Do you like where you live??

[bald headed old guy]

Do you like where you live??

Tired,
That is one of the things i really enjoy about Utah..so many places to go, so much to see and do. We ahve spent hours hiking and exploring, and are constantly finding new places and new ideas...can't seem to get them all in! LOL Spend winter planning our outings..then start in late Feb or March camping and hiking..end up in November with more palces to go see next year. ! AH, love the west! YES!
BHOG

[Laurav]

Do you like where you live??

I love where I live!
Portland, Oregon is beautiful! We have the change of seasons without them being too extreme.
I can be in the mountains or at the coast within an hours drive. I moved here from California when I was in high school.
We do have a rainy season in February that can get a littlie dreary but once spring hits it is beautiful. Summers cannot be beat and fall is gorgeous.
We were blessed to have moved into the quintessential neighborhood six years ago. I am never moving again! I always tell people that I will be buried under the tree house in the back yard.

[Cinders]

Do you like where you live??

Hmm.

I have lived in Taiwan and Germany out of USA and Florida, Alabama, Maryland, Virginia, DC, Okalahoma, California, Colorado, Washington State, Texas, Kansas and Arkansas in the USA.

My favorite climate was Colorado but I do love the south, too, and Washington State was special. Hmmm. Even Oklahoma and Kansas had their special things to love, like those incredible transcontinental thunderstorms.

My favorite place to be is where my family is. That is all that matters to those of us who traveled a lot as youngsters. Family and friends.

I did dislike the German winters where darkness was there in the mornings and late afternoons, but I seemed to get past that and enjoy the people and the country. The climate very much reminded me of the weather in Washington State.

Bessie, I can't answer about the "where I live" question in terms of happiness. I was happy most of those places and sad in most of those places.

I guess if I was incredibly rich, I would choose to live in the West (Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, or Austrian, Swiss, Italian Alps) in the late spring through early fall and some place warm the rest of the time. But only if the whole family moved with me!!

Love,
Cindi
XXXII

[hippie37]

Do you like where you live??

I was nearly born in New Zealand on the South Island as my folks were going to emigrate there once my dad came out of the Merchant Navy. In those days you bought your plot of land and built your house on it. Land was very cheap back then in the 60's I believe as well. My dad was going into business with a friend from the Navy opening a restaurant (my dad was a chef) and everything was in motion, the deposit had been placed for the plot of land and travel plans made etc etc. My mum backed out the very last minute as she couldn't bare to be so far away from family and friends. So, they stayed put in Liverpool where I was born. I didn't actually know this story until I became interested in the country myself in the early nineties when I became aware of how clean and green the country was and how many New-Age communities there where over there. It sounded idyllic at the time and I would still love to visit the place some day and see where I could of been born.

My spiritual home will always be around trees and green fields and I adore the English Countryside. That's not to say I adore the country lifestyle and I had to laugh when I saw exclamation marks after the words FOX HUNTING in your post Bessie!!. I could quite easily become a recluse out in Wales living on a converted double decker bus, as so many of my travelling friends did back in the 90's before Douglas Hurd passed the Criminal Justice Bill in 92 to eradicate the New Age Travelling community.

I guess what I'm trying to say is things may change when I start hitting 60 and my arthritis is playing up and I cannot afford to heat my home due to the ridiculous cost of living that is inevitable the way things are going. Governments can be the same worldwide and they're all as bad as one another at the end of the day. Ownership of land according to Eckhart Tolle is nothing more than an illusion anyway and I do believe in this concept which is what the Native American Indians believed. Anyway I'm rambling a bit here. I would like to live in a more rural area in England or Wales like you are at the moment Bessie but until my daughter is more grown up I will not even think of moving further afield. The future holds no boundaries after that though!!

Love and Happiness
Hippie
xx

[Gret]

Do you like where you live??

Guess I never considered not living in the USA, but would love to visit places like New Zealand, England, Italy, Greece, etc. I like it here in the midwest, near my favorite beach on Lake Michigan. We're in extreme northern Indiana, a great place to raise kids and the town is a good size for all we do. We'll probably retire to the Carolinas or maybe Tennessee, but for now, this is fine - cold winters, but oh well. It's spring so it's easier to say that now!

[dexterhead]

Do you like where you live??

I do in some ways, although I HATE the nasty extremes of winter and summer. I lived in northern Europe for two years and had terrible problems with the lack of sunshine. Gret, I used to live in Chicago and I think I have been to your favorite beach (michigan dunes?)

[Bessie]

Do you like where you live??

Well I am glad this thread has provoked some thought and opinions. Hippie - that's a close call. Do you think there might be a Kiwi hippie in a parallel universe!? Must be odd to think your life could have been completely different :H But then I guess all of our lives could have been totally different with only a small shift in circumstances.

I love the sound of so many of your US places to live. I've only been twice and that was to Vegas and New York - both amazing places but not anywhere I'd like to live. Think I would probably enjoy Wyoming, Utah, Montana but thats because I fancy the idea of one of these ranching holidays!! Other than that I know little about the places. I suppose America doesn't appeal as a permanent home as I associate it too much with the rampant consumerism I have come to hate here. Maybe that is wrong - I only really see the US through films and the odd tv programme though hubby has visited there a fair bit and never really says anything to dispel that view but then he goes to major cities. I am sure some of you will put me right and I guess there will still be places well out of the way from the mainstream malls and fast food joints.

