Six Signs You Live in a Small Town (Truly Grateful Series)
1. When your son's picture is in the local newspaper, someone at one of the local banks cuts the clipping out of the paper, laminates it, and sends it to you in the mail. This keepsake arrives just two days after the paper came out--sometimes before you have even had time to read the paper yourself! Oh, and you don't even have an account with that bank!!
Members of your church and the people that you work with also take the time to clip these kinds of photos and articles out and save them for you.
3. It takes you over an hour to get back from buying a gallon of milk at a grocery store that is five minutes away from your home because the town mayor, one of your son's teachers, and your dentist are all at the grocery store too, and, of course, you have to stop and talk to each one of them while you are there.
4. Your mother is in a nursing home which means you need to maintain her yard and house that is now left without an inhabitant until it is sold. You have been keeping up on things fairly well, but the week you need to do the final raking of leaves in her yard (after several weekends in a row of raking), something else takes up your time and attention. When you arrive two days later on a Tuesday morning to get caught up on the yard work, you find that the next door neighbor to your mother's house has already done the last bit of raking for you. You met this person for the first time a few weeks ago and have only talked to this person twice.
5. You can drive from the far west end of town to the far east end of town in ten minutes---eight minutes if you can time it to hit the traffic lights just right when they are all green. If you should have car trouble at any point along that stretch, someone you know will stop to offer you assistance before you even have a chance to get your cell phone out of your purse and call for help.
6. The guy at the pet store gives you quite a few MORE than the couple of dozen crickets that you asked for when you buy them from him for your pet lizard. He does this because you are there in his store every week, and most of the people here are just nice like that.
Lord, for allowing me to live in a small town and for the wonderful people in that community, please let me be truly grateful.
*Betty Crocker Ultimate Carrot Cake recipe
Members of your church and the people that you work with also take the time to clip these kinds of photos and articles out and save them for you.
2. You have three potlucks to attend in one week--one a fundraiser at the local school for the high school orchestra, one with a church fellowship group, and one at your work place as part of a Christmas celebration.
These are the pineapple carrot cake cupcakes* I made for the orchestra event we attended tonight.
3. It takes you over an hour to get back from buying a gallon of milk at a grocery store that is five minutes away from your home because the town mayor, one of your son's teachers, and your dentist are all at the grocery store too, and, of course, you have to stop and talk to each one of them while you are there.
4. Your mother is in a nursing home which means you need to maintain her yard and house that is now left without an inhabitant until it is sold. You have been keeping up on things fairly well, but the week you need to do the final raking of leaves in her yard (after several weekends in a row of raking), something else takes up your time and attention. When you arrive two days later on a Tuesday morning to get caught up on the yard work, you find that the next door neighbor to your mother's house has already done the last bit of raking for you. You met this person for the first time a few weeks ago and have only talked to this person twice.
My dog Max playing in the leaves.
5. You can drive from the far west end of town to the far east end of town in ten minutes---eight minutes if you can time it to hit the traffic lights just right when they are all green. If you should have car trouble at any point along that stretch, someone you know will stop to offer you assistance before you even have a chance to get your cell phone out of your purse and call for help.
6. The guy at the pet store gives you quite a few MORE than the couple of dozen crickets that you asked for when you buy them from him for your pet lizard. He does this because you are there in his store every week, and most of the people here are just nice like that.
Lord, for allowing me to live in a small town and for the wonderful people in that community, please let me be truly grateful.
*Betty Crocker Ultimate Carrot Cake recipe
