Our Goings-On in Small Town USA

This past month has been one of constant change, discovery, work, and play. Our new home town is easy to navigate, has pretty much anything one might want/need, and is friendly besides all that.

People here stop for the yellow light and are already stopped by the time it turns red - unlike central NJ where the yellow means "hurry up" and the red means "only a few more cars!" That is actually taking some getting-used-to since it was downright dangerous to stop on the yellow for fear of being rear-ended, as happened to my spouse twice.

And going in to the Social Security Office - wow! Maybe there is one or two people there before you, but that's about it. And the guard is so talkative that you may as well give him your whole history right off the bat because he's going to try and get it out of you before your turn to talk to the SS people. And picture this: I walked in with my small purse and he asks if I have any guns or knives hidden in my purse. My reply (on the second visit, not the first) was to say, "Yes, four or five at least" at which he laughs heartily. Behind me a mentally retarded woman came in with her care-taker. She wore a cowboy outfit, complete with toy holster and cap gun. The guard simply asked the care-taker if it was a cap gun - in NJ, they would have been "detained" and heaven only knows what else!

Meanwhile, we've finally cleared out enough space in the huge double garage to actually park both cars inside it. And it only took us one month!


And I've transplanted some hostas from here to there:

plus planted some new perennials in the front garden.




As for my studio, this was how it looked last week before I had any time to spend in there and make it a workable space.





I'll post photos once I'm actually working in there - hopefully, by the end of this week!

And some good news: both of us have lost weight since our arrival, probably due to all the physical work we've been doing on and in the house, garage, and yard. That's a happy thing!