It’s taken a few years, but my body has finally adjusted to country time. When I lived in the city, I was a night owl. I stayed up late, slept in, and thought 8 a.m. was early. In the country I am forced to adapt to my surroundings and actually wake up with the sun.

My husband was the first key to my sleeping transformation. He went to bed at 9 p.m. and woke up between 4 and 5 a.m. At first, my body failed to function that early, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I refused to comply. I needed at least 3 hours more sleep or else I was not fun to be around.

Unfortunately, early to rise for my husband also meant early to bed. I resisted the time change for a long time. When the clock struck 9 p.m., I would dread bed. My husband would fall fast asleep. There I would lie awake, thinking about all the things I used to do when I lived alone as a night owl. After 9 p.m. was the best time to surf the Internet, read a book, play a computer game, write a story, or sometimes I would even pull out an exercise video.

With no computer and the fear of waking up my husband, the only activity I could still do was to read a book and read I did. I read for hours trying to make myself fall asleep. I finally began to bring my books to bed and read. With a bed lamp I satisfied my night owl by reading myself to sleep.

It’s easier to go to bed early that it is to get up early. Getting up early has been a challenge for me my whole life. My mom is a night owl and my father starts his day between 3-4 a.m. My dad has always started his mornings bright and early. The alarm would go off and he would jump out of bed, never using the snooze button. This is the opposite of me. I love the snooze button. Some days I would set the alarm an hour before I had to get up and hit the snooze button until it was time to get up. This worked when I was single but apparently a snooze button that continually goes off can get kind of annoying. Imagine that!

This became the beginning of the end for my sleep pattern. My husband would tell me, “Why don’t you just get up?” I resisted until the day my daughter was born. She forced me to finally break my habit. We co-sleep and initially, I woke up to tears every morning, but as she has grown older she has changed her ways of waking me up.  Now, at 18 months, she uses cuteness. In a gentle, loving way she pets my face. Then she jumps on my side and leans over my face slowly creeping until she finds my lips. She tenderly holds my face and gives me a sweet, soft kiss. Now that’s a wake- up call I can handle.  It beats the snooze button every time.

 Suggestions for our City Girl Transplant? Feel free to share at zoezolt@gmail.com.

Being a transplanted city girl, I learned to give up some city accessories when I came to the country. These items which can be common in the city, even trendy, just don’t cut it in the country.

Now the first item I gave up was high heels. These shoes, which accentuate and complement a woman’s -outfit, don’t work on a farm. I am not saying that a country girl can’t wear heels, just try it. The heels challenges can be verified the first time a country girl steps into the abundant mud.

Mud is not a forgiving receptacle for heels. The mud will pull and tug while the person on the other end tries to get her foot and the shoe. In the best case scenario, the foot and the shoe escape with a mud bath. In the worst case scenario, the mud wins the fight and only her foot escapes. The heel then becomes lost in the mud abyss.

Mud is not the only enemy of a heel in the country, chicken poo and creek crossings can also pose hazardous conditions. Instead of fighting it, I changed my shoe wardrobe. Now it includes a pair of tennis shoes, hiking boots, and gum boots. It’s the perfect shoe combo for any country girl.

This brings me to my next sacrifice—white. Any white clothing is a country no-no. The second I leave the house, the white item never remains its true color. It usually has a big mud stain or has turned a slight gray.  Just recently someone gave me a pair of white pants. These pants, made of soft, fluffy cotton, were warm and cozy. I wore them about two hours before the bottoms turned a slight brownish gray from the mud near my home. I washed and washed but they failed to return to that beautiful, clean, white color. Lesson learned, white is not a country color. This may explain all the camouflage people wear in the country, because it is so hard to make it look dirty. A big splotch of mud amongst the brown and green camo adds to its color spectrum. All the camo wearers may not be hunters; they must just be finding a color complementary to mud.

The next sacrifice I made was 2-wheel drive. City cars that successfully traverse paved city roads are no match for country hollows.  For two years, my car helped me travel the country. However, it also got stuck and just couldn’t make it up some roads. My car did not like the creek I traveled through every day to make it home. It was not the car’s fault. It was a city car in a country world. After two years, I accepted my car’s failings and moved up to 4-wheel drive. Now I can holler hop with the best of them. Holler hopping. This is another country pastime I discovered when I moved to the country. Apparently it involves taking a vehicle down any road, no matter how muddy, rocky, steep, or treacherous, and driving it as fast as possible. I could never be a holler hopper in the car, but my possibilities have opened up with my 4-wheel drive vehicle.

These sacrifices have led to some self-discovery and adjustment. It’s been 5 years, but I’ve finally learned the country uniform. Now I’ve got the right shoes, clothes, and vehicle.

     Suggestions for our City Girl Transplant? Feel free to share at zoezolt@gmail.com.

When moving out of the city into the country, remaining open-minded is an important part of the huge adjustment. Read More