The Middle of Nowhere...

I love our neighborhood.  We had some friends visit the other day for the first time and the first thing she said was "your neighborhood is in the middle of nowhere!"  I know, isn't it great!  The best part is that we really aren't in the middle of nowhere.  We are three miles from a mall in one direction and three miles from town with Meijer, Walmart, Kohls, any restaurant you can think of, etc. in the other direction  There is just nothing but farms, cows and golf courses in between.  The houses across the street back up to a cow farm and sometimes we see cows from our window.  We see cows on our way to church.  We pass a golf course and llama farm on our way to Meijer.  To Charlie, who really did grow up in the country in the middle of nowhere, we live in town.  I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.  There are no corn fields.  To me, we live in the middle of nowhere.  We have a neighborhood which I like (sidewalks, playground, trails, neighbors, small yards).  And we are a little secluded which Charlie likes.  We live in a small town that is growing every day.  But we are a suburb of a big town and get the benefits of that.  True, we never do anything there but it is nice to know it is there and available if we ever get back to doing things.  I only have a 25 minute commute and we can get downtown in 40 minutes.  

A few months ago, my parents were visiting.  That night we went outside to see something that I realized I never lived anywhere I could see it - STARS!  Tons and tons of stars!  We are 3 miles from any city lights and we can see STARS!  I know it is still not as many stars as you could see if we really were out in the country.  But to me, it is more stars than I had ever seen.  Charlie is an amateur astronomer and loves to take his telescope out.  Laci loves the telescope too.  If only it got dark before 9:30 p.m. in the summer.  I hope the telescope and starts is something they can share together.  

Laci plays soccer in a neighboring town.  A very very small town - population 2000.  The church she plays soccer at literally is in the middle of corn fields.  I looked around the other day and realized I didn't even know where the actual town was.  So after the game we drove through the town.  It is cute.  My nephew lives on the east coast next to the ocean / bay.  I saw a picture of his t-ball game and the background was the bay full of sail boats.  I sent them a picture of her soccer where the background is corn fields.   I love corn fields.  

The corn fields in the background are still short.



Calvin trying his hand at soccer.



I am most at home with what I am comfortable with and what I know.  I know flat land and I know cornfields.  I get nervous when we drive to the east coast and have to drive through the mountains of West Virginia.  Even the hills of Pennsylvania are more than I am used too.  I breathe a sign of relief when we get back to the flat lands.  I sent Charlie my thoughts about the Ocean from last week.  His response was "I don't get the aha feeling when looking at the ocean but I do get a sense that possibilities are limitless.  Maybe people from the beach get the aha moment when looking at our corn fields."  I have a feeling that I may be the only person that has an aha moment when looking at corn fields.