My newest "phase"

In one of the books I read recently there was a little boy who went through "stages" every few months. Whenever he had a new stage, his parents (who had won the lottery) would redecorate his room with a theme of his new stage as well as buy him all sorts of stuff to go with it. For instance, during his space stage they redecorated his room with all sorts of space stuff and bought him an astronaut costume. He would pretend to be an astronaut ALL THE TIME. He had a police stage and a doctor stage as well, just to name a few. Anyway, he was a minor character in the story, but I can really relate to the little guy because I too go through stages...which is cool, I own it. In fact, I find it makes life more "fun". I personally like this ridiculous bit of my personality.

Some of these stages end up lasting indefinitely. For instance, what I thought was just a country music stage has lasted for several years. It's actually my favorite genre of music and not just a stage. Only time will tell which things are stages or actually loves for me.

So about my newest phase...let's call it my "rural" phase. I've had fun lately finding new routes home from work. This is not hard because I work a full hour from home. I have thoroughly enjoyed driving through all the small towns in the valley. Well, I've now decided that my "city" days are over and it's time to move somewhere rural.

Now I need to note that I'm not actually moving at the moment because the economy is, well, it's having a bad hair day and I am currently living for free and you can't beat that. So...I will stay here for the time being and work on eliminating my student loan debt from grad school. However, when I do move I think I might have to buy/build a house surrounded by beautiful farm land. I found a cute little town that I'm currently obsessed with about halfway between work and home. LOVE IT! Now let's be honest, this stage might wear off by the time I actually move...but it's always fun to think about anyway. It makes life exciting! I am constantly planning to move to Oregon, near the coast, and change my name and identity...nah, just kidding. Really I just want to live there because it's BEAUTIFUL! But in all likelihood, that'll probably never happen because my family is my world and they all live here. But, it's always nice to dream. More realistically, I'd like to move to Idaho near my job. I like it there and could live out my "rural dream" while still being but a few miles from work. That's a more serious consideration that I've thought a lot about and might actually do. I do love that little town and lots of people that live there!

Anyhow...I now have this dream of living out in the country far enough from neighbors that I don't need curtains. Of course I'll still have curtains because they are cute and I'd be afraid a psycho killer was outside and could see me and...well, you get the idea. Also I could be a proper spinster with cats! I hate cats, but outdoor ones would be essential to ward off mice. I would probably have to buy a 4-wheeler (with a plow to push the snow from my huge dirt driveway) and maybe a horse. Oh, and I could put a rocking chair on my HUGE porch and sit outside on summer evenings and talk to Mable, my neighbor down the road. I'd probably have to buy a truck...but that'd be okay too. Then I could blare my country music with the windows down on my way into town to buy some feed for the chickens.