Saturday, September 29, 2012

Fall Again

So, it's been over a year since we moved here from Utah.  Northern Virginia (or NOVA, as we locals call it) is amazing, nasty rat children not withstanding.  Our concern over the longevity of the car has kept us closer to home than I would like, but we've still visited amazing places like Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Mason Neck State Park (ticks!), Virginia Beach, Washington DC more times than I can count, both Air and Space Museums (DC and Dulles/Chantilly), and other mundane-seeming but actually really cool places like Wegmans (both in Fairfax and in Gainesville), the dog parks in Vint Hill and Reston, an amazing little bakery in Arlington (http://www.heidelbergbakery.com/), and a cheap little greasy spoon in Manassas with surprisingly good diner food and perhaps more than a few flies in the summer (http://www.ashtonfamilyrestaurant.com/).

Things aren't how I would have them if I had the power to make it all wonderful. The kids in this neighborhood are scary and unpleasant (they've taken to stalking our boy on his Play Station Network and ridiculing him--we only just figured out today that he can block them), and the money situation is always tight, but, all in all, here is absolutely better than Utah.  The constant blooming of trees and plants, the greenness, the amazing sound of cicadas and frogs in the night (spring peepers!  Tree frogs!  Leopard frogs!), the astounding array of birds (including our hoped-for cardinals), and the way that wind actually cools you off.  Not like the hot desert blasts of Utah summers.  Here is absolutely better, even if it's not yet perfect.

Sadly, there has been one really bad thing--I'm gaining weight.  Pretty quickly.  I have got to find that place in my head again or I'm going to totally blow this, and I'm not sure my health can take that again. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of our beautiful new world.  Love!






1 comment:

  1. Yay for flora and fauna! Boo on nasty hillbilly families!
    On the weight gain, I read that diabetics can experience a "grace period" when they first get diagnosed. For a while, your body behaves and you think it's going to be easier to manage, and then suddenly it will get nasty again. That might be partly to blame for the weight gain. There's also the fact that it's really hard to stay "good" forever, and every dieter backslides. That's why over 90% of us that do lose weight end up gaining it back. I'm still way proud of you and inspired, I have never managed my health as well as you have been this past year or so. Try to work on not gaining any more weight, rather than worrying about losing it, for now. Hugs.

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