Well hellooooo there from Nacogdoches, Texas!

We’ve been here about two weeks now, although Doug has gone back home to collect the furniture that wouldn’t fit in the moving truck last week. Easing the cats into the new location has kept me around the house for the most part – as has the fact that I don’t have much in the way of clothes or makeup unpacked to be presentable. I’ve tried a few things, but haven’t met yet with much success-mostly because I’m realizing there are a LOT of little things about small-town living I have yet to learn. Here are a few of them:

1. Small towns have the JANKIEST roads I’ve ever seen. I’ve been driving my big old Mercury Grand Marquis for many years, and have never had an issue with parking or driving it – not even once. But on our first day here I ran into a parked car while trying to pull into a spot, which was mortifying (no real damage to either car). The next day, I popped my car over two different curbs while trying to turn, and I accidentally ran over an old parking block today while trying to find the entrance to the Taco Bell drive-thru (don’t judge – we have no refrigerator yet). It’s like there aren’t even standards about how wide or narrow the roads or parking spaces have to be, and apparently, I was more dependent upon those city standards than I thought.
2. It’s always been a THING with me, as a city person, to avoid crowds whenever possible. This means doing grocery shopping and other errands during the week, leaving the weekends for the nine-to-fivers to navigate. Also, it always felt imperative to get to wherever it was I wanted to go as soon as possible, preferably as soon as the doors opened, again to avoid crowds. But I’m starting to suspect that in a small town, stores only open when crowds are likely, and if you try to go visit them during “off hours” they’re just going to be closed. Either that, or they’ll be open and you’ll be the only person in the place, while the workers stare at you with a look that says, you know we don’t get customers until after lunch, what are you even doing here?
3. Everybody waves. Maybe not on major roads, but on smaller or neighborhood ones, you best believe everyone who passes you coming from the other direction is going to wave at you.
4. Sound travels! We have two acres, but we’re only about a mile or so from Nac’s historic downtown area, and there are a lot of restaurants and bars there that have live music on the weekends. And we can hear them from our front porch. Not only that but sometimes we can hear the SFA band practicing. I admit I thought we’d have more quiet here, but we also looked at houses farther outside of town and decided we didn’t want to be isolated, so more noise is a part of that deal, and it’s not constant. Once we get settled we’ll have to go listen to some of that music at the actual location where the show is happening. And the train sounds are heavenly.
5. Fitting in takes time. I don’t know what I expected here – part of me thought everyone would know immediately that I’m some city chick who knows nothing about this place, and the other part thought everyone would be falling all over themselves to be our friends. The reality has been more…normal. So far I’m just another chick driving a car (and popping curbs) or buying groceries, and everyone I’ve encountered is just a person doing person stuff. There truly are a lot of things in the area I want to experience, in fact, there’s so much it’s overwhelming, but I’m starting to feel like the best thing to do over the next few weeks is just settle in at home and get used to the vibe.

And on that note, I haven’t started taking any pictures yet. Part of that is because until my house is in order I’m really not thinking about anything else, but it’s also that aforementioned feeling of not fitting in just yet. I’ve never been comfortable taking pictures in public places because it makes me feel so obvious, so doing it somewhere new is even more intimidating. But I will get there.