Two Years, Ugh

Well, as of yesterday, we have been here in Yuma for two years, which is exactly two years more than I wanted to be here. So why am I here? I often wonder if it would have been better to have just stayed in Idaho and held on until the economy improved. Now it seems like we will never get back. Over the next couple of years, Idaho is projected to be the #1 state for job growth (or something like that) so maybe there is some promise in that.

It's not that I hate Yuma completely, though I certainly don't love it. Rather, it's that we spend most holidays and birthdays with just Trent, the children and myself. Holiday meals become a lot more work (for me) in that situation, and it's kind of lonely. Visiting family is now quite an ordeal and a sacrifice. Do we want to spend a whole bunch of money on plane tickets or sit in the car for two days? I used to think that it was a long drive from Boise to Denver, but now I would gladly do that. With Brooke in school, our opportunities for visiting are even more limited. It's also that we have a house in Idaho that we don't even get to enjoy, but instead someone else does, paying us substantially less than our mortgage payment. Meanwhile we get to live in a rental here, which is a house I really don't like. When we first moved here, I said that the house was pretty nice, but I was soon cured of that thinking upon discovering a host of problems with the home, like a $350 power bill in the summer months just to keep the house at 80+ degrees. I could go on and on about the house. Speaking of the summer, we spend most of it indoors with the blinds closed (blinds open just means an even hotter house). So for the weeks that Brooke is out of school, we are stuck in a hot house a lot -- not fun.

There are lots more things that I could say about why I don't like being here, but I don't want to spend all night at the computer. It just saddens me that we are here, and I am not so sure that it has really improved our lives in any way that is important. Trent's job has given us more financial rewards than we anticipated, but I am unconvinced that that is a worthy trade-off. I do appreciate that we have good, nice people in our ward. I am glad that we at least have that. All in all, I would rather be in a less than stellar city with a great ward than be in an awesome city but have a terrible ward. However, not to marginalize the people we know here, I also really liked the people in our previous ward and the place in which we lived.

So I guess this post is just one big lament. I do recognize the good things we have in our life, like that Trent has a job, our children, the gospel, etc. I know that things could be a lot worse, as they are for some people. I am just hoping and praying that we can again enjoy all those things back home (and that it can be soon). I certainly do appreciate a little bit more the things we had to leave. Although, I did appreciate them before we moved -- that's why I didn't want to leave!