Being home.....

It's crazy the way we are when we finally get to Lost Creek.....we're like hermits....carefully guarding our time at the house, savoring every smell, every bit of dust, every little creak in the old floor boards.......people say, "let's go here, let's go there", and we're like no, no...we've had enough of the "going", thank you very much......come here to us.....savour our smells, our dust, our creaks with us.......

first day at home is always a whirlwind of activity.....we come into a great looking space that Wanda has so lovingly dusted and swept, and immediately trash it with our stuff......we unload our dirty laundry, our truck bedclothes and rugs, all of our treasures we've garnered at stops along our travels, our life-sustaining appendages, (also known as our laptops) and all manner of other paraphernalia that makes it's way into our lives on the road......

first order of business is always our mail.....our little post office holds it for us while we're gone so that it isn't prey to anyone nosing around in our mailbox, and if Wanda hasn't already picked it up and has it waiting for Brad to sort thru, then he jumps into the blazer and heads off to retrieve it.....this is his "thing"....well, one of his "things"....he is anal about getting the mail.....we usually have at least two post office totes of it, after being absent for so long, so he is in heaven, sorting, stacking magazines and catalogs, neatly piling bills in one stack and "fun and personal' stuff in another....i swear, sometimes i think i actually hear him whistleing as he does this.....and, oh, my goodness....if you seriously want to make him sing, just let there be a package in there!!!!...especially one with his name on it!!!!!!!

next there's laundry......just imagine 3-4 weeks of jeans, shirts....i won't even mention the sox....oh, god, the sox......it's always like 10 loads of stuff at least.....you see, i just can't bring myself to use the washers at the truckstops......i know most women have an adversion to going to the laundromat and putting their unmentionables in washers where other's unmentionables have gone, ....now mutltiply that adversion by a hundred and you will understand why i don't use truckstop laundromats......an accident of catastrophic proportions has to occur in our truck before i will even consider it......thankfully, since our time out was extended this past trip, we had visits at Christmas with JJ and Gwen, and at New Year's with Karen, both of whom, mercifully, lent us the use of their washers and dryers......without that, we'd have been at walmart buying jeans and underwear......one of the things that will go on my list of 25 when i get to it, is that i secretly think all inanimate objects have a life of their own when we're not around....(a product of too many saturday morning cartoons in my childhood, i suspect)....but i imagine my washer and dryer lolling around in the weeks right after we leave out, dinning on ice cream and truffles, and then when they hear we're headed home, they're bulking up on fiber and protein, because they know the workout is coming........

the next thing i must do is make spaghetti......and "real" mashed potatoes.....not in the same meal, of course.......you just can't get decent spaghetti on the road.....if you're lucky enough to get a run across the Indiana tollroad and can stop at one of the plazas that has a Fazollis, then you can come close, but it's still not homemade.....and i won't even try to imagine the number of times i've embarrassed Brad with my quizzing a waitress on wether their potatoes were real or plastic......enough said........for Brad, it's getting to finally