What we love about Texas

A few days into the new year Shawn informed me that his new years resolution was to learn to love Texas.  I was a little caught off guard because we are not normally the type of people to make new years resolutions and I really thought he already loved Texas.   Upon further discussion I was relieved to discover that I am not the only one who sometimes struggles to find the redeeming qualities of our current home state.   The bugs are gigantic, the summer is so hot it feels like we live in the center of the sun, and we're far away from so many of the people who love us the best.   I feel like I've already lived here for years when in reality we unlocked our front door for the first time about 9 months ago.   Our life here is often so different from our life in Minnesota that I find myself feeling completely disconnected from the hopes and plans I had stored in my heart for years.

The differences are hard to explain and I don't want to paint a picture of our life here that is anything other than grateful.  Gratitude doesn't erase the hard parts of this move, our schedule or our new landscape but it does wonders for our character and our attitudes.  For that reason, we are resolved to learn to love Texas this year.  I know I will continue to have days when all I want is to be able to pack up my car and drive Nicole just 3 short hours to visit my parents.  I will continue to miss walking through rows upon rows of freshly grown produce at the farmers market and I will forever miss how easy it was to get to and from the Minneapolis-St.Paul Airport.  I will still remember a day when the ants I encountered didn't bite and how close together everything was, even though we lived in a city.  And yet somewhere deep in my heart I know that if we had the chance to move back to the midwest tomorrow, there would be things I would miss about Texas.

Love that endures is never accidental or passive so we are going to stop waiting around for the day when we suddenly like Texas.  We are moving forward with a clear intention to discover and celebrate the things that we like about our new home.  Given the fact that yesterday was Valentine's Day, we thought it would be appropriate to start working on our resolution.  Here's the list we came up with:

-Our neighbors
-The library
-The peach tree in our backyard
-Our church
-The restaurants we have discovered
-The 70 degree days that scatter the calendar throughout January and February
-The people
-The sunrises and sunsets
-No state income tax
-The grocery stores
-Kansas City

We want to be the kind of people who love our actual lives, especially when it would be easier not to. Stay tuned next week as I dive a little deeper into the list above.

What do you love about where you live?
Love,
Erica, Shawn & Nicole