Every time I drive up this road my eyes fill with tears.  

My eyes fill with tears because in two and a half half weeks this place will be ours.  Not ours in a temporary sense, but really truly our new home. We are finally settling, we are finally purchasing.  Closing date is March 14, and it feels so surreal.

Despite the endless mountains of ice and snow, my head has been dancing with paint colors and lavendar beds and asparagus beds and chicken coops and tire swings.  I am slowly, ever so very slowly packing boxes without worrying that I am taking too much this time.   This time it is permanent.  This time it is ours.

A home is a funny thing.  While I have felt a little rootless in the last four years, skipping from state to state with a sparkle in my eye, I have also felt extremely lucky for the friends I have made in all these little corners of the country.  It couldn’t have happened any other way.  But now I see friends in my idealistic vision who I can grow old next to.  What a privilege that would be; Snuggled in these rolling hills, my blue-eyed boys romping in the woods and hopefully a kind neighbor or two.  Yes, that is the simple life I wish for.  And it looks as though I am half way there.