8 advantages of living in the city

I haven't lived in a big city since I graduated from high school... 10 years ago! And since being back I love it! There are so many awesome advantages. Here are a few I've noticed.

1. Delivery - You can anything delivered right to house and put in the room you want it. Since we moved we have bought several new furniture pieces for the family room, Grace's room and our new study and it is so wonderful to have it delivered. When we lived in Oklahoma we lived too far for delivery or it was out of this world expensive to deliver, so we always opted to pick it up ourselves.

2. Shopping - The nearest Target is only a couple miles from house. When we first moved to Oklahoma the nearest Target was an hour away and then about 2 years ago we got one 30 minutes away... not nearly close enough.


3. Restaurants - Too many options is great! I was limited to Chili's, fast food, or a couple local places. Adam and I are trying not to go crazy in this department though...only eating out once a week!


4. Grocery Stores - Any place that has more options than Walmart is fantastic. While I still do most of my grocery shopping at Walmart (because it really is cheaper) I enjoy having other options to go and grab something different and yummy from a place near us called Market Street... so cool!

5. Grandparents - We have always been lucky to have our parents pretty close... my parents use to be about 1.5 hours away and Adam's parents were 3, but now my parents are a mear 20 minutes and Adam's are about 2.5 hours away. It is great! My mom even babysat for us last Friday night so we could have a little night out to ourselves. It was wonderful!! It was even topped off that we had a gift card to where we ate, so our entire night out was practically free. I'm sure we will be needing more help from our parents once baby girl Emma comes (in 5 weeks!!!).

6. Pre-schools - there was only one in the city we lived in!! We have just started looking here, but there is one on practically every corner and they all seem wonderful. We were hoping to get Grace in one right away just one day a week, but everyone that seems great is full. So we are hoping to get her into a program 2 days a week for fall. Grace LOVES to be around other kids and I really just think she needs that time away from me. Plus it will be nice to have some time just me and the baby (like I did with Grace).

7. Food delivery - so a cross between delivery and restaurants... but in Oklahoma we only had pizza delivery. I don't even know how many places deliver here, but it has to be more than just Domino's. This will come in VERY handy after we have the baby. Although I am planning to make some meals to freeze (if you have any great casserole recipes email me!), I know there are going to be days that even putting something into the oven isn't going to happen! So Amen for food delivery.

8. Doctors - While I LOVED my old OB and Pediatrician, there are so many more options here. In Oklahoma we had only 3 OB's and a hand full of pediatricians. In fact, I ended up going to a pediatrician 30 miles down the road because he was that good. I miss them both terribly, but feel like we have found a couple good ones here. This could be a con as well... since there are so many finding a good one can take time. Thankfully I have so many family and friends in Dallas that have been helpful in this department.

Only a couple disadvantage I can find so far. One is traffic. And really that doesn't affect me that much... only Adam. Better him than me since I can get road rage. The second is that our neighbor is sort of busy during the day because of construction. Our neighborhood is about 3/4 complete, so we have probably about a year of construction noise ahead. It just isn't completely optimal for a stay-at-home mama that needs a nap from time to time. Thankfully Grace seems to sleep right through the noise!

OH and Grace is feeling much better. Unfortunately Adam and I have caught her little bug and are now going through tissues very fast! Hopefully it pass quickly because I would love to enjoy these last few weeks we have to sleep!!