I think the idea of NZ still appeals though really it is only a pipe dream atm. I am sure I will be googling 'emigration' a couple more times over the next few days as the weather is due to be just as bad as it was when I started this thread...... Ho hum. I'll be thinking of those of you waking up to sunshine streaming through your windows and wondering which pair of shorts to wear! And wrapping up in my coat and wellies and trying to appreciate what I have here..... which, in truth, is a lot of what I want and I am grateful for it. I have a home of my own, good relationships with my community, friends and family, freedom to run my own days, good health, a stable environment, enough money to live comfortably, a good relationship with my husband, the luxury of animals as pets as well as being lucky enough to be able to rear others in the way I want for food. I have an education, access to more information and entertainment than I can possibly use and I don't live in fear or poverty or famine. That is so much more than millions of other people and for that I really am grateful. Finally, for my biggest problem with alcohol, I have found here and have help and support and am working on dealing with it. That really is worth a lot.

Love to you wherever you are.

Bessie xx
(Get me being all philosophical!! Off to do the ironing......!)

[boozehag]

Do you like where you live??

well bessie you will be relieved to know that when I went to the beautiful beach (on my pacific island) for my morning swim it pissed rain and was blowing a gale and I had to hide under a tree for ages. I was soaked wet so I still went for my swim seeing as I was wet already. No one else was mad enough to go in except me of course and a few seagulls! Had to put wet clothes on afterwards yuk. It so reminded me of Irish summers growing up except we used to get paid a pound to go in swimming. Have a good day.
BH

[Bessie]

Do you like where you live??

LOL!! Sorry about that bad weather. Rains even in paradise huh?!

They'd have to pay me a whole lot more than a pound to swim in the sea here!!

B xx

[jinja]

Do you like where you live??

OK ? so now looking at this from a different perspective. White South Africans ?forced? to emigrate due crime, poor prospects for their childrens? future and general economic decline. As I sat in the dark last night, part of the tri-weekly power cuts as there is no capacity to generate enough power, I was thinking of the fact that if this continues we (our family) still has the luxury of choice.

There is such a massive exodus of professional S. Africans to Oz and Canada, that the economic decline in certain industries is hitting crisis point. Those that choose to remain are girding their loins for a f***ing tough time over the next 20 years. Unfortunately, in many aspect the future of SA is not looking pretty.

How would you feel if your only option was to leave you homeland, a country you love and treasure, because you are too scared to stay?

Not trying to be politically antagonistic. Just trying to understand from different angles.

Take care
xxx

:h

[boozehag]

Do you like where you live??

Hi Jinja
That is very sad. I would hate to be in that position. I do know quite a lot of SA's in NZ who left for the reasons you mention. There was a huge influx of South Ifricans (as I call them) about 10 years ago and now their kids are all kiwis (probably will play for the All Blicks or the Blick caps). They left with nothing basically leaving behind houses and belongings and with a practically worthless currency if they could even get it out. However they seem to find NZ life pretty similar (without the bufaloos, antelopes and flamingo's in the garden) but without the political turmoil etc except for smaller houses and no help. We were talking about the so called "white flight" one night and a SA friend of mine said that like the rest of us (US/NZ/OZ) most of their ancestors had came from the UK and other countries too but they had just picked the wrong place and why should they be blamed for wanted to leave for the safety of their families which of course is everyones right (or at least should be).
It is a terrible predicament to be in really.
BH

[greeneyes]

Do you like where you live??

We are seriously thinking Chile, even though we have never been there. That's a good one isn't it? I will have to visit Bessie first so she can teach me to ride a horsey. And tend animals. I already know how to get up at 5:30 and drink tea.

[Gret]

Do you like where you live??

Dexter, my kids favorite beach is Warren Dunes which is probably the same as you're speaking of. Mine is up in South Haven, MI. I grew up there and find it comforting to go back often in the summer, though the town itself is so different, my beach is still my beach!

[Janice]

Do you like where you live??

Well, theres no place I would rather be than.....England. I know, I know, we get crap weather but I love it!! I love the fact that we have big bustling smokey cities, busy towns, little quiet villages and hamlets, and GORGEOUS country and seasides.

I'm from the north-east and I love it, I live in the south-east and I love it! I love the change in seasons and would miss them dearly. I love the spring when everything comes to life, the summer - we haven't done THAT bad, the autumn for drawing the curtains and those cosy evenings inside and the beautiful colours outside, and the winter.......well, I won't talk about them!! They don't matter - I love it... As Robert Browning once said (this is going back to my Eng Lit "0" level!! :

"Oh to be in England,
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
Thats the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!"

Janicexxx

[myra]

Do you like where you live??

Well this is the most interesting thread. There are so many places I would like to visit and there you are living in them! Might get to travel a bit but will stay right her in S. Carolina, most likely.