movin' on out

Well it has been decided…I am moving back to Colorado. MOVING!!! I had already planned on going back to Colorado for the summer. Then we found out that our property manager back in Denver was getting out of the property managing business. We also found out that the renters of said property were getting out of the renting from us business. It was like the stars were aligned and I was being beckoned back to Denver. It got me thinking…did it really make sense for me to stay up here? So I drew up a little pros and cons list of staying up here: PROS: I already live here Washington is pretty IKEA Close to water where you can see whales Conveyor belt sushi joints Trader Joes CONS: It’s not Colorado I hate living here Rain No Family (well Husband has family here, none of which I have met in the 16 months I have lived here) Higher cost of living Rain All my best friends are in Denver They watch baseball inside (because of Rain) Volcanoes Rain TRAFFIC Seahawk fans High sales tax The price of parking down town Oh…and did I mention the rain? Don’t get me wrong, there are a million great things about living in western Washington. I just think that it takes a certain type of person to live up here and I am not that type of person. Plus I thought it was going to be exactly like the movie Singles and it isn’t…what a jip and where the hell is Matt Dillon? (totally kidding about that last bit with the exception of the Matt Dillon part…mmmmmm Matt Dillon). Speaking of Singles, I had Husband watch it before we moved up here and he thought it sucked. I was crushed because I have loved that movie since high school. I have done and seen a lot of cool things since coming up here. There is a part of me that is going to miss this place. But there is an even bigger part of me that needs to be back in Colorado. Mostly the part that need the support system I have back there and need so much while Husband is deployed. So in the very near future, with the help of Liza, Jenn, and Fallon, I will be packing up and moving out. Over half of my stuff has been in storage for the past 3 yeas and I am pretty excited about having all my things unpacked and under the same roof. Organizing this move has been a major pain in the ass, but things are coming together. I have been worried about driving a big ass U-Haul cross country. Then this past weekend I caught an episode of Tori and Dean’s Home Sweet Hollywood and Tori was driving an RV. It made me feel better because I figure if Donna Martin can drive an RV then I should have no problem with a U-Haul.

Oro Grande, New Mexico

Oro Grande is located at the south east tip of the White Sands Military Reservation, about half way between El Paso, TX and Alamogordo, NM. The first time we drove through Oro Grande we were heading up to the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo with Husband’s dad. The town is tiny…you know the type that if you blink you will miss it. The main drag consists of a gas station, a tavern, an RV park, a one room school house, and a post office. Set back off of the main drag are maybe 9 or 10 mobile homes. While tiny, to me it had kind of a quirky character. My kinda town. Oro Grande was a mining town established in 1905 and was originally called Jarilla Junction due to its proximity to the Jarilla Mountains. The name was changed to Oro Grande (Big Gold) during the 1906 gold rush. The population of Oro Grande boomed to 2000 during that time, but quickly collapsed when it was found there was far less gold than expected. If you were to Google Oro Grande you would find that most sites have it listed as a ghost town.So why would a ghost town have a gas station, a tavern and a post office? That would be because Oro Grande is not a ghost town at all. While I would guess the population as less than 20 people, there are people there. In the few seconds it took us to drive through town Husband’s dad told us that in the early 1980s they started to put in the infrastructure for Oro Grange to once again be a booming town. Ronald Reagan had this idea for the use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missles. It was loving dubbed “Star Wars”. This program would take place at White Sands Missile Range. The people who had jobs created by this program would live in Oro Grande. Well we all know how that worked out. Anyway…like I said it was a quirky town and I wanted to take pictures of it. Even though I exclaimed that I thought it was a great little town and I that I would like to take some pictures…we didn’t stop. Coming or going. Boo! I was bummed but had a plan. I asked husband if we could detour our route north to Denver so that we could go through Oro Grande. And because he loves me and wants me to be happy he agreed. It worked out well because the light first thing in the morning was way better than the harsh desert light in the middle of the day.

Thank you Easter Bunny...BAWK BAWK

My name is Melinda, I am 34 years old, and I have never taken part in an Easter egg hunt. When I was little I had heard of this magical event called an Easter egg hunt. The Monday after Easter I would listen to my friends regaling stories of how they searched all over the yard and house for both real and plastic eggs. The plastic eggs were the best to find as they contained candy, small toys, and sometimes money. Because isn’t that what Easter is all about…plastic eggs filled with MONEY? I just felt my mom and brother rolls theirs eyes and shake their heads at that last sentence. It was a joke…I know that Easter is all about JESUS (and candy) and nothing but JESUS (and dyed eggs…and in some houses plastic eggs filled with MONEY). As you know Husband is Latino and Latinos have a whole different twist with what one does with Easter eggs. They call them Cascarones. A cascarones is an egg that has had the insides blown out, is decorated like an Easter egg, and then filled with confetti. The Mexican tradition is to break the cascarones over the head for good luck. Husband has told me stories of him and many cousins running around his grandma’s backyard smashing eggs over each other’s heads. There is even a story about, how after a few adult beverages, the Aunts and Uncles got involved. Instead of cascarones, they used whole, raw eggs. The cascarones sound like a fun tradition, not as fun as plastic eggs filled with money, but fun nonetheless. My family had its own Easter tradition. We did all the usual Easter stuff like dying eggs, going to church, and having ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner. Instead of the Easter Bunny hiding eggs all over the yard and the house, he hid our Easter baskets. We would wake up and run all over the house looking in every nook and cranny for those baskets. The Easter bunny did not disappoint. The amount of candy in those baskets made the best of Halloween hauls pale in comparison. Once found we would eat jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, and Cadbury crème eggs for breakfast. We would then head to church (because Easter is all about JESUS) hopped up on sugar. As I am alone up here in Washington now, I will be spending the day with a coworker of Husband’s and her family. It is sunny right now, and if the weather holds there will be an Easter egg hunt. I am pretty excited about that. I hope those little kids are ready for some stiff competition…because I am in it to win it. While I don’t wave my religious/spiritual beliefs around, I think it is important to take a step back to reflect on ourselves and to respect the beliefs of others. Enjoy your friends and family and the rebirth of spring. Happy Easter!