Back Home

Just a note to let everyone know that we made it safely home this afternoon. It was a largely uneventful two day slog back to Short Pump. And, just like that, it's over.

Lucy has been ecstatic to be back home. She has alternated between sitting on our bed, which has always been her upstairs throne chair, and the sofa, the only piece of furniture she's allowed to sit on downstairs...therefore, her downstairs throne chair. She took a quick spin around her fenced in yard out back just to remind herself that she was home, now she's sacked out on the floor in my library. She may sleep for a week.

It's when you arrive back home from vacation that you realize you're not rich. If I were rich, surely I would have people on the payroll to do all my unpacking. What a miserable exercise...as if I needed any reminders that my vacation is over. You open up your suitcase full of mostly dirty clothes and the delightful aroma of Loon Landing hits you in the face. It's a mixture of pine needles, lake water and campfire smoke. One tumble in the washing machine will take away the smell from my clothes. Luckily, there is no machine capable of getting that smell out of my heart and soul.

The good news is, there's only 9 more months until we go back, this time with the kids. 

Tomorrow is my one and only buffer day between being in Maine and being back at work. It's all I'll need. There are actually things about home that I've missed. I missed my house. We've been here twenty years. That's a significant amount of time which has endowed this place with its own powerful memories. I've missed my office, the people there more than the actual work, but missed them just the same. I missed my church, and the people in my small group. But, mostly I missed the calming, dependable rhythm of my life here. How lucky I am to be able to go to so fabulous a place as Maine, then come back to a good life in Short Pump. Sometimes, I wonder why I have it so good. Why me, while so many others have such a struggle? I have no answers to questions like this. But, I am grateful, and I don't take a single part of it for granted. 

Pam's at the store. Tonight she will make white chicken chili. We will watch something on television while we eat. Tomorrow morning, we will go to church.

Good. Maine was great, but being home is good too.