Moving to North Carolina... and a Little Tribute to Utah

We used to live in Utah, and guess what.... I hated it!  I couldn't stand the weather, my neighbors, or anything for that matter.  I had an opinion and criticized everything.  I am from the South so naturally everything from my neck of the woods was better (it still is fyi).  So you can imagine that when my husband, my oh so smart and incredibly attractive husband, applied and got accepted to school in North Carolina, that I was THRILLED!  I seriously could not contain my excitement.  I wanted to shout it from the roof tops (not gonna lie I think I actually did this... don't judge).  I would finally have the opportunity to be near my family and to eat amazing food and to be near the beach.  My life was going to be complete and I would feel whole and all that jazz.  However, a funny thing happened.  I have lived out here, for a month to be exact, and I don't feel whole.  I will even admit that I miss Utah (GASP!).

So i think that it is only natural that I include a list of things that I miss from the motherland.  Here it goes:

1.  Fry Sauce.  Darn you Taco Amigo and your absolutely delicious concoction.  I know that other companies "try" to make and sell this but it is nasty and will never compare to the sweet nectar that is TA fry sauce.  Todd and I find ourselves reminiscing about the good old days as in... "Hey, remember how good TA's fry sauce was?".  Yeah we are a little obsessed... and maybe a little empty inside.
2. Cafe Rio.  Notice how the top two things that I miss about Utah are food.  Todd will not even let me try and attempt to make copycat recipies of this delicious goodness because he knows it just wont be the same.  I mean sure, I could yell at him in a Spanish accent but I just don't think that it will have the same effect, you know?
3.  I miss my job and all of its craziness.  Now let me get this straight.  At my other job I was severely overworked and underpaid.  The management was shady and I came home every night frustrated by the lack of work and professionalism that went on in the office.  But oh how I miss it.  I miss how casual it was and the social interaction that I experienced.  I miss making a difference in the lives of the people that I helped, and I miss the respect and the knowledge that I gained there.  I knew my stuff and I was pretty good at it too.  I was a big fish in a small pond and I had freedom.  Now at my new job I am at the bottom of the food chain and I am essentially a loser.  The grass is always greener on the other side right?
4. Friends.  I love having friends and I think that it makes life so much better...sweeter if you will.  In my imagination, I dreamed that Todd and I would move to North Carolina, attend a church that had so many young couples our age, and every one would want to hang out with us and be our new friends.  FALSE.  (I swear when I have these grand illusions someone just needs to come up to me and slap me out of it).  No friends have yet to be found, but we are still on the hunt.  
5. I think most of all I miss the safety and security that I felt in Utah.  I knew how to get to the store.  I knew where the best places to eat where.  I was close to a freaking Ikea!  Now I am a lonely woman with bad eyesight and a GPS on my phone that is super annoying.  I still have no idea where I am going    

Thanks for letting my complain... that felt good.

Todd and I have deemed the  motto of 2013 as the "It can only get better" year.  2012 was not my fav.  Lots of things were weird and I was so over it.  However, 2013 has brought us so many blessings and is truly living up to its theme of "it can only get better".  I think I just need to remind myself that just because it will be better then last year, doesn't mean that it won't have some difficult times.  It doesn't meant that I will not be stretched and pulled and forced to grow. A wise man, Orson F. Whitney, once said: "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted.  It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility.  All that we suffer and all the we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God... and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire".

I want to grow and I want to be stronger.  I want to be awesome and I want to do awesome things.  In order to get better I know that I have to go through trials and the whole sucky phase for a while.  So this blog is now about the chronicles of a young couple in a new and foreign place.  I am sure that many exciting adventures will unfold and that we will grow into more awesome human beings, because "it can only get better", right?