My dead father’s brother likes Texas; my year-dead mother loved spending a timeshare two weeks in Hawaii.

As an American in Slovakia, I’m often asked how often I go home.

“Every night.”

Still, if somehow you moved to Texas, you really should live in Austin, or in the hill country just west of Austin. The area is beautiful – sort of a Texas style Garden of Eden. You might enjoy Austin’s hippy-dippiness: “Keep Austin Weird” being the town slogan.

I rarely waste energy defending Texas against the small-minded barbs it consistently receives. Yet, it is fun to see that so many of your readers are my in-state neighbors. It’s also fun to see their enthusiasm for a state whose inhabitants truly rever freedom, and free enterprise. The people in Texas are wonderful(neo readers – naturally). The quality of life is extremely high.

Yours was an excellent post, and a great reminder to us 40-somethings of life’s winter challenges. Your mom is much blessed by you, oh dutiful daughter.

I also invite you to Texas. I lived in Connecticut for a few years and found some of the folks there to be just as friendly as Texans. I’m sure you will fit right in wherever you end up.

But we’ll love you no matter who you are in Texas.

And that’s something you can’t really say in New England. Been there, done that. Wasn’t welcome, despite paying their bills. Good luck.

Subsunk

As another ‘woman of a certain age’, My hat’s off to you for your involvement. I grew up in a four generation home, and raised my children as 5th gen. Leaving it was a wrench, and mom also left to go to an independant “self contained” unit when dad was failing in his health. She’s now 90 and in *end stage renal failure (4 yrs and still tickin). She gave up driving @ 90, and relies on me 100% for getting around. We’re best friends, my daughter is cut from the same cloth; but in the East Bay area so can’t pitch in physically. Mom, is sharp, reads omnivoriously and got an i Mac @89yrs old, she emails to Australia where my big sister and all the great grandchildren reside. Get your mom on email ASAP, it will broaden her scope and encourage her to wake up every day to see what’s come in the mail. Between the walker, a new lifeline locket and weekely shoping jaunts, mom’s able to remain independant. When the time comes, she’ll come ‘home’ to stay w/ us for however many months/years she has left. We are moving a bit further away this spring, but still w/in easy reach of her for the weekly shop and emergency trips to visit. The next abode will have a spare room for visits. Eventually we hope to convince her to toss her lot in with us and recreate the old family homestead that worked so well for over 22 yrs. As for me and mine, we ARE planing on being every bit as independant or situated in an area that we can segue into a local “Golden Gehtto” as dad refered to the adult community they moved to.
Happy Hunting for the next new place, and bless you for being a good daughter.

Chrisy