Florida

While everyone on the outside wants to come in to play, life in Florida isn't really that much fun. And here, I want to farm this blasted state. There are only a few times of the year we can walk outside and not feel like Cerberus has licked us from head to toe as soon as we open the front door. When sweat doesn't stream down your body creating uncomfortable rivers along your skin on the way to the car from said door. Flip-flops aren't a fashion statement, they're a form of ventilation.

 Then there are the winters which are relatively mild compared to everywhere else but when us sun bunnies shhhivvvver uncontrollably if the temp dips under 70. We go on frantic hunts for sweaters, gloves, heaters and hats (which are always ridiculously hard to find). The hundred degree hundred percent humidity summers ruin us for the cold. There are only a few short months when the mosquito population is virtually non existent. Don't even get me started on my archnemesis The Cockroach and his equally threatening and disgusting buddy The Palmetto Bug. My skin is crawling just typing those words. They can come inside in your hair. Your hair! And damn, those bastards get BIG.

I get hung up on these things and forget what life here can be like. Forgetting why all those people want to come down here to visit.

We have a lot of gators. Which I try and stay very far away from, that above photo is with a lot of zoom. They're faster than you think and I like all my apendages well...apendaged. Yet, they're graceful and beautiful in their own right.

We have gigantic birds.

We have a lot of beaches. A LOT of beaches. Yet, each is different, waiting to be explored and loved for it's uniqueness.

But we also have calm pools of water. A plethora of thriving and diverse eco-systems.

There is also a great amount of forests.

And nobby kneed Cypress.

And lots of not-so-gigantic birds. (word of warning: really, truly do not feed the birds...or gators. They will attack you, even the little ones. Seriously.)

So, while I might get hung up on the hazards of living in The Sunshine State, I need to take the time out and explore the wonders of it as well. While we're harboring a small hope that someday we'll get out of here and live somewhere with more rolling landscapes, four actual distinctly different seasons and perhaps not so many retirees, I have to remember there are people in those places that harbor the hope to come down here.

The grass is always greener elsewhere, and in Florida it's almost always green.