Friday, October 28, 2011

The Idaho Cold Begins

Okay, I can deal with early fall, when the days cool off just a bit, but I really have a hard time with the fall in general.  It means that blessed summer is coming to a close, no more warm evenings out in the backyard talking with Mr. Spud; no more blissful morning or evening walks.  In this part of Idaho the beautiful, fun part of fall lasts about two days.  Early this week I was thinking how fun it was to see the trees with their colorful leaves, then the night time temps went down to the 20s and all the trees decided it was too hard to keep up the pretense.  The dropped their leaves en masse.  When I took our spudlets to school this morning I felt very grateful for our garage, I looked at the cars with thick frost and a small spot scraped out for a driver to see through.  Winter is coming, summer has died.  Idaho winters are long and cold.  There is some beauty in it all, to be sure.  But I will miss summer and try not to think about how far away the spring will be.   Hold on, the Idaho Cold has officially arrived and methinks it is here to stay.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Who is Reluctant Spud?

I never wanted to live in Idaho (aka. the Spud state).  When I say never, I mean NEVER. EVER!  I grew up in neighboring Utah and didn't like anything associated with Idaho.  I thought it was way too boring, too benign, too slow.  I almost missed out on the best thing in my life because of my prejudice.  See, my husband is from Idaho.  I didn't want to date someone from Idaho because I didn't ever want to have the possibility of living in Idaho.  I decided even before we dated that I wouldn't date him because I didn't want to live in Idaho.  When he told me he didn't want to live in Idaho again, I thought I might venture to date him.  And I did, and he is AMAZING, and we fell in love and got married and started our family.  We didn't live in Idaho for a few years, then something big happened, as my husband was finishing his Masters a small university in Idaho asked him to apply for a position.  I knew even before he interviewed that someday soon, I'd be living in Idaho.  But...I came to peace with the idea, thinking it would be a short stay because I knew my husband wanted to go on and get his doctorate.  But when the time for the doctorate came, the little university told him that they would let him take a leave of absence and then come back when he was done.  So, he did and we came back, built a house, and are putting down some roots.  Until recently I was still bound and determined to find a way out of this little town and all of Idaho.  Then something happened, I realized that I don't mind living in a small town, I don't mind living in a place where people still trust other people, where my kids have great friends, where we can feel safe.  And I also realized that I have it pretty good.  My husband has a great job, he works close enough to come home for lunch most days and we have some great friends.

These days I admit that I don't know how long we'll live in Idaho.  But even if it is 'forever' I'm okay with that.  BUT...I'm still a reluctant spud.