Florida on My Mind

 WOW! Have I been living in Florida for a month already? 

That means just over a month of adventures with my HUSBAND!!! We are all settled into our cozy little apartment here in Jacksonville, we even have our first fish (and snail, named Zoomer)! So how has it been, going from mountain girl, to living in the city? Well let me just tell you, it has been a 180. 

Fun fact: Cockroaches are like ants, apparently. People just HAVE them. You can be as clean as you want, never leave food on the table, diligently clean all your homes surfaces, they will just appear sometimes. Cockroaches can also smell their dead, so if you kill one, more will appear to eat their dead friend, so to get rid of them, you just have to usher them out of your home. Oh, and when I suggested to Billy that he flush them, he told me he was worried they would just crawl back out of the toilet. :) I'm living with earth walking demons from hell. 

That being said, our apartment has had very few (maybe two, thank God), and they only appear when Billy is home and can handle them himself, because Lord knows I don't want to touch them. I also haven't seen any spiders or bees!! I probably just jinxed myself, but it has been a nice month with no cat spiders or giant grown spiders.  

On a better note, I have turned so brown. I didn't even realize it until I saw a picture of myself from our road trip across America! The sunrays will pernitrate your clothes, so I hardly have tan lines (not to brag), but there is a difference between the skin I've tried to tan, and the skin I haven't. Billy got a sunburn in his first week back, even through his SPF 50. HOW??? He has lived here longer than me!! Life with my husband has been quite the adventure, but that's for another blog. 

Billy and I have found a church. The culture down here is so different. I'm used to our worship team using string instruments, dim lights, hymnals, really personal. Here, there are light shows, brand new worship songs, a full band every week, if your hands aren't up, you're the weird ones in the audience. There is also no coffee shop. Technically, they have a "café", but its drip coffee with real creamer, if you'd like. I am in anguish! No espresso :(  

We have Duncan Doughnuts coffee, and Starbucks. Neither coffee shop uses real espresso shots. If you go to a "real" coffee shop, you'd better be ready for it to also be a bar with an insane DJ. Also, you have to go all the way to the beach for it (we are 15 minutes from the beach), and it doesn't open until 7AM. It kind of makes me wonder what the point is? I guess nothing down here opens until 10:00 or 11:00AM anyways. 

Tropical Storm Elsa felt like nothing. We had a worse rain storm a couple days ago. Billy got to stay home on the day of the storm, and our phones kept ringing with this awful sound to warn us of possibly tornados and everything, but it hardly rained, and we got a little wind. It has rained so much worse on almost every other day that I have lived here. Seriously, its not "Sunny Florida" its "Rainy Florida" and you cant take the weather forecast seriously because if you wake up and the forecast calls for rain all day, it will probably be really sunny, but if it says sunny, there will be torrential downpour that the weather never predicted. It rains every day, you just have to guess how hard it will rain, and when. Sometimes, you get a crazy thunderstorm with a few drops of rain, and sometimes its just all of a  sudden a flashflood and two minutes later the sun has almost dried the pavement up. 

The stores are incredible though. I have been really good and I have only been window shopping, but its so interesting to see the difference in fashion down here. 15 minutes from our house is the hottest shopping in Jacksonville, St. Johns Town Center. They have everything from Louis Vuitton, to Coach, to  Dicks Sporting Goods and Nordstrom. They even have a really awesome surf shop! The clothes themselves though..  Everything is in nudes and pastels. You wont find a jewel tone tank top here, no matter how hard you look. EVERYTHING is a crop top. You see a cute sweater? Crop top. Cute tee shirt? Crop top. The actual "crop tops" Are like ribbons girls put over their chests! How long before I start wearing crop tops? The thought alone scares me. 

Also (and this makes me so upset) If you are above a size medium, the malls just don't carry your size. They might have a large, but it fits like a medium. If you are a regular sized human like me, you have to go to "plus size" stores, or Target or Ross. Like, the stores just don't even have an option for girls like us. There are a few stores, like Buckle, and even their tee shirts are a normal length. but everybody else gets away with having no options for normal sized, possibly well endowed women. 

Its been an adventure, and I definitely miss home. The sunsets over the beach are beautiful... but they just cant compare to the sun behind the mountains. It is kind of awesome to see kids (including my husband) freak at how "cold" the ocean is. But I am also too hot to wear even a jacket on all the days that the other girls here are in sweaters. Its 82 degrees. Why are you in a sweater. 

Speaking of which, it is a 90 degree, sunny day! The beach is calling, and I now must go! I miss everybody back home and I talk about you all the time. I'm going to try to keep my blog more updated <3