Well, you should know by now that I live in Arizona. If you've never
been to AZ, let me tell you what its like. During the winter, it feels
like what the rest of the country feels like in the spring. If you want
to know what it feels like during the summer, walk into your kitchen, turn on the oven, and go ahead and crawl inside. It's a desert, so its very brown and dry and not very pretty.
When the theme for March's Ten Favorite Things was "The Place You Call Home," I had a really hard time coming up with ten things about Arizona that I loved. Or even liked. I thought it was ugly, boring, hot, and all around just a terrible place. I never understood why people would choose to live here. I had it in my mind that I would be out of here as soon as possible. Especially being in Germany where everything was green and pretty- I realized that I wanted to wake up everyday, look out my window, and see pretty green grass and have a nice view, not rock and cacti.
But as graduation gets closer, and DJ and I get closer to spending our lives together, I think about living in Arizona more and more. We're going to move back to Phoenix once DJ is out of the Air Force, and at first, I wasn't happy about it. I knew we had to, because that's where we both needed to go for school and we want to be around our families once we start our own family, but I still didn't like the idea.
I must say, though. It's growing on me. Being in Montana, I've realized how much I belong in a big city. There isn't much to do here. There's a ton of outdoorsy things to do, but you have to drive far and the weather has to be nice. So it makes it tricky to just get up and go without planning. So basically almost every day can be pretty boring. DJ and I have fun together because, well, we're together. But I definitely couldn't imagine living here forever. There's a mall with like 4 stores. We go to the same few restaurants. THERE'S NO IN N OUT. Its so fun being here with him, but I'm very excited for us to move home so we have more to do.
Plus, my friends are back home. I have a total of one friend in Great Falls. I have a total of two friends at home so its definitely better there. Ha, just kidding I have a few more friends than that, but anyway. I know that DJ misses his friends terribly, and I know that when I move here at the end of the year I'm going to miss mine too. We dream about the day we can invite all of our friends over for a barbecue and see them (and our family) whenever we want.
Phoenix is really a great city. Sure, its ugly. Its hot. There's too many homeless people and really bad traffic. But its also huge and there are so many opportunities. There's plenty of opportunity for us to find jobs once we move back here. ASU (boo) is there so we have a place to go to school. I'll still be a Wildcat at heart though, don't worry. There are so many cute restaurants and things to do for date night. It's a great place to raise kids. There are some really nice neighborhoods, and some amazing people. We have every professional sport, tons of good concerts, and some really fun places to go out.
I really have a love hate relationship with this place I call home. Some days I'm so beyond excited to live there again. Some days I tell DJ we have to move to Colorado or something. But in all seriousness, I'm lucky that I'm from such a great city.
Do you love the place you call home?