Swimming & Smiles

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

First off, I want to mention something that I'm doing with the blog. I've been going back to the start of my blogging journey and changing categories on the posts to make them more easily found. If you look at the right of any blog page, you'll see a menu with a list of categories, such as About My Family or Sign Language. By clicking on any of those categories, you'll be brought directly to posts tagged under each heading. However, when I started blogging, I wasn't really sure what category to put posts in, and each post was only labeled with one heading. I've been going back to add all categories applicable to each post, so that it will be easier to find what you're looking for. This will probably take me quite a while to finish, as I'm only up to posts from October 2014, but I'll get through them all eventually!

So up in New York, my friends have mentioned that they're already wearing sweaters at night and preparing for colder weather. I mean, tomorrow is the first day of Fall, so it makes sense that it's starting to get a little colder, right? Well not here in Florida! My gosh, it is so beautiful here still! I went outside and watched all of the kids in the pool tonight, and I just couldn't believe that it's the day before Fall begins and we were outside getting soaking wet. Life is so different here than it is in New York! Honestly, the only part of the weather that isn't amazing is the humidity, and that's just because I don't know what to do with my hair yet. I'm still figuring out how to tame it!

You know what else I'm still trying to figure out down here? The people. The people down here are so different than the people in New York, which is crazy because it seems like everyone we talk to is a New Yorker who moved down here! But everyone is so nice... not that New Yorkers aren't nice, I just mean that people down here go way more out of their way to be friendly and everything. Like, in New York, you talk to your friends, you smile at people on the street, and you go about your business. Down here, you compliment someone on their shoes and they go into a twenty minute speech on how to get to the shoe store and what a great sale there was.

Even in the grocery stores down here, I'm still shocked at the way people behave. Employees bag your groceries for you (all the time... they don't let you do it yourself at all), they jump in to help you take the groceries out of the cart to have them rung up, and they even offer to walk out to your car with you to help put the groceries into your car. It's insane! I actually find myself getting angry that I can't bag my own groceries! People just want to help you with everything around here, and I'm really not used to it yet. But I'm hoping I'll get used to it eventually.

Now, I know that last nights I asked for everyone to keep a family friend in their thoughts after she had open heart surgery. Tonight I'd like to ask for positive thoughts for another family friend who is spending some time in the hospital's burn unit. He was burned on the arms and face, and I know that it must have been awful. We're keeping him and his family in our thoughts while he's going through this horrible time.

Thank you so much for your continued support! I look forward to sharing more stories about my experience with foster care, and hopefully hearing from readers who have questions or similar stories to share. I'm always willing to answer questions and hear about other experiences! Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!

I’d greatly appreciate it if you would share this blog with friends and family through your favorite social media sites. If you’re sharing on Twitter, don’t forget to tag me (@TayTayK02) and use the hashtag #TaylorTalks.

Thanks!
Taylor

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