Moving Halfway Across the Country Again

Alright, so I've totally been neglecting this blog lately. The main reason is that my life is once again rearranging itself. Definitely in a good way. My girlfriend got home fine, but we both started pining pretty badly the second she had to leave, which led to planning a trip for me to visit her, which then turned into me taking my dog and moving up north for the winter until she finishes getting certified and can move down here. Yes, me moving up north. For the winter. XD

I spent three years of college up in Minnesota, and being a native Texan it made a pretty big impression on me. At first it was pretty frightening, as winter came in November (instead of maybe pretending to show up in January) and the temperature dropped from "chilly" (65) to "freezing" (45), then bypassed "#$%@ing cold" (20) and kept right on dropping until it was hitting those pesky negative numbers that my poor Texan self had never even heard of before. Every one of those three winters had me wondering, around April when you'd think some hint of spring would have shown itself already and instead the ice and snow was barely even thinking of starting to melt, what the hell am I doing here??

It was hard. Having grown up with school canceled if the temperature hit freezing (like once every five years lol), walking to class buried in layer upon layer of clothing and still feeling like my face was going to fall off in the negative degree windchill was not fun. After awhile I did get used to some things: I learned to appreciate snow and layering, and I loved walking outside to see a world worthy of Christmas postcards every day. I started to refer to 50 degrees as "nice", especially in the spring, and there was something amazing in the total silence and stillness in a frozen landscape. That said, a winter in the Midwest still daunts me. I'll be somewhere slightly warmer (in theory) than where I was. I also have the accumulated knowledge of my three years behind me, if I turn out to have retained it, that is. But it's going to be worth it to be with my girlfriend.

It should work out well, because it means we can start our exchange of life skills that will make both of our lives better: she cooks, and I keep her life organized and clean. That sounds like an awesome deal to me, because I'll do anything to not have to cook (which she really enjoys, the crazy person), and she could really use some help with organization, the one thing I'm really good at besides drawing. She constantly loses things, the poor girl. Anyway, I'm pretty psyched. And it'll mean not having to drive anymore, thank god, because she'll do the driving when we need to go somewhere. That by itself is worth moving halfway across the country.