Things I'm learning

1. I cannot sleep hot.

2. I cannot sleep damp.
* The one time I gave up and took an Ambien, I did not seem to care if I was hot or damp.

3. When the cleavage sweat starts to roll, I say screw the electric bill and get up and turn down the temperature.

4. When people say you live in an "up and coming" area, that's code for, "still kind of ghetto."

5. The weather in Miami is always "partly cloudy with a chance of rain." That means that it's sunny, but there could be a downpour at any second.

6. When you go to Target and the carts lock when you get ten feet out of the front door (so you don't steal them) - and are still a few hundred feet from your car, you realize it really does get worse that just having to pay to park at Target (which you also have to do).

7. Instead of saying "have a nice summer" or some other pleasant message on the high school marquees here, our local high school says, "have a safe summer." When you see the area it's in, my mind automatically extrapolates that to, "have a safe summer - don't get shot."

8. If you never leave your air conditioned apartment, the hair frizz actually isn't too bad.

9. Exception to #8 - see #2. When sleeping damp, whatever half of the head is in the pool of sweat will be frizzy when you wake up. Or get up, as the case may be, since you are probably not sleeping.

10. (And this one totally grosses me out), if you leave your flour, sugar, oats, etc., in your cupboards, bugs will sprout from spores that are in them and you will open up a bag full of bugs. Apparently you have to put them in the freezer for a few weeks to kill off the spores. My next door neighbor warned me of this as it happened to her recently when she didn't believe the people that told her.

11. When you remove yourself from the blogging world for a week, it's a little overwhelming when I sign in to my google reader and see that I have 123 new blog posts to read! You mean the world went on without me while I was unpacking boxes?

12. I was not kidding about Miami fashion. My sister can vouch for me. I think she may have hurt her eyes from all the hot pink she saw. And all the exposed flesh.

13. My feet get really tired walking around on hard wood floors all day. Does this happen to anyone else? I know it looks better, and it's weird to say, but I still prefer carpet.

14. In our conversations with people so far here, it seems that a common pastime of non-Floridians is complaining about Florida and Floridians.

15. People call Miami "the closest city to the U.S." Because this is definitely not the U.S. you've ever known down here.

All this said, we had probably the warmest welcome at church yesterday that I've ever had in any ward, and I actually really like our apartment. Imagine - somewhere that actually has potential to look nice! Even when you clean it! And we have cable! For those of you who were ever gored by our 7-foot rabbit ears, you know that's a definite improvement. But now I really am by myself. We'll see how it goes.