Sunday, June 12, 2011

Month 9: My thoughts on moving to Houston!

WE ARE MOVING TO HOUSTON! On our first date MT (my husband) told me that he wanted to move to Houston one day. Somewhere between that date and our wedding his dream of moving to Houston became my dream too. The Friday before this past Friday MT was offered a great position in Houston, so our dream has come true and we are MOVING TO HOUSTON!!! You may ask, why Houston? There are so many reasons! We live in NYC one of the most expensive cities in the world. We love this city, but we are spending so much money to live here. Given the cost of living in NYC, you would expect that the education system and the housing would offer a fair trade back, but, unfortunately this is not the case. So we are now moving to a state where there is no state income tax, a relatively stable economy, low cost of living and where a large part of his family is located.

Logically, it is the best possible move for our family, but emotionally I’m dying. This is the most painful move I have ever had to make. My family and I moved to NYC from St. Lucia when I was 3 years old. I have no memories of living in St. Lucia, so NYC is the only home I know. This is where my father taught me how to ride a bike, where my father taught me how to skip rocks in the Hudson River, were my family took long drives down 5th Avenue to see the store windows light up at night, where I went to my school dances, where I bathed in fire hydrants on hot summer days, where I had my first job, where my entire family became American citizens, where my parents voted in American elections, where my mother learned she had cancer and became a survivor, and where I learned that my father past away. I can go on and on, but basically this city has been everything to me and I love it. I will miss NYC dearly. I will mourn my departure from New York like the loss of a close family member. Thank you New York, I love you!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Month 9

What did you do for Memorial Day?

We went camping!!! It was my first time sleeping out in the wild in a tent. It wasn’t that wild since we were at a campsite that had the basic amenities. My husband married his total opposite. He is an athlete, I run into walls (and I don’t care). He loves camping and being outside; I dropped out of day camp (and I don’t care) and can be described as a homebody,

but one thing we do have in common is our love for trying new things, so even though I had never been camping, he knew that I would be willing to give it a try and I did! We invited another couple to go with us and on Friday, May 27, 2011 he picked me up from work and we all headed north to Lake George, NY. Lake George is about a 3.5 hour drive from New York City and is definitely worth the trip. Lake George is beautiful, sweet and the campsite administrators were very organized. The camp site looked a bit like a suburban subdivision, but with tons of trees and no houses. We had a bare plot of land surrounded by trees, a cooking pit, a picnic table and one tap of running water. The campsite did have bathrooms and showers on site but you had to walk a short distance to get to them.

My favorite part of camping:

1. Sleeping in a tent rocks! I don’t know why but I slept like a baby. It rained both nights and it didn’t bother me. In fact, I found the rain drops hitting the tent soothing.
2. The showers - Yes it was a pain in the butt to walk to the showers and a bit awkward for me to share showers… but the water that fell from those pipes did amazing things for my hair, which really helped make up for the fact that I looked like s*&t! Getting dressed in a tent is not for me, but I will discuss that more in the “not like” section below.
3. The food- We only had 3 seasonings with us: olive oil; salt; and black pepper. We cooked so simply and healthy and everything tasted great. Something about using wood for grilling food made everything taste much better.

Things I did not like about camping:

1. I really missed having a dresser. Something about having to sort out my clothes on a floor in small tent was too much for me.
2. Cold Rain. A lot of cold rain during the daytime sucks anywhere you are, but especially when camping. It rained on and off for most of the weekend. You can’t cook outside if it is raining too hard which means you can’t eat. Lucky for us the rain did break every so often, so we didn’t starve to death. The rain also limited us from doing some outdoor activities like jogging because if all of our clothes got wet would have no place to dry them. That was a bit disappointing because I really wanted see what it feels like to jog on soil as opposed to the streets on New York.

Overall it was good couples’ weekend and I can see why my husband loves it… So yes, we will camp again!!!