Country life is appealing, but there is an ongoing debate at our household over whether or not to move to town.

I really and truly love where we live.

I love the peace and quiet.

After talking recently to some Kenedy friends who are dealing with neighborhood noise issues, I am reminded of just how valuable that particular commodity is.

When my wife and I were married in the year 2000, our first home was an apartment in Kenedy.

I remember being awakened often on Friday and Saturday nights by the thump, thump, thump of passing motorists who I could plainly tell enjoyed the music in their car at a very, very, very, very, very, very high volume level.

I also remember hearing the sirens of police cars and police car tires screeching into our parking lot. This happened a lot more often than we expected when we signed the lease. I’d watch from our window as police officers had lengthy discussions with people in the parking lot.

We looked for a house for a long time and after living in town for a year, when we found a cute little two-bedroom, one-bath house nine miles from the nearest town, we kind of jumped at it.

It is a little inconvenient living 20 minutes from the nearest grocery store, but I really like the fact that it is extremely difficult to hit our nearest neighbor’s house with a Frisbee.

But…*sigh*… the times they are a ‘changin.’

It’s not just the two of us anymore, there are five of us now and we’re running out of space.

Lately we’ve been talking about finding a house with a little more space in town where it will be much more convenient for us when our daughter starts kindergarten next year.

We know the more our kids get involved in stuff – school stuff, church stuff, other stuff – the more difficult it’s going to be for us to live 9 miles out of town.

There are pros and cons to both lifestyles and we find ourselves discussing these more and more often.

Who knows? The city mice who became country mice just might decide to move back into the city again.

And maybe, with the right pair of earplugs, it might just work out.