One City Girl’s Experience :: Living the Country Life

I’m a city girl! I’ve lived in San Diego since the age of 5, and have been centrally located most of my life. I went to San Diego High School right in the heart of Downtown. We lived a short walk from 32nd naval station, and I learned how to drive at Qualcolm stadium.

You see, I WAS RAISED A CITY GIRL.

Never did I envision living anywhere else other than in the middle of everything. Near shops, freeways and where life was “happening”. To me places like Escondido and Alpine where off a distance away where no one really wanted to live. 🙁

Insert a husband and three kids, living in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Our next step was to find a more “permanent” place. After looking at houses all over the place and almost choking on the price, my husband suggested we look into Ramona.

What? Heck NO! I’m not living ALL the way out there. There’s nothing to DO.

What about my parents? The kids school? What about the mall and grocery store just minutes away? Yes, I was really concerned with how far away I would be from the nearest Vons and Starbucks.

However, the day we saw our home my husband and kids fell in love with it. I went home and prayed that our offer would not be accepted, unless it was meant to be. My husband prayed otherwise. Secretly, I think he might of prayed just a bit louder and better that night, because..

We did get the house and have lived here for over 4 years. In that time I have learned to not only love it out here, but it has changed my perspective on life.

Space

First off, we have a 1/2 acre of land, and that’s small out here. When we moved in, I literally had
 anxiety about walking all the way to the back of our property, let alone allow the kids to go play outside. I wasn’t used to a yard or space to run around. My oldest daughter had learned how to ride her bike in the small parking lot of our apartment complex and now we had space. Now it feels small.

 
Garden

When we lived in an apartment I killed basil plants on my front steps. Never did I imagine having a green thumb. Now, I have space for a garden. Even though I had no clue what to do, I decided gardening would be my new pastime. This in itself has changed my life and I’ll write more about it in my next post. All I can say is that gardening gives me so much joy and accomplishment. I may have a green thumb after all. (You can follow me at my Instagram account livinglovingcountrylife and see how our garden progresses this year)

Animals

I’ve got a confession to make, we have a dog and that’s it. But my neighbors across the street have horses. And it’s not uncommon to drive around and see people riding their horses around the neighborhood or in town, including the pick-up line at school.

This has led my youngest daughter to fall in love with horses. She’s become a little cowgirl at heart.

But it’s not just the horses, or alpaca’s being walked on Main St., the chickens, or cows. It’s that I can be blessed with fresh eggs, or fresh goat cheese, goat milk ice cream…friends of ours have enough to share sometimes. It’s the ideology of self sufficiency, and that we have been exposed to many new ways of raising and feeding our bodies because of people around us who raise animals.

Slow pace

Never did I consider anything but a fast paced life, where the freeway would guide me to where I needed to be. Heck, I wanted to live in New York city, the mecca of fast paced life.

Now, it’s small country roads that I drive through every day, full of oak trees. And when there’s a slight fog in the air it makes everything look so romantic. The people are still busy and in a hurry to get to where they need to, yet my perspective has changed. Life here seems a little bit more…I’m not sure what the word is. All I know is that when I travel “down the hill” it’s different.

Community

The first day we moved in, our neighbors came over to introduce themselves, they were even kind enough to bake us a pie. I had never experience that, I didn’t know what to make of it. When I was growing up, we didn’t have that type of relationship with our neighbors. It was odd to me at first.

But, it hasn’t stopped there. The way this small community is connected sometimes surprises me. I buy seedlings for my garden from a farm nearby, who sells their produce to a local restaurant, that happens to be our favorite place to eat, and on the weekly basis I run into said owner at the coffee shop. It’s a small cycle that makes me proud to be a part of this little piece of country living in San Diego.

Now I know that “community” is everywhere in our lovely city, WE make it. The more we engage with people and support local establishments within our area, we can develop that closeness.

Family

Most of my childhood was spent playing on the steps of our apartment, and my teen years locked up in our small front yard playing with my dog. We didn’t really live in a safe neighborhoods and my parents never let us ride our bikes around or play outside too much. In contrast to how my husband grew up, on a 2 acre property out in the countryside of Ohio. He wanted our kids to experience life differently. We didn’t like having to drag bikes down the stairs of our apartment and into a parking lot in order to have them ride it. It became important to give our kids a different experience.

In any case…

While you might see Ramona as a far off place where no one wants to live. And you drive through it on your way to Julian for pies or the snow, you may pass it on a blink of an eye. It’s home for me, and I’ve learned to love the lifestyle. I’ve leaned that I might not be the BIG city girl I used to be. I might just be a bit country too,…and I’m okay with that.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank my team at SDMB, you ladies helped me out with my writer’s block this month. Thanks for the support!