Getting Real With Danica Sorber
I was born and raised in Sacramento, California. Not only is Sacramento the state capital of California; it is also home to millions of people, all spread out over several miles of river soggy land.
I lived in apartment complexes that were basically boxes of sardine cans stacked on top of each other, and I was serenaded to sleep each night with the noisy and non-stop trumpeting and guitar strumming of mariachi music. I was so used to loud noises, cramped quarters (I lived with 3 other people and several cats in less than 700 sqft), traffic, fast food in walking distance, pizza delivery, bus stops, light rail, school only a mile away, and all my friends in the same apartment complex that it became quite the shock when I moved east for school and landed smack in the middle of rural Pennsylvania!
After graduating from high school, someone very dear to my heart offered to pay for college. I accepted. Two years later, I was attending a college in Clarks Summit, Pa. Clarks Summit is only a hop, skip, and jump from Scranton (made popular by “The Office”), and a few hours drive from Philadelphia. Clarks Summit is not what you’d call a metropolitan area, but it has many businesses, homes, schools, churches, etc…that living there was comfortably comparable to my old home in SacTown (without the loud mariachi music, busses, or light rail).
Now, I sacrificed the big city busy, for the mid-sized town, but that’s not when the real poop hit the fan…that came 2 years later when I got married.
In 2004, I married my husband and we immediately got pregnant (what’s this ‘we’ stuff?) with my daughter. In 2005, we were able to get a personal loan to purchase a mobile home, which was to be our starter home. Five years and two children later, we are cramped into this 1000sqft trailer, with its tiny bedrooms and even tinier living space (isn’t all living space tiny with the toys and possessions of three small children?).
Finally, we decided to actually bite the bullet and purchase a home. After several months of anguish and pity parties (long story), we closed on our new home in rural Factoryville, Pennsylvania…oh my.
Sure, the home is 3000sqft of wonderful space, but the location is less than what I’d dreamed of my dream home. Yes, having over an acre of land is a bonus- the kids can run and play without running me over, but the indigenous creatures are mind bogglingly yucky.
TICKS! REALLY?! I know that they are everywhere, but I never had to pick them off of my own children before! Oh how I miss city living where the only pests you have to worry about are making the big bucks in politics!
Not only am I dealing with TICKS, but ever since we got a dog (more space should equal new family pet, right?), I am dodging steaming landmines while chasing my kids down in the front yard to divest them of their tiny parasites!!
Oh, my, WORD!
TICKS and DOG POOP! REALLY?! I want my false sense of security back!
Oh, well. That’s the sacrifice I made for my family because I love them, and want a better future for them. This city girl will just have to learn quirky tips for tick removal, and get really good at the dog poop avoidance maneuver.
I agree, it’s quite of a shocker moving from city to country life. When moving from sparkling clean Canadian city to rural Missouri, ticks and dog poop were not my problem. My first encounter with chiggers is what really challenged my tolerance to the point I was ready to pack and go back to my squeaky clean and organized city life. Well, it took some adjustment and a good sense of humor to get used to the new realities. Now, living in a totally different part of the world, where I have to deal with scorpions and spiders, believe it or not I miss the chiggers.
I agree with Valentina, moving from city to country life can be shocking especially if you are living in the city most of your life. The country life is much more different from that of the city, you need to be really patient on how life is in the country. Dealing with those creatures can be a problem but once you get used to it and know how the country life works, you are all set to live a beautiful and peaceful life.
Dog too is a real problem! It’s as much an issue in the country as in the city, and for some reason people think it just becomes fertilizer when they leave it behind. It’s gross, full of bacteria, and often parasites! I have a blog dedicated to stopping irresponsible dog owners (http://picturesofdogdoodoo.blogspot.com), thanks for sharing!