Lately, well, for about the last year... I suppose. I've been completely captivated with where I am at: my hometown of Cedar Falls. You need to know I've never had this before. I've always been eager to get out. Eager to see the world. Eager to be somewhere exotic and exciting. These foreign feelings are blowing my mind!
Clarity may possibly have started shining through after reading this stat:
A new report from the Corporation for National and Community Service: In 2010, about 38 percent of Iowans devoted time to helping others. They volunteered a total of 93.4 million hours and provided more than $2 billion in services to Iowa.
Cedar Falls/Waterloo has the 11th highest volunteer rate in the country with 37.6 percent of our residents donating their time. This is a great place to live!
It really is a great place to live! There's a sense of community here I'd never realized before. After living elsewhere for about 5 years, I came back to this strange place that was undoubtingly the same location as always, but just had this completely different feel to it. Everyone I'd enjoyed Cedar Falls with prior to my 'grown-up' (if you will) life had gone on to their very own 'grown-up'-lives, and yet, Cedar Falls remained untainted, perhaps even more charming than ever before! There's constantly something going on downtown; whether it be a meeting over lunch, musicians sharing their talents with the rest of us, or a even celebration of motorcycles. (Yes, MOTORCYCLES!)
People come together in times of need here. People smile here. People LIVE here.
I can't quite put my finger on whether the change is in me or this lovely little town, but a change most certainly has happened and I think it's nothing less than wonderful.
Check out this local artist for one of my very favorite paintings:
http://artbyalice.synthasite.com/City_Scenes.php
