This is my home.

The girlies and I are "home" this weekend, on a sort of "surprise" visit to the place where I grew up. We hadn't planned it, exactly... Yesterday morning, I looked at our calendar and realized that beginning on Monday, our extra-curricular activities will be in full-swing once again, and we will be slaves to our weekly schedule, however enjoyable and fulfilling it may be. We won't be able to escape on a whim again until sometime around Christmas, since I'm the one who will be hosting Thanksgiving again this year.

So, I threw some clothing and my laptop into a bag, made the necessary phonecalls, picked up the girlies from school, and we hit the highway.

And oh, I am so glad to be here. My heart lifts up the moment my car enters the farm country surrounding this perfect little town. My parents' house is always exactly the same, cool and comforting. The whole weekend stretches ahead of us, waiting to be filled with fun!

And what will we do today?

After hitting the farmer's market, where I shall purchase the biggest bunch of gladiolas I can get my hands on, as well as fresh produce for supper, we will hit the parks. The girlies want to have a good, long time on the swings (the same ones I swung on for hours on end when I was a child... the looong chains make you feel like you could go on to forever...), and then we'll stroll down to the river, where the paddle boats will be waiting for us. Paddle boats, and THESE:


THESE are two of the beautiful, but more than slightly silly, persistent creatures who inhabit our river. Swans. They feel it is their God-given RIGHT to be fed cracked corn by any human who trespasses on their riverbank (because we ALL walk around with bags of that stuff in our purses, right?! Okay, okay, so I DO walk around with that stuff in my purse when I'm here... But REMEMBER HOW HUGE MY PURSE IS? I can manage it). They even swim after us when they see us bobbing around in boats. And, clearly, they feel that no photograph is worth taking without at least two swans in it...

We will also swing by the theatre, to visit with some of my old friends from my "working" days...

How incredibly lucky I am to have been born in an idyllic place like this, with parents who nurtured and encouraged every single artistic impulse I ever had. And how lucky I am to be able to return here whenever I like, so that my girlies can enjoy the same.