Attitude problem

I know that patience is a virtue...  It's just not one of mine.

But I think I'm finally coming to grips with the idea that we're not going to be moving for another few years.  I want to.  I really, REALLY want to.  But we have a few factors in our personal and professional lives that make waiting a much wiser idea.  I've known this for a while, but I'm actually starting to believe it, if you understand the difference.

So, in order to make our time here more bearable, I've been working on my attitude.  Towards the eternally unfinished house, the neighborhood, and the neighbors.  It was either that or go crazy making myself miserable.  What started it was taking an acquaintence on a little mini-tour of my "neighborhood".  I use the term loosely, since we live in the county and we have the same number of people in a square mile as cities might have in a 3-block radius.  But showing the area to someone who had never seen it kind of let me see it the way I did when we first moved here.  And what I saw surprised me.

Although there are some hilbillies around, we really do live in a nice neighborhood.  Not subdivision nice, but rural-ish nice.  Almost all of the houses are well-cared-for, and the people are friendly.  Our house, with flowers blooming all around and a messy veggie garden (and in spite of the 80s facade), looks cute from the street.  We're surrounded by woods and hills instead of the flat cornfields that make up most of the rural areas here.  And by the roads, our house is less than 3/4 mile from the lake.

Speaking of the lake...  When we first moved out here, I wanted to get a membership to the conservation club so that I could use the beach there.  We'd also taked about getting kayaks and paddling around.  I used to walk down to the boat launch, just to look at the water.  After all, what good is living by a nice lake if you never use it?  And so, 5 years after moving in, I finally got a membership to the conservation club.  I don't plan on hanging out at their bar with the locals, but they have nice grounds and a sandy beach.  A few days ago I walked down and took Ethan for a swim in the morning before work.  We had the whole place to ourselves, and he had a blast.

Tonight Shayne and I got home at around 8 pm, and the bar was in full swing.  But in an oddly appropriate twist, they had a rockin blues band, so it was actually nice to be able to hear the show from our backyard.  I sat out for a while to listen until the bugs got too bad.

Living in the here-and-now is not my strong point.  I can't help but be thinking about what I'd like to do, planning ahead, and dreaming about the future.  But now that I've taken time to really look at what is...  It's not so bad. 

In fact, I kind of like it.