"The Bubble"

I live in a fairly close-knit community. We've been here almost 18 years ... nearly 11 of those in our current home. I consider our community small because altho it is packed with people ... it's only maybe 3 square miles. I call our little city "The Bubble". I say that because almost everything we need is within those 3 miles ... even where my girls go to school. There have been times when we joke that we haven't been outside "The Bubble" in over a week.  I call our community small ... but in comparison maybe not. Our elementary school has about 1,100 kids (K to 6th) ... that's a lot of kids ... one of the biggest in the state ... and probably 95% live in "The Bubble".

When you have lived here as long as we have and have kids who go to our only elementary school (our 7th year there) you are bound to run into people you know ... all the time. Target is practically a social gathering. I have always called Target ... The 3 Mommy Minimum. No matter what day of the week or time of day ... it is almost guaranteed that I will run into at least 3 mommys I know. An interesting observation - only Target tho ... not Walmart or the grocery store or any of our 3 craft stores ... hmmm ... go figure.

It's nice to have that kind of small town feeling. I was recently on the phone with a company based in Iowa or Idaho. The employee asked how big my town was to better determine the type of service I was inquiring about ... I said small ... like 3 or 4 square miles ... maybe 12,000 people. She started laughing ... "that's not small ... my town has 381 people ... now that's small". I laughed too ... guess it's all about perspective. We might have more than 381 people ... but they fit nicely inside "The Bubble".