I guess it’s been a while since I updated my favorite domain. Not because I wanted to avoid it, but other websites got in my way.

I recently moved across two-thirds of the contiguous US and that’s been in the works for a long time. When you live in a house for 20+ years and it was your spouse’s family in it for 47 years before that, it takes a while to get cleared out. But here we are, on a peninsula instead of a corn field and it’s taking some adjustment! It’s opened up a whole new world of pollen for me and every day is a surprise when you consider how unique midwesterners are. We wave at everyone. And…we talk to everyone. We don’t do it to be nosy. We do it to show people we care about their lives too.

That’s how we gradually concluded it was time to move. We’d known the inhabitants of our neighborhood for all of my husband’s life and all but 19 years of mine. We raised kids together. We met the new families and raised more kids together. We checked on the elderly and at least in one case, made nightly trips to her house to reset her VCR so it would work. My husband mowed lawns growing up and there wasn’t a lawn in the area he didn’t know personally. But people moved on and the elderly gradually moved to assisted living or passed. And several years ago, I realized I wasn’t part of the neighborhood anymore. I didn’t know my new next-door neighbors and the young families were interested in other young families and rightfully so.

We are temporarily living in our RV (not very big), camper/office (really small), and a trailer at our son’s house. Hopefully, we will sell the old house soon and work on building a new one. We like being close to family and two-thirds of our children are here. Our oldest has our grandchildren and I’ve lived off and on with them for the past seven years to help out, so they are used to Grandma being around. They are getting used to Grandpa being there too. But oh how I miss my daughter! I miss the closeness and the energy she brings to us. I hope to have her close one day soon.

So there it is, not exactly all of nine years but some of the important parts. I should also remind myself that I left behind some of my best friends (sisters) and I miss that closeness a lot. I can talk about the rest occasionally and maybe even future events. In the meantime, coffee and breakfast are my highlights and when that is done, I’m at the computer doing what I’ve always done for most of my adult life – exploring the rest of the world and building a new one for us. See you soon!