This is life right now.

The house I currently live in puts on a pretty show – right?

 

 

I mean – just look at her.  From a distance.

There’s so much good about it – the allusion of rural only minutes from our town.  Wonderful neighbors.  High ceilings.  Wide door frames so I can swap furniture with relative ease from room to room.

And there’s also the other.  Mold that seems as unbeatable as sin.  The smell of musty old-ness that just seeps into every drawer and closet (of which there are only two) and floorboard in the house in South Carolina’s rainy season.  (Which is basically what our autumn and winter are here.)  Century old dirt that my kids shake down on our heads as they walk/run/jump/leap/roll upstairs.   A bathroom light that can’t be turned on and an endless assortment of random odd old house problems.

It’s not just the house either, of course.  It’s us.  It’s me.

I purchased reading glasses last week.  I’m ridiculously annoyed that they seem to actually help when I hold up the print of regular sized books these days.  What is happening to me?

I have one king-sized set of sheets for my king-sized bed.  They have received a rather large tear in them.  Every time I think about purchasing new sheets I think of other ways I would rather spend my $50 to $75 and I again lament that sheets are not something I can fake or make on my own in some low cost manner.

My kids are cute and funny but they stay up late now and they have been leaving candy wrappers all over the house and they make a lot of messes.

 

 

I love my dog but this aforementioned rainy season makes him gross.

An editing job I have been working on way too slowly hit a snag this week when I lost all of my saved edits as I was wrapping up the book.  Bummer.  Bummer.  Bummer.

On the other hand, our fridge and our pantry are well supplied and as London reminded me – nothing makes you feel quite so safe and cared for and prepared against the odds as food on the shelves and options in the pantry.

I was able to get in a three mile run/walk with a charming friend and the conversation was as good as (better than) the exercise.  (It’s alarming how you can once upon a time run a half marathon and then once upon a time struggle to complete a steady mile.)

It’s soup weather and I do loves me some soup all day every day.

It’s been fun to assign my high school daughter the classics – Count of Monte Cristo and Great Expectations.  Some of my favorites from back when I taught full classrooms of high school students.

 

 

Also – our daily family journal reminded me that one year ago this week I purchased and began Travelers Rest Here!  It’s been a fantastic year of growth and movement for that business I went out on a limb for and I have loved steering the ship there.

Life looks like all of these things right now – the mold and the classic novels.  The business fun and the lost book edits.

And it looks like these faces here and moving and breathing in the same space with them.

I’m not complaining.

 

 

 

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