We are BEYOND elated at the awesome out-pouring of love on our blog topic. And just because ya'll like it so much we want to give you more. :) So is one of the thousands of stories I have to offer...
Taking place in Concord, California in what looked to have been housing close to being condemned, started my first Coast Guard adventure. I remember pulling into the neighborhood and my jaw literally dropping. The housing scared me. I now wish I would have taken a picture of it to share, maybe the wow-factor would take its full effect. One of my boys was 2 y/o at the time and the other was merely 3 weeks old. We walked into the door of the house we were assigned to and the inside wasn't as bad as the outside looked. There were perks. There was a storage unit attached to the garage and another in the back yard. The back yard had a fence around it, which gave me the great idea of adding a dog to the family someday. Oh, and there was a palm tree. I had never seen a palm tree before. The downsides were that the kitchen was too small, the walls contained asbestos and lead paint, there was no closet space, spiders everywhere, and our household goods weren't expected to arrive for another two weeks. I know I sound like a whiny baby right now, but this was far from the Michigan home I knew and loved.
Another strike California offered me that same week was when I attempted to go grocery shopping. By the time I FOUND a grocery store, one that I had never heard of, I was ready to go back home. I instead continued on what I had ventured to do. I had picked up a few essential items and it was then, when I made it to the cheese aisle that I gave up. $6.00 for 12 slices of Kraft cheese!? This was too rich for my Walmart-$1.99-Kraft-cheese-buying-self. I called my mom crying that I was ready to come home and left my cart in the middle of the store and walked out. I had been defeated by a grocery store.
Allow me to point out that until this move to California I had grown up in Northern Michigan, in a town where everyone knew everyone and if you weren't related you knew someone who was. It was however, one of the biggest towns in that area and it only had 3 stop lights (If I remember correctly). We had two grocery stores to chose from, not the 20 I had encountered in my new town, and if either of them ever charged $6.00 for cheese they would have gone out of business quickly. So needless to say, Concord, California was way out of my league.
Things did get better. I adjusted. I learned where to shop and how to get there. When my spouse deployed 2 weeks after being there, I was forced to meet my neighbors because my dishwasher blew up. My favorite neighbor to this day was Jen. In a conversation about the weather there, she told me "Sometimes when it gets really cold we get this cold film on our cars and the grass." I laughed uncontrollably realizing she was talking about frost. Again, keep in mind I am from an area where -40 and six feet of snow is normal. :)
Well, I guess this has to be it for now. Honestly I could go on for hours, but my children are choosing this very minute to have a wresting match in their bedroom. Tis the story of my life, but I will save those for another day. :)
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