On almost a daily basis, I have little moments that remind me just how different my life in Madison is from the life that we left behind in suburbia, or from the life that some of my best friends are living in the big cities. There are pluses and minuses to any location, but I sure do love our town. Here are just a few snapshots from this week:
When I was driving into town yesterday to take the kids to the library, I noticed this sign at the top of Main Street. I didn’t even know what a chitlin was until we moved here.
I should also note that on the way home from the library, I had to stop my car in the middle of the road on two separate occasions in order to avoid running over someone’s free-range chickens. Sorry I didn’t think to snap a picture of that.
This is our little post office in Rochelle. And I mean little. It occupies that tiny corner of this building. Its hours of operation are from 9-12 on weekdays. That’s it. And you see that nice man on the front porch of the adjacent shop? He stands there and waves at traffic, coffee in hand, all day, every day. When we stopped to pick up a package at the post office the other day, he gave us a bunch of walnuts from his tree out back:
He offered to give us buckets full, but I assured him that a handful would be plenty.
We don’t have a nutcracker at home, so we got out our garden tools to try to open those nuts. We each took a crack at it! Hah-hah. Get it? A “crack” at opening the nuts?
Anyway, it was a fun 20-minute distraction for the kids, but we never were successful. Gibbs was very disappointed that we didn’t get to eat them. Buying walnuts at the store didn’t seem nearly as exciting to him.
