Happy New Year in February

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, and I really am not sure what the delay was. It’s funny when you think about writing about your life and you try to decide if any given day is worthy of sharing with the world (even the little, tiny world of blog readers that I have). It makes you think about your days, and mine have been full.

Since being here last, I have celebrated Thanksgiving, finished a semester of grad work in biology, applied to multiple PhD programs, celebrated our first Christmas here in LA, visited family and chilled out in Missouri, transported frozen steaks and ground beef through airport security, celebrated my grandmother’s 80th birthday in Alabama, visited Pennsylvania and had a wonderful time with family, transported frozen goat and chicken though airport security, bought much needed sofas for our house, started another grad class in freshwater management, attempted to start a food garden only to realize that we are surrounded on all sides by shade, and finally settled for a few little flower pots on our front porch. Given the fact that we have already lost a few cactus plants, I’m sure the johnny jump-ups and primrose are shivering in their pots. Perhaps we should discreetly dispose of our shriveled cacti out the back door just to save them the horror.

Needless to say, there have been a lot of air miles and copious amounts of frozen meat transportation in the last three months. Even with all of that traveling and transporting, Rodney and I are finally starting to get settled into our lives here. It’s a slow transition. Since we hit the road pretty soon after getting married, we are now just getting our feet under us and finally buying things like Tupperware, a toaster, and sofas. I am a total sofa girl, so when we found two leather couches on craigslist for only $200 total, I about hit the roof. It only took us two weekends, one Uhaul cargo van, and two failed sets of Google directions to finally get them in our house, but we now have butt space, so feel free to bring yours on over and sit awhile.

Our great discovery of the week has been Descanso Gardens. Only five minutes from our house, this 160 acre park is a beautiful collection of camellia trees, streams, rose bushes, meandering paths, native California plants, and much more. We kept seeing the signs, but we had hiked above the place and decided that it was really small and there must not be much there. We were so wrong, and now we are members. The word Descanso in Spanish means “rest,” and it is the perfect place to get away and sit on a bench next to a little waterfall surrounded by green--a real commodity here in southern CA. Right now I am looking at a koi fish that is eyeing up a big pile of leaves in the stream in front of me. It is so pleasant and a perfect place to just be. I hope you are able to find those places of rest in your little part of the world...