Small town girl at heart

Before I moved to St. George, Utah, I lived in a very small community of around 5,000 people. St. George has over 100,000 people.

Life in small towns is so much different. It doesn’t take 15 minutes to drive from one end of town to the other. Most everyone knows every one else and they greet each other with a big smile and a genuine “Hi, how are you?” Traffic is not made up of the hurried, harried, and road-raged drivers. It doesn’t take 3 hours to go to 3 different stops in town because town is not stretched out over a very large radius. There is not all the many great numbers of stores to choose from and thus less money is spent in impulse buying.

Sometimes I really miss the little town I used to live in. Life seemed slower, easier, calmer, more relaxed, and just plain nicer, then. Guess I am just a small town girl at heart.

The things we take for granted

We get so comfortable with our life style and the things that make ease of living. But then one day, for whatever reason, those things temporarily cease to be there for us….and we realize how much we have taken it for granted.

For instance…telephones. Have you ever had service to your regular telephone or cell phone interrupted? My goodness, but we can’t function without it!!!! We feel that we are cut off from the human race.

Another is electricity. When we have a power outage lasting longer than 10 minutes we wander around lost, with nothing to do. Everything is run by electricity. I have been known to enter a room and try to switch on the light....out of habit.

Then there is our water supply. When the city decides to turn off the water for whatever reason… that’s when we realize how often we do use water. Automatically I am at the sink trying to wash my hands, or get a drink, or get a pot of water for cooking or rinsing food. Oh yah... then there’s flushing the toilet.

Computers that die….well say your prayers. Life almost ceases to exist then!! I really dread the day when that happens to me….again!

If I Had All the Money and Time in the World, What Would I Do?

My friend L. gave me this question to ponder and write about.

1) I probably would not change my life style much because I am me and never have desired much of the things of the world. I can't justify spending money on worthless trinkets that can't help and benefit other people, OR MYSELF.

2) I would NOT desire large fancy homes or luxury cars...no matter the money. Never cared about that, ever!

3) It would be wonderfully fun to randomly pass out a $100 bill to people as I walk by them and see their reaction of surprise and delight.

4) I would love to stand by the check out stand in a grocery store and see the look on peoples faces when I pay for their groceries. THIS HAPPENED TO ME ONCE....but my groceries came to less than $20. The guy had a big roll of money and I was told that he did that quite often in the store. It was a wonderful feeling to have someone want to do that for ME.

5) I would pay off all my family members house mortgages and car loans. I would pay for all my grandkids to go to college.

6) I would donate money to the city for the purchase of a huge area of land to be made into an arboretum complete with animals and birds.

7) For myself, I would love to take a trip to Germany with all my kids, and spend several months or so just touring around. That is where my ancestors came from.

8) I would pay for a live-in maid or for a full time nurse in the homes of the very elderly who struggle along and who can't afford this and who need it very much because of their health conditions and circumstances.

9) I would create a large animal refuge park (like a zoo) with lots of activities and rides for families and have sort of a circus atmosphere to it. IT WOULD BE FREE FOR EVERYONE TO ENJOY.

10) I would pay for nannies to come and stay with children, while I would send their parents off on little romantic get-away trips so that they can have little honeymoons all the time to rekindle the flames of love and closeness.

11) I would go to small towns that do not have many wholesome activities for kids to do. I would build an indoor and outdoor facility large enough to hold all kinds of things for the youth to enjoy, such as skating rink, skate board area, game rooms, amusement park and rides, dirt bike trails and hills, etc.