Home Sweet Home

I wrote this and meant to post it almost two weeks ago, but somehow I got sidetracked and completely spaced it. Oh well, better late than never I suppose...

January 22, 2009
It's good to be home
Our vacation was just the right length of time. We were still having fun, not getting sick of anyone we were visiting yet, hopefully not driving our hosts crazy yet, and just starting to miss our animals when we started home.

And it is good to be home. We've been on a bit of a whirlwind since we got back, without much actual time at home though. So to spend a day off at home today, and pretty much throw out expectations of accomplishment was nice. We really are blessed with a wonderful home- not the house itself- it's a mobile home almost as old as I am- ugly as can be on the outside, but with plenty of room inside. Actually, the outside is improving. I decided the kids and I would cover up the ugly prison gray corrugated metal siding on the back with a mural. The front of the house has a big covered porch, and the two sides have roses or other big bushes to cover up the ugly. I have tried to grow plants up that back wall, but it is full Southern exposure, and so blasted hot in the summer that everything just burns to death before it grows more than a foot tall. So, we are painting a big, eclectic mural with aliens, a bear, chickens, trees and flowers. We have no plan really. We're just painting whatever strikes our fancy as we go along. I figured that this is the perfect time in our lives to do this. Someday, if we build a new house, it probably won't be mural with kids material, but what we have now was just calling out to be beautified. What I really think makes our home wonderful is certainly not the building itself though. It's the quiet and space of being on 6 acres, the goats and chickens doing their things in the pasture, the dogs and cats who want to play or be pet, the creek flowing, the warm wood stove and all the games and musical instruments and arts and crafts and books to keep us busy.

It's finally raining, thank God. It's been unseasonably warm here, but I'd rather see the rain. 70+ degrees in January is lovely and all, especially when you think if the ice storms and 20 degree days back east, but we need this rain. The grass in my poor overgrazed pasture needs it. The creeks, rivers, and the lakes really, really, really need it. I for one, am so very, very glad to have it here.