So just when I feel like complaining that there isn’t a Borders or Barnes and Noble to hunker down in and drink my steamy cup of coffee, I think about the banana trees.- Or I just remind myself that ineveitably I’d be stuck in the back with the trainset while craving to sit crosslegged in the cookbook aisle, where I could glance up and try to decide which I should I read first: Breads Breads Breads or Cooking with Paula?

But for now I enjoy the banana trees. When we first moved here I ran outside and marveled. “Oh my Goodness, we grow bananas in our backyard! The smallest sweetest cutest little bananas. They make the ones from the grocery store taste bland in comparison.

My kids take it for granted, but not I.

When I start thinking, “Boy do I miss In and Out Burgers.” I follow it up by, “But we have a Banana Tree on our backyeard.”

“Boy, do I miss the snow.” …But we have a Banana Tree on our backyard.

“Boy, do I miss my family”…But we have a Banana Tree on our backyard.

Okay maybe that last one doesn’t work as well. But one day I’ll be sitting on the couch watching all the cousins play together and my niece or nephew will start eating a banana and I’ll think “Boy, do I miss those bananas!”

For you all-

• What do you miss about where you used to live?
• What do you appreciate about where you live now?