Hey…it IS good to be back home again…

I know you all enjoyed the guest writers last week!

And Russ and I enjoyed a time of refreshing as we visited some of the Southeastern United States.

But as John Denver pointed out…and I paraphrase his idea because you know…that copy-write thing…that home is much like a friend we have not seen in far too long…

I don’t know when I have been gone from home for a whole week.

I love home…I love to travel…but oh..how I love home.

I love coming down the street and pulling up in front of our house.

I catch my breath and look at the home that I can take for granted without a little absence. With fresh eyes I see it and I kind of fall in love with it and think if we were house hunting…this would be the ONE.

Just the way it should be, with the flowers and a flag and the porch and, yes the spider webs around some of the lights and a nest of wasps we can’t quite find and even the critters subletting the shed and …

it is…home.

And I am home…

I love opening the front door and the smell of apple cinnamon plug in’s and whatever else makes this house smell like the best place on planet earth to me.

And while a lot of organized and efficient people might empty  suitcases and put things away and go through the mail…I just go from room to room and remember that THIS is home.

The place where our everyday life has been lived for minutes and days and years.

I look at the calendar and see appointments and commitments penned in and I feel grounded again, because this speaks of normalcy and routine.

I text friends and know they are just across town, and if we had time we could meet for coffee. It makes my heart soar.

I put a load of laundry in because it is possible we will want some clean clothes tomorrow, and then head out to take a walk on one of my familiar routes.

I notice tiny colorful birdhouses hung from a tree at the house on the corner. A summer project I guess.

I  smell grills cranking out Midwestern summer food. Maybe barbecue chicken, maybe burgers.

I hear a neighbor on his cell phone out on his deck across the way. I see neighbors walking dogs and pass the party barges out on the inlet of the lake.

And I think that of all the beautiful scenery we saw on vacation, there is nothing quite as lovely as the sights around our very own home.

It is good to get away…it is better to come home.