10 Things I Love About Where I Live

I'm informally and unofficially declaring this week 'List Mania' on the happily ever after because I have a few posts in mind for this week that all happen to involve lists. I got tagged to play a game of "10 Things I love about where I live" by Hilda of The Dip-Files, so that'll be my first list of the week. Before I do that, though, I'd like to tell you a little bit about Hilda.

Hilda is a book blogger that I befriended last year through our mutual adoration of Larissa Ione's Demonica series. Let me just say that Hilda loves her vampires and all things paranormal romance. She is a young student from Venezuela who is now living in Shanghai. She blogs about herself, her life in China, and about books! Did I mention she loves paranormal romance? In addition to speaking her native language of Spanish, Hilda also speaks English and Portuguese. She's also been learning to speak Mandarin Chinese and Swedish! But wait! There's more! Hilda has also been picking up bits of Korean from her friends! Isn't her multilingualism so incredibly impressive?!

After a long haitus from blogging due to the internet constraints imposed by the Chinese government, Hilda is finally back online with her blog. She's been working hard to get her blogging mojo back and gain more followers to her blog. We all know how much more fun blogging is when we know we have an audience, right? So to help Hilda get her blog groove back, head on over to her blog, poke around, and follow her. If she gets 50 followers by the end of April, she's going to do a giveaway! So head on over to The Dip-Files and visit my friend Hilda! Just to warn you, though, Hilda has music that automatically plays at her blog, so if you're at work or if you have a sleeping baby nearby, turn down the volume on your computer first! :)

Now for my list. Which was way harder to do than I thought it would be.

10 Things I Love About Where I Live
Suburbia, New Jersey, USA.

1. I'm 45 minutes from NYC.

2. I'm 45 minutes from rolling hills and countrysides of New Jersey.

3. I'm 45 minutes from the beaches of the New Jersey shoreline. Although my love for this is debatable. I much prefer quieter, less populated beaches.

4. I'm 10 minutes from a wildlife reservation with acres and acres of woodlands with hiking trails, a lake and streams to explore. And roads that make some kick-my-butt bike rides!

5. I can walk or ride my bike to shops, post office, library, the train station, restaurants, the movie theater ... too bad I usually drive because I'm always short on time. I should try to be more green.

6. The distinct change of seasons with snow in the winter and hot and humid days in the summer. Although I could do without the 90+% humidity.

7. I live within five miles of at least 6 libraries and 2 major bookstores.

8. I live less than two miles from a Trader Joe's store, so my out of town friends always love to visit me.

9. I live close to a major international airport which makes traveling all over the world a piece of cake. Too bad I don't actually do that. :/

10. I could probably buy just about anything you could think of within a 30 mile radius from my house. I guess that's one of the benefits of living close to one of the world's biggest cities and busiest container ports. Then again, this point is rather moot considering the ease, speed and convenience of online shopping!

That was way harder than I thought. I'm thinking it would have been easier to make a list of 10 Things that I don't love about living around here.


Anyway, go say hi to Hilda. Tell her I sent you. :)