I was so thrilled to hear my favorite home team won the super bowl! Thank goodness for that, because I couldn't watch any of it since I was unloading a truck on the coldest day EVER in Michigan.

Man, it's flippin' cold up here.

Here's a fun idea: try taking 1100 square feet of crap and stuffing it into a 875 square foot house. If that's not your idea of a good Saturday night, then try shopping at a grocery store where you are required to wear 'Uggs' and carry a platinum AmEx card to the meat counter before purchasing your 'Maverick' beef. What the hell? I've entered Yuppie hell.

That being said, I love Royal Oak. While I'm desperately missing my knit group and my friends in Atlanta, I'm totally digging this place. Here's a new concept: talking to strangers! People do that in this town, even when it's thirty below zero. In fact, my new neighbors brought over a tin of cookies as a welcome gift. Who does that? People in Royal Oak, Michigan, that's who.

My house is actually the most adorable thing since Barbie said "Math is hard!" Unfortunately, the sink in the bathroom broke today and there's these unsightly cracks in about half of the windows, and I'm pretty sure our cars have been cased out by neighborhood vandals, but other than that, it's really just precious. Really. Michael has been able to erect his entire MAN THEATER in the tiny living room and was kind enough to leave me one cubic foot for my silk flower arrangement. That's love, people.

The bike, however, refuses to start. The scariest moments of my life? When Michael rode the bike into the Budget rental truck, and when he rode the bike out of the truck. Of course it was scary for me, people. We're talking about my love, my passion, my absolute everything. And my husband was riding it, too.

Hey! I'm gonna start cooking pretty soon, here. After all, I went to the 'market' (we're so swanky we go to market now instead of the grocery store). The market is overridden by hippie love-children who all have these enormously disgusting looking dreadlocks, except the butcher (thank God). The butcher looks like he is in some kind of hell working with these pot-ridden socialists, but it's a job, and he's glad to talk to other normal, bitter individuals like myself. This camaraderie ended shortly after I asked for a pound of turkey burger and admitted half of it was for my cat. I'm sorry. I'm a snob and so is my damned cat.

However, at market (well, now I'm just English, apparently), there is also this scrawny sixteen year old bagger guy who enjoys yelling at morons (like me) who can't figure out how to exit the building, because hippie markets with expensive meat cuts make sure overweight, insecure middle-class women who still wear real leather shoes are put in their perspective places. And how do they do this? Firstly, by placing the exit door in the exact place where an eye will not travel. Secondly, by having this really strict path of how to get around the grocery store. And thirdly, by yelling loudly at the woman going against the flow of traffic: "Hey, ma'am! The exit is THE OTHER WAY!"

Thanks a lot, you underfed vegan. Go to hell.

Anyway, pictures will follow. Thanks, all, for coming around and saying hello. And a special thanks to Sysm for a certain gift that has made life most easy, especially at a certain mom and pop general store.