I just posted something a wee bit similar. Moved from FL to a shittier red state in the southeast, and am also looking for advice for how to make the best of it. I’ve been here nearly 6 months, and the culture shock is still horrible. It’s hard. I wish you have better luck than I have had.

I hate living in this red state. Florida was bad, but it’s so much worse here. I am desperately unhappy here, and we have another year on our billet. (Unless we get a miracle, and husband gets a promotion/transfer.) Everywhere I go, I get weird comments about my height, my hair, my accent. Oh, and it’s terrifying:…

A THOUSAND pairs of shoes?! I can’t even imagine that.

I LOVE Athleta’s stuff. It sorta took a weird turn when Gap initially took over, but they’ve gotten back on track. The stuff they make lasts FOREVER. I will have their tights forever.

So glad this weekend is almost over. I’ve had more than enough forced familial socializing (all with my inlaws— I’m not lucky enough to have my own family to see/complain about) to last me through the end of 2015.

It was ill-advised. Now my dad thinks they’re plotting to burn my house down. I’m sure my Halloween decorations (in a neighborhood otherwise devoid of them) really helped my image.

Honestly I did this after moving to the South when my neighbors kept annoying me about having found a church. I said I started worshipping at the Temple of Satan, thinking they’d take the hint and leave me alone.

the first day we lived here, i went into a bakery for a loaf of bread. instead of selling me bread, the woman behind the counter asked me five or six rapid-fire questions about joining one of the churches to which she belonged. I left without bread.

He’s military. I knew we’d be moving a lot, and I knew there was 0% chance that I’d like the first place we went after the Keys. I mean, it could have been somewhere amazing and I would have hated it because it isn’t where my friends and job are. But living here is my own personal version of hell. We could be here as…

It wasn’t a choice I made; it was for my spouse’s job. I am miserable; it’s not a secret. There’s literally no one who likes it less here than I do. I just wish I could see some cute little munchkins in costumes having fun. It would be a little piece of home (Boston) in an otherwise ridiculous aboutface (Keys->Bible…

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Sadly, I live in The Bible Belt now, where Halloween is too Satan-friendly so I have no cute trick-or-treaters to give candy. My yard is the only one decorated in this entire neighborhood. I have on a costume and am alone and drinking wine because my husband has duty. I miss the FL…

We might be the same person. That’s unsettlingly close. :)

NO! Really?! Why are people like this?! ...I am scandalized more than I ought be.

I grew up near a Greek family whose surname had to have twenty letters in it. I always wonder how they dealt with the forms.

Right?

I didn’t change my name. We get SO much flak over it—- especially from his CO.

People would do well to remember that it’s polite to refer to others the way those people choose to be called. Your feelings about their name don’t matter.

i really hope you complained to that corpsman’s superior.

Wasn’t Elsa Pataky in Snakes on a Plane? Is she doing a sequel?

They are definitely sequestered. Different rooms, plus a babygate and two chairs in the way. But they hate each other.