It’s too cold! I don’t like it. Today is better than yesterday. Yesterday it rained all day, and I was miserable lugging Mikey and Nico through that mess!

Second (what I really wanted to say first to be honest), you live in the I.E??? Really??? I love that Kelly (like most other people on this planet) has no idea what the Inland Empire is…

I feel like I can laugh about that because I used to live there, too. Until I got married and moved to the O.C. – and then to D.C. – and now i’m not exactly sure what San Diego calls itself. Ha ha ha.

I grew up in Chino (my parents are now in Norco), but not so near to the farms there. Though I could smell the cows on foggy mornings! And I had no idea (honest) that there was a prison there, though I’ve come to find out that that is what most people in Southern California associate Chino with.

When I was little, I had no idea how much bigger the rest of the world was. We used to have this town center that had a TARGET and a Mervyn’s and a Payless and a couple of other places like a toy store, some restaurants, two small theatres, a gym and haircut place… It was so simple and small. It is sad to see what it has become these days. Most of those stores are empty now that the bigger shopping centers are everywhere over there now.

In a way, I am sad to see so much of the I.E. expand and the farms being replaced by giant homes. It was such a simple and protected place to grow up. At least I thought so. My husband was the one who was just dying “to get out into the world!” I used to think that he meant the pretty tree-lined streets in Claremont. Only partly joking here.

Anyway. Thanks for the moment of nostalgia. Are you enjoying your cold mornings??? I always thought it would be colder here near the ocean than in the valley, but we’ve got that whole ocean fog thing going on that my kids think is sooooo cool that keeps us about 10 degrees warmer than you in the winter and about 10-20 cooler in the summer. I have decided that I like it very much.

Kelly–Inland Empire is a huge county in southern California. It the largest defined region in so-Cal (about 50 cities) and is in between Los Angeles, Orange County, and the desert. I’m just shy of an hour from anything and everything: beach, mountains, desert.