Trying to love where I live

I live in a gorgeous place.  Smack dab in the middle of Idaho.  In the mountains.  5000 feet above sea level.  This is a ski resort town and a summer lake hangout place.  It truly is gorgeous. I can see God's gift of nature to us all around.  Everywhere I look.  The town is very small.  Only about 2500 full time, year-round residents.  It's the kind of place that I thought only existed in the movies.  A place where you know people every where you go.

Lately I've found myself sulking because we don't have a Target, or a movie theatre, or a craft store of any kind, or a mall, or any cheap restaurants.  I know it's ridiculous on one hand to want those things, and I even feel guilty typing the words on this screen.  It seems so shallow.  So materialistic.  But the truth is, I do want to go see movies at a theater.  And I do want to go to Fred Meyer or Target sometimes.  I want to take a class on quilting, or bracelet making or some such thing. 

And then I look around me.  All I see outside is beauty.  Green beauty.  Today on my lunch I decided to go out and look at the beauty everywhere.  Really take it all in.  I want to appreciate the fact that I live somewhere where God's creation is so vivid.  Somewhere that time seems much slower than everywhere else.  I want to feel blessed for living in such a place as this, rather than sad that it is so small, so remote.  Here's some of the beauty I found.

This lake is two blocks from my work and only five minutes from my home.

 

Aspen trees are everywhere.  I wish I could have somehow captured the sound as I took this photograph.  It was a tad breezy and the leaves make a really neat sound as they blow in the wind.

 

This one is just for fun.  And because I look smaller than I do in real life.  Yes, I am at the point where I post ANY picture of myself where I look smaller than I do in real life.  Even if it's just me in a shadow.

 

 

I was able to sit on a bench and read my book for a while at lunch.  Have you read this book, the Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh?  So good! But so sad.  I sure hope it ends well.