It’s been two months since we moved to Cincinnati and things have finally calmed down enough that my brain is registering this is a permanent thing.

It’s not because the move was easy–they told me there was no way we could relocate in two weeks. Watch us! We flew up, found a temp place, coordinated with movers and storage and rental cars. We got into our temp apartment on a Thursday and I started on a Monday, and the whole thing didn’t feel real.

We’re getting ready to move again, to a house in a walkable neighborhood and I’m so excited. For the first time since Pete and I got married, we’ll have a place to put our stuff. And a garage. And a basement. And a guest room.

But I miss Orlando. Obviously you miss your friends, but when you live somewhere for so long, you get used to conveniences that you don’t have in a new place. Like being able to get last minute doctor appointments, or going to a salon and knowing that you’re going to get a good hair cut.

Ohio is a strange place. Sometimes I look around and think, “How did we get here again?” Everyone in Ohio that finds out we moved from Florida says we were crazy. They all go to Florida on vacation. Miami, Siesta Key, Naples. A lot of them own Florida houses.

Cincinnati has a phenomenon called “sun delay” or “sun glare.” It’s when the sun is SO BRIGHT that all traffic on I-75 slows down and creates a traffic jam. It’s true! I hear about it on the news every morning.

It’s very neighborhood-centric. Finding a house was difficult. People are proud of the neighborhood they live in and don’t think you should live anywhere else. I-75 divides the city–either you live on the east side or the west side. No one recommends that you live on the west side, even though the houses are bigger and the neighborhoods seem well-kept. And EVERY neighborhood is both good and bad, unless it’s Hyde Park, which is the only neighborhood in the city that seems to have no crime at all and is SO expensive. The rest of the city is “safe” on a block by block basis. People who actually do live in the dangerous areas consider themselves urban pioneers and say things like, “We get broken into a few times a year, but it’s not a big deal.” What?! We started ignoring what people were recommending and are ending up in what is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, except it’s not, according to the crime reports I’ve seen.

We are having some fun though, and went to a Civil War reenactment and EnterTRAINment (25k sq feet of model trains!). We’re doing a lot of random stuff to keep at least one day of the weekend busy. And now that we’ve found a house to live in beginning in July, I’m a lot less stressed out. I just can’t wait to get in it and for people to come visit! I need some confirmation that we’re not stuck in the Twilight Zone up here in middle America.