.

1. It's hot! And there's this retarded thing called humidity here. Ugh, not fun. Today it's 88 degrees, humid and grey. Fun times in May!

2. No one wears cowboy hats or cowboy boots. Seriously. I have yet to see a single person. I think that trend tends to stay in the more rural parts of the state. But I'll keep an eye out!

3. Tollways suck. In what will likely become a topic of much further discussion, Los Angeles tends to spoil people in many ways. The weather (see #1), and the freeways being two of those ways. "But what?!" you say.  "Surely you can't mean the Los Angeles freeways have anything positive about them!" To which I will answer, "Aha, but they do! They are, after all, free. So when getting acquainted with the city, and needing to make constant recalculations to your route much to your GPS' chagrin, it will not cost you $8 to go 3 miles."  Also, you are spared the rather obvious annoyance of the tollbooth person and persistent honking of the cars behind you when you do not have the exact change required to Pass Go and Collect $200.

4. Hello cheaper living! Not only is our rent waaaaaaaaaaaay less than it was in L.A., our new car insurance is exactly half of what it used to be. That's right, HALF. Not too shabby! In what will surely become a topic of  much further discussion, Los Angeles spectacularly distorts people's notions of what's an acceptable amount to pay for....well, anything. I knew this of course, but I clearly didn't know it, know it. Lesson learned!

5. People are....exactly the same as in LA. Before I got here I heard one of two things about the people in Texas: They're all conservative hicks that will shoot anything that moves, and They're the sweetest people ever! Well, turns out neither of those are true. People are people--here, there and everywhere. So while no one has yet to lecture me on the many accomplishments of the venerable George W. Bush, no one has brought a Welcome to the Neighborhood fruit basket to my door either. Maybe I've just got to give both some time....