Ah. Home.

Besides the pocket omelet (thank you, Carolyn Renee, for that very apt description), this morning on my way to the sheep, I tripped over a goat (that would be you, Chicklet) and dropped an extremely large, 'ripe', pumpkin, which disintegrated in a tsunami of pulp and seeds up to my knees.  This was after Bernie got so excited over her breakfast that she barfed it all up - in varying degrees over a variety of carpeted spots.  The cats were so excited that I was back that they decimated three mice throughout the house.  It was a detailed (read: graphic) lesson in rodent anatomy.  The temps dropped to 28 and all the water buckets froze.  One contained two drowned, semi-frozen mice.

Ah.  Home.  How I missed it.

Getting back into the groove this morning was more than a little bumpy - even counting all the 'homecoming' events.  Luckily, the back-to-work routine is so ingrained in me that I didn't have to really think about it.  If I had, I would have cried.  But my house is clean, my laundry is done, there is soup in the freezer and a fresh list on the dry erase board.  I am downshifting back into my routine - and it's as smooth as slipping into a pair of your favorite jeans.  Home.

I picked up a couple of good habits on vacation - can you imagine that?  I am reading more, marking my place with some special bookmarks that keep me looking ahead.  I finished a book that I had forgotten in my library - "Floreana" by Margaret Wittmer.  Something you should know about me - at the very top of my "Must Do In My Lifetime" list is to spend some time experiencing the Galapagos Islands.  The Blue Footed Booby captured my imagination in my early childhood and has never released its grip.  I want to see the sea iguanas and the finches and the birds and the rocks and the sea.  I want to go somewhere that is still wild.

Okay.  Back to Earth.  This book was written by a woman who moved to this island from Germany in the 1930s with her husband and stepson.  It is an amazing, heroic, fascinating account of their triumphs over the extremes of the island and the constantly changing political landscape.  It is a terrific read.

I am spiffing up my vocabulary - using words like "serendipitous", and "nebulous", and "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."  Beware.  I am trying to get more sleep - those bags under my eyes were beginning to morph into steamer trunks.  I am embracing my inner Pollyanna.  And I am going to start drawing again.  Holy crap, as Kay would say!  Life.  It is good.

(Sorry for the shock - I thought it was time for a new look.  Feedback is welcome...xxx)