How's Heber (Vol. 1)

Q. How are things going in Heber? How is it living out in the country?

A. Logically I know it could be worse. Much worse. But ever since we entered the state of Utah our life has been revving at constant state of high stress. Things that nearly anywhere else would be a simple matter have taken five to ten times longer than average. And have cost way more than they normally would.

If we had a dollar for every time we heard, "It doesn't normally go like this" during our home purchase, I could pay my first months mortgage and buy a carton of gelato.

"Oh? No. There is no automatic sprinkler system on your property. We only listed that as an option to help sell the house. But yeah, don't look for it. It isn't there." Maybe not word for word, but pretty close.

"Internet? Sure I'll send one of our guys out to get you set up."
       Provider #1. "I'm sorry we can't actually install internet at this home. Your area is too thick with large trees. They block the signal. Sorry."
      Provider #2. "What we can offer you is dial up. Will that work?... No. You can't stream movies with it... It only takes about a minute to load a new page in your browser... Ok then. Call back if you decide your interested."
     Provider #3. "Sure we can do it. We've set up loads of houses in this area. We'll just run the cord over to here and then ground it right there... Nope. Wait. You have the old meter box. There is no ground to connect to. So all's you needs to do is have a new meter box put in, should run about six hundred dollars. Then call us back and we'll get you set up."

So far school is going well. The kids really are great. And each class has a couple of stand outs. The faculty I work with is super nice and helpful. And my class room is very pleasant with a wonderful view. And even a private deck that looks east. So I get to watch the sun come up each morning as I go through my early prep.

All in all, I think about three months from now, we'll be happy with where we are. In the mean time, we are having a whole lot of adult life heaped on our backs. Every other day we want to just pack up and go back home. Back to our little apartment by the bay. Back to our parks and sushi and beloved and very much missed friends.

We are home sick.