A big thank you to my readers!

I want to say thank you to my readers and especially those of you who commented on yesterday's post!  I find that when I speak from my heart, I get more comments!  I grew up not far from downtown Los Angeles, in one of the wealthier suburbs.  My mother drove to LA every day for 40 years, teaching in a very poor neighborhood school.  Every summer she brought home the class guinea pigs or hamsters and I got to play with them and feed them.  I just couldn't WAIT to fingerpaint with those big 2nd graders!  :-) (...wink...)  Well, finally, I passed second grade and my mother went on to become a reading specialist.  My aunt also taught in LA~in east LA.  She taught gifted & talented 5th & 6th graders and, in those days, she and her husband and her aide took several of them out on their boat in San Diego bay.  Um, can't do THAT anymore...sigh...

Do I miss Los Angeles?  Sometimes...Hubby used to take me with him to the flower and produce markets when he was in the grocery business.  I DO miss that.  I do miss going to the theaters near LA and the museums.  I do NOT miss LAX!  Ugh.  Now we take our daughter and son-in-law to the Palm Springs airport when they fly to Oregon or other parts and we can park our car and walk in with them without having to walk for miles or take a shuttle!    It's just park and walk.  How simple is that?

I CHOSE not to attend UCLA.  It was too close to home and frankly, it was TOO BIG for me.  Instead, I spent my first two college years at the University of Redlands, which was an hour's drive from home.  I LOVED the old, wooden interiors!  I loved my classes and my professors, one of whom urged me to go to the University of Chicago to finish my political science degree....Um...NO, thank you!  Instead, I met my husband at Redlands and we were married in 1970.  We both had two more years of college, so we transferred over to UC Riverside and moved to Riverside.  I stayed on another two years and got my Master's Degree in political science.  Then, we moved to the desert because hubby got his first REAL paying job, in a market, as the wine manager.  This was with the old Jurgensen's Market in Rancho Mirage.  His parents also lived in Rancho Mirage, and we found a house to rent 2 blocks away from my in-laws.   I remember when we first moved to the desert from Riverside.  I SNEEZED for two months nonstop!  Now, I'd been to the desert frequently as a kid (MANY, many times, in fact!), but living there 24/7 caused me to sneeze...all the dust, I guess?  By 1975, we bought our house here and we've been in this house ever since (in Palm Desert).

Now we are nearing that point in our lives where we are THINKING about retirement.  My goodness!  WHERE did the time go?  To stay or not to stay in the desert...Well, for now, both of our kids are here, in Indio.  We don't think that will last forever, but, as long as they are only 15 minutes away, we are happy.  The grandkids are here, too.  It is just that the summers and the heat and the humidity are very hard on us "old folks".  So, we try to get away for a week at a time, either to the Sierras or to Arizona...up in the cool forests.  We DEFINITELY will not be retiring to a big city.  It will either be Arizona, or Sonoma, or Idyllwild or someplace cooler with lots of trees!   :-)