Want to move. (Want rural area with dry weather, blue skies, blue politics, near mountains, not far from a big city.) (house)

[nerdygirly]

Okay I am going to TRY to not make this horribly long. I HATE where I live! I m in Southeast Texas and have lived here for 7 years and have hated every moment of it! My husband just told me we can move as soon as I graduate (I get my Bachelors in Political Science next May!). Problem is I have NO idea where I want to go! Employment is not a huge factor for my husband because he works in refineries and usually travels all the time anyways so where I live doesn't much matter, he can spend his off time wherever our home happens to be. I have three children (13 to 5) so naturally schools and saftey are important. Diversity is important too (I am in a 97% white area now and don't want my kids to grow up thinking thats how the world is!) Let me list out the positive and negative of where I am now so you can get an idea of what I am looking for!
Pros:
1. Low cost of living
2. We have 3 acres (not horribly important but i dont wanna be able to reach out my house and touch my neighbors house, and my kids need to be able to run!)
3. Hardly any traffic and everywhere you drive is speed limit 65 cause it's mostly highways.

Cons:
1. Air quality (I have asthma and can't hardly breath cause of the plant smoke, not to menton pollen and mold spores!)
2. Everything is 30 miles away! What I save n living costs I spend in car maintenance and gas.
3. The milk tastes gross here! Texas does NOT have happy cows!
4. The sky is never BLUE! Not the way it was when I lived in Vegas (which i don't want to be there again either because I'm not a big fan of heat or the desert, but I do miss the moutains!!)
5. The humdity here is like 909430927493286423859634% with 100 degree temps, it feels like I'm wading through the air. I can handle heat OR humidty but not both.
6. Small town attitude, not to offend anyone but people here are very close minded on account of it being a red state and in the bible belt this is a very conservative christian area of which I am neither! Not that it's bad, I just would like to not have holy water sprinkled on me when I go out in public (kidding!)

thats the basics, I prefer cold to hot, blue skies to rain, I love seeing mountains in the distance, I LOVE the pacific ocean never been to the Atlantic but it can't possible be worse than the gulf. I don't want to be IN a city I have bad anxiety and road rage, bt NEAR a city would be awesome (an 1.5 hours from Houston now and that is too far plus Houston is kinda gross too. I prefer blue to red (hint hint), again no offense just tired of defending myself all the time

So yeah where is a good place for me? Any suggetions would be WONDERFUL and thanks for reading my long post!

[inahandbasket]

Originally Posted by nerdygirly

Okay I am going to TRY to not make this horribly long. I HATE where I live! I m in Southeast Texas and have lived here for 7 years and have hated every moment of it! My husband just told me we can move as soon as I graduate (I get my Bachelors in Political Science next May!). Problem is I have NO idea where I want to go! Employment is not a huge factor for my husband because he works in refineries and usually travels all the time anyways so where I live doesn't much matter, he can spend his off time wherever our home happens to be. I have three children (13 to 5) so naturally schools and saftey are important. Diversity is important too (I am in a 97% white area now and don't want my kids to grow up thinking thats how the world is!) Let me list out the positive and negative of where I am now so you can get an idea of what I am looking for!
Pros:
1. Low cost of living
2. We have 3 acres (not horribly important but i dont wanna be able to reach out my house and touch my neighbors house, and my kids need to be able to run!)
3. Hardly any traffic and everywhere you drive is speed limit 65 cause it's mostly highways.

Cons:
1. Air quality (I have asthma and can't hardly breath cause of the plant smoke, not to menton pollen and mold spores!)
2. Everything is 30 miles away! What I save n living costs I spend in car maintenance and gas.
3. The milk tastes gross here! Texas does NOT have happy cows!
4. The sky is never BLUE! Not the way it was when I lived in Vegas (which i don't want to be there again either because I'm not a big fan of heat or the desert, but I do miss the moutains!!)
5. The humdity here is like 909430927493286423859634% with 100 degree temps, it feels like I'm wading through the air. I can handle heat OR humidty but not both.
6. Small town attitude, not to offend anyone but people here are very close minded on account of it being a red state and in the bible belt this is a very conservative christian area of which I am neither! Not that it's bad, I just would like to not have holy water sprinkled on me when I go out in public (kidding!)

thats the basics, I prefer cold to hot, blue skies to rain, I love seeing mountains in the distance, I LOVE the pacific ocean never been to the Atlantic but it can't possible be worse than the gulf. I don't want to be IN a city I have bad anxiety and road rage, bt NEAR a city would be awesome (an 1.5 hours from Houston now and that is too far plus Houston is kinda gross too. I prefer blue to red (hint hint), again no offense just tired of defending myself all the time

So yeah where is a good place for me? Any suggetions would be WONDERFUL and thanks for reading my long post!

Have you read any of the City-Data posts about the quality of life in Vermont or western Massachusetts? New England might be the place for you.

inahandbasket

[DailyJournalist]

West Chester, PA may be a good choice for you.

[ckhthankgod]

You might like Upstate NY too. Taxes are high, but cost of living is pretty low. You might like the Albany area due to the government influence and has a decent job market.

Form what you like though, you might be an Ithaca area type of person. Lots of land, in an area with good schools and actually values "diversity". It's known for being "liberal" too. You might be able to get a gig at Cornell University or Ithaca College. There's a Community College in the area too. Here's some information on the area: Visitor Info - Visit Ithaca

Ithaca, New York - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ithaca

Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY

Cornell University

theithacajournal.com | The Ithaca Journal | Ithaca news, community, entertainment, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Ithaca, NY

Sciencenter, Ithaca NY

Town of Ithaca

Welcome to the Ithaca Ballet

Home : TCAT Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit

Museum of the Earth

Kitchen Theatre Company, Ithaca, NY

Ithaca Farmers Market

The State Theatre of Ithaca, NY

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/gr.../14havens.html

Denied:1up! Software ()

https://www.nystart.gov/publicweb/County.do?year=2008&county=Tompkins (broken link)

Ithaca City School District - Home

Home > Downtown Ithaca Alliance

http://www.essentialnyjobs.com/index...=ithaca&thes=0

http://www.historicithaca.org/

and much more.....

[18Montclair]

Why don't you move to Houston?

[nerdygirly]

Houston isnt much better than where I am at now, only thing is stuff is closer together and there is a touch more diversity, but the attitudes are the same and all my other cons still apply. Plus traffic in Houston is wretched and you still have to evacuate from hurricanes annually :/ I don't want to live IN a big city either, just near a good sized city with lots going on (especially for families) would be nice!

Thanks for the suggestions I've gotten so far btw! Very helpful in giving me places to look into! There are just sooo many smaller cities that it would be very hard for me to randomly find one here without a basic idea of what to look for so I end up just searching big cities and thats not what I want So thanks for the help!! More suggestions would be appreciated as well, I like to have options.

[LASam]

You sound like an ideal canidate for exurban/rural Denver... seems to fit most of your criteria.