Rolling Hills, Moody Skies, Surprises & Picnics!

(Read below for a Scribble Picnic update and our new theme!)

Rolling hills, lush fields full of promise under brooding clouds and lashing rains. A somewhat apt description of our move here but also Sunday's drive to Somerset, KY, where we went searching for a few choice items for Alexandra's next downtown Campbellsville Artisan Market. (Last Friday's was fabulously successful. Aside from selling most of her original artwork — on greeting cards, tote bags, change purses and xmas ornaments, etc. — she also made further connections with people in the community.) Court & Main, by the way, is a wonderful shindig held once a month for any of you who might happen to live anywhere nearby and have thought of visiting this rising town that's throwing off its shackles from years of decline with various people moving into the area and investing into making it a newly forthcoming quaint downtown urban surprise.

Change is exciting and scary too all that the same time! Well, I should say, Alexandra is walking in total faith that we're to be here and stays focused on all the doors that have indeed opened up for us or will very soon. For me, it can be a little bit more of a challenge some days adjusting to a slower pace of life, a distinctly different use of grammar and some things not rolling out quite as fast as I had hoped. Leaving behind a long time job that I had always loved was not easy either. Yet these new horizons helped with that professional need to keep being challenged, fully utilized and growing.

There have been days, admittedly, where I've had to remind myself not to focus on things past but embrace the present, being thankful even for the unexpected...like so many spots along various drives where we feel like we're back in Norfolk, England again. Ha, I mean, there are even some quite narrow hedge-rowed country lanes every now and then! I'm actually surprised at just how quickly I've fallen for the landscape here and how much more in sync it is with my natural aesthetic preference for greenery. It truly delights my inner "city boy" heart and certainly helps when driving past areas not quite so lovely, shall we say? (Not to say that any Colorado town doesn't also have similar challenges with junk yards and the inevitable affects of economic decline, mind you.)

One of the biggest surprises here is that with Campbellsville also being a small university town, there is actually quite a lot of diversity for a hub this size in central rural Kentucky. On any given day in the coffee shop downtown, one can find a table or two filled with students (and some professionals) from other countries. Just this week alone, for example, I came across three suave looking eastern Europeans walking in with cuffed shorts and hair coiffed like George Michael (à la his Wham days); a table filled with Japanese students all speaking Japanese; a couple of Caribbeans(?); half a dozen Italians, and most recently a handful of Brits: two visiting who head up Vineyard worship in the UK, one who came here 18 years ago on a college basketball scholarship from Leicester and another just met today who's from Ipswich currently at uni here.

Just this last week, we were invited to a couple's lovely designed loft which is across the street from where we will be living, come November or so. (Alex had met them through one of the markets where the lady was thrilled to find that we too love English teatime and such as she grew up with an English nanny, having spent all her formative years in Malawi and Tanzania, former British colonies, and then later returning with her husband for another decade in Botswana.)  My mind kept on spinning that here was this couple, soon to be new neighbors even, who knew exactly where my oldest son is in the Kalahari with Peace Corps, having been to his neighbouring villages and pronouncing them with ease! Then when we learned their previously homeschooled son was now in Edinburgh studying for his masters degree where he's combining his fluency in Gaelic with his love of video gaming, I kept on having to pinch myself. Ha! So, all that to say, you never know what any place might hold. Every place has its own surprises and this is definitely no exception.

Oh, and in the meanwhile, I'm getting a chance to capture some beautiful scenes along the way. :)

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UPDATE: Being that today is now Monday, the 10th, I think we best prolong Scribble Picnic for another week, for meeting here anew on Wednesday, the 19th, next week. Hope that's Ok with everyone? Thanks! Oh, and how about our next theme have something to do with... Exploration? :)

P.S. Please considering doing two other things, if you would:
1. Fill out this quick 1-question Scribble Picnic survey!
2. Read our very own Mary's fabulous write up from our super great visit when she and her hubs, Bob, came to Fort Collins. We had a blast. So much fun!