One of my secret guilty pleasures is managing my monthly budget, which, I suppose there could be worse guilty pleasures. This month I hit my savings goal to get home for Christmas, so I can now start planning that trip.

It’s tricky to plan so far ahead, since I haven’t even done my first trip home slated for October, and since it’s inconvenient for most friends in the area to know what they’re going to be doing 5 months from now.

Last year I doubled up and went home to Louisville for Christmas and then to Pittsburgh for New Year’s, which ended up being a fantastic trip. This year I’m less certain of my plots, especially since I’m already worried about who’s going to catsit for Mr. Davis in October, let alone for 2 weeks in December when most everyone I know in LA will be out of town anyway (and I’ll need a fishsitter then, too)

I’ll figure it out eventually, I’m sure, but in the meantime, here’s a list of things that I miss about Kentucky:

1) Lightning bugs, as was previously established (thank you Eric for the video)
2) Thunder storms, even though they cause me pain. There’s nothing quite so soothing as napping safely inside while it’s storming outside. Except for the pain part, that is.
3) The smell of season transitions, which we don’t really get out here.
4) The greenness, which is something that Josh observed when he flew out to drive me across the country, and which I didn’t really understand at the time. Now that I’ve been in the desert-pretending-not-to-be that is LA for a year, I understand completely.
5) Katydids and tree frogs at night in the summertime
6) Autumn and trees changing color
7) Cardinals, pileated woodpeckers, and robins (there are supposed to be robins out here, but I’ve not seen any)