a bit homesick

We've now resided in Texas for 5 days and yesterday was the first day where I really felt homesick; it suddenly sank in that this move is real and that while I'm only 12 hours from "home", it's a totally different world down here! Obviously I miss my family and friends; I miss taking the boys to preschool, but we're adjusting. This move was the best move for us financially now, for saving up later and for B's job opportunities. We've been extremely busy trying to get unpacked and organized so I haven't even had much time to focus on the fact that I wasn't home.

Then we went to the grocery store. This kitchen is literally twice as big (if not bigger) than any kitchen we've had since getting married. It's a whole new set-up, in fact we had to buy our own fridge when we moved it because there wasn't one. So we had to go grocery shopping to fill it.

Naturally in this Great state, nothing is the same as anywhere else in the country and they don't have my usual uber-popular grocery store chain down here. No big deal, handled that fine. (at the time, now I may sound a wee bit bitter). Then we get to the pasta sauce aisle. I always buy Ragu Robusto with roasted garlic and onion. Always. Full of veggies, cheap, tastes good in spagetti or baked ziti, just really like to have it on hand,, kids will eat it...it's just our usual brand.

Well, they don't carry it. In fact they only carried one 'flavor' of Ragu. For some reason, this hit a nerve.

So we do more shopping and in the produce section they have BARRELS of pinto beans...odd, the only way I've ever seen pinto beans is in a bag but what-ev, I don't even buy them...it was just different. They also can legally sell 5.8% alcohol and wine in grocery stores. Again, not used to that but not really complaining. So we get back to the cold section and they don't sell the flavor of coffee creamer that I like, nor the eggnog.

Super frustrating.

I walk over the butter section, looking for plain un-salted stick butter. They have the pricier Land o' Lakes brand and then the store brand, which is fine by me. Except the packaging is in Spanish. Obviously I can tell by looking at it that mantequilla is butter. Took me a bit longer to figure out if I wanted 'mantequilla' or 'mantequilla sin sal', unsalted. Figure that out and I'm even more frustrated.(luckily 8th grade Spanish came back to me and I remembered that sin meant without.) Normally if I want butter, I buy butter. No guessing, no real thinking, it's butter. Blue pkg is unsalted, red pkg is salted. Done. But not here in Texas, it's gotta be more complicated than that.

By this time I'm getting irritated.

So lastly we get to the frozen food section, I wanted to get a few frozen pizzas for quick easy lunches. I get over there and start looking for the little orange boxes and ONCE AGAIN they don't carry it. How do you not carry the little crispy crust Tony's pizzas?!!?!

I'll admit, I was pissed. I was done shopping. I just wanted to leave, regardless if we had everything or not. I was done. I've been eating Tony's pizza's since like, birth. Okay, maybe not birth per se but when your Papa and Grandma both retire from working there, my dad worked there {as did most of my uncles} in high school, and it's very well known brand...it's all we eat when buying frozen pizzas. This stuck my last nerve.

Looking back now, psychoanalyzing myself, it was like the grocery store had just slapped me in the face and said ''Bitch, you ain't in Kansas anymore''. It was all the sudden that I realized this is now home, like the food or not, miss the people or not, you're home. This Tony's pizza lacking place where we reside, is now home.

I won't lie, I shed some tears. Not over the pizza (I don't think, lol) but over what the pizza represented. Of course I did so as discreetly and quietly as possible, then pulled on my metaphorical big girl panties and dealt with it. I have kids to raise, I can't be crying. I know it's a combination of the move, the lack of sleep and the business of getting settled. I know it will pass.

But it's my blog and I'll bitch, whine or cry over whatever I feel like. And when I do go back home, I'll probably gain 200lbs from the pizza.