Reflections and Things To Come

I have been having some very vivid dreams lately, so vivid that they wake me up with a start.  I surmised that these are happening because I am coming off some medication that was making me feel weak and my muscles exhausted.  As I was relating these dreams to my better half, memories came flooding back to me, and I realized the things that I will miss when we move (hopefully this year).  There are really only a handful of things that I will miss, including Coletta's, the Italian restaurant that we frequent on Christmas Eve, but there are so many others from my youth, that I have missed for too many years.  I thought I needed to record them here, just as a way to sort out my thinking.

I realize that where you live plays an enormous part in who you are and how your personality develops.  Living in the south has changed me, and I don't like the result.  Although I fight to remain who I know myself to be, I have become angry.  The people down here are gossiping, conniving, back-stabbers.  The only decent ones I have met have been from another part of the country.  I don't like what living here has done to me or my family.  I remember a time when we experienced "the good life", or at least what WE consider to be a good life.  That is what we are going back to now.

I miss having four seasons.  I miss looking forward to summer.  I miss the smell of fallen leaves and the hint of winter in the air.  I miss the smell of pine trees and the crispness of birch trees in the north.  I miss snow.  Boy, do I miss snow.  It brings cleanliness to an otherwise unsavory existence, and it is a great equalizer.  I miss watching large, beautiful spots of lace falling by moonlight.  I miss clean, cool air.  I miss the Northern Lights.  I miss the first smell of spring in the air, even though the rest of the world has not awakened to it.

I miss the way people help each other and are kind to each other during winter months.  I've never actually met a truly rude person up north.  By "up north", I mean the Northwoods.  People help each other.  I miss the work ethic of the north.  We work hard, and we play hard.

So what's the next step?  I have a career that bores me, but it pays the bills, for now.  My family has had a hard time securing work, so I had to come up with a plan that will allow us the freedom to go wherever we want to go, and give us not just a living, but a life.  We are starting a food truck.  We will use recipes that have been handed down to us through the generations, and some that we have created ourselves.  We are a niche market, and after doing extensive research, I believe it will go over very well.  We are hoping for a launch in March.

We have much to do in the meantime.  Our house still needs many improvements, just to get it back to the "charming" status it once held.  The changes we have made so far are good ones, and have made us very comfortable.  More changes are coming.  Hopefully, we can get some of this accomplished in the next month or two before launch.  I will continue to work at my job for as long as I can, and as long as we need the income.  But I have come to realize that I will never be free as long as I work for someone else.  I am getting to the point in my life where I just want to be free from the riffraff and corporate circus with which I have to contend, and be happy, making others happy with food.  People have to eat, right?

Where, oh, where to live...

That's all going to depend on what my lungs can handle.  The hubs and I will be trying out Colorado in April.  If that fails, Wisconsin is next on my list, as is Minnesota.  It's time to be me.  Who's with me?

Nazdrowie'

Paczki Puta