What do you love and hate about where you live?

[jenn D]

I'm having wanderlust lately. Lol! We live in New Mexico and have all our lives. I long for actual weather not sun all time. Not slot of variation. Why do you love or hate where you live? I need to live vicariously through all of you right now.
For me, love: the fact that we have no humidity ever and the fall when the sunny days cool off. Hate: constant sunshine, no variation. No snow, not a lot of rain or clouds.

[Shoney & Ruby]

Oh Jenn, we just got back from Ojo Caliente on Saturday and I ache for that area. I love it--Taos, Santa Fe area.

I feel lucky that I live in a beautiful place, Boulder, CO---and for most of my life in Santa Cruz, CA--I love all of them.

What I love about Boulder: it is beautiful, hundreds of miles of trails right outside my door, very little humidity, great places to dine, nice people, cool in the summer and great aging services for my elderly father-in-law. Hate: so expensive, and today, it is very cold, icy and snowy out. I like snow, not the cold or driving icy roads.

Santa Cruz is also very beautiful and I miss it often, beaches, redwoods. What I hated: poison oak, home prices, traffic and damp.

Where are you in NM?

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

Wow, you are in Boulder? I work in Boulder

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Well, if it's variation you like, come to Chicago, lol. We can have snow in May, temps in the 70s for Halloween, or both in the same week. 

There isn't much I love about our weather. The change of seasons is great, but the variation is too extreme. In fact, everything is too extreme. White Christmas, terrific. 25 inches of snow at once, not so much. Windchills of 30 below zero I could also live without. Rain, good for what grows. Ten inches of rain in August, (and 22 inches total for June, July, August this past summer) puts a damper on summer fun, with the emphasis on damp. 

We have it all: humidity, droughts, flooding, freezing, heat waves, high pollen counts, Indy 500 wind speeds, black ice, snow drifts higher than your head, you name it. 

And I hate the unpredictability. It's not at all unusual for Christmas Day to be sunnier and warmer than Memorial Day.

I've always wondered why, with the entire country to choose from, my grandparents chose to settle down here.

Feel better about NM now? LOL 

[Adina P]

What has kept you there?  Would you ever move and if so where?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Didn't we discuss this in my interview, lol?

Hate change, need my "comfort zone", plus up until the past few years, everyone I knew was here. Kids in school, then grandkids in school, etc etc.

[Adina P]

I thought that too when as I typed the question, but I forgot and or thought perhaps your answer had to do with Jack and his vet care. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

As long as I have Jack, I do need to be near a veterinary specialty center.

[Meghan Court]

Karen, I'm with you! I am not a fan of the crazy Chicago weather, but I have only ever known Illinois and could never move away from my family. So I guess I can deal with the crazy weather if only for my family!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Exactly, Meghan! 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Karen, my husband's family( grandparents on both sides, aunts, uncles, cousins)  is FROM the Chicago area. Some stayed but most moved to California or retired to Florida.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Can you believe that nobody in my family did that? Grandparents, aunts and uncles (I had 12!), none of them even had a vacation home in another state! Lots of them lived well into their 90s and they stayed here even through the miserable Chicago winters! I have 16 first cousins, and only 4 of them moved away!!! 

[Marie and Hoka]

Karen, I say this all the time!!! My parents came from such beautiful countryside in Ireland and came to a FLAT, land of terrible weather.  Ugh!  I guess it's ok, they were all about the jobs.  I always think I'd like to live a few months at a time in various places.