Past and present...

When we bought our house years ago, our friends with kids told us this area has one of the best public schools in US. Having no kids at that time, we obviously were not much interested so we did not make our decision based on that, we just loved the house when we saw it in year 2003 (wow, I was even surprised when I was typing '2003', 12 yrs ago, no kidding!). Funny enough, we lived in it only for four years and decided to move to Georgetown, DC and than Istanbul and than Nairobi! It was a journey for 8 years. And finally we are back in our own house.

This morning while I was cleaning the snow on our driveway, our neighbours came over to say hi. They thought we just bought the house, when I told them we owned it for sometime but did not get to live in it for long, they were surprised. When I told them, we just moved from Nairobi they were even more surprised. After they left, I stopped and thought about that, whomever I talk to and mention where we lived before, people seem to be very interested, surprised and envy.  Later on, I was on the phone with my brother and told him I was out with kids playing with snow, he said 'that's so funny, only a month ago Dilara and Onur was so used to seeing monkeys in the garden now playing with snow!'. Honestly, I never thought that way! Things seem so normal to us can be very different and interesting for other people.

It has been almost a month now since we moved back to US. Funny thing is it does not feel that way.
 Probably after doing this over and over again, it just does not matter anymore, it becomes a routine:) Life style and standards make things much easier in here. Besides, even little things are very structured and in order that, so you never get to worry about them. I was taking these little things for granted before, now I do appreciate them. But isn't it life? Our experiences teach us so much that, our awareness and appreciation increase...

 I used to worry about little things so much (such as the food my kids eat at school, or hygiene when we go to a restaurant, or simply never ending power and water cuts!) that, at the end of the day
I would feel like my whole energy was just drained, and sometimes my morale would be very low...

It still is very fresh now, but I have no doubt in the future, all these experience, ups and downs, will mean much more to us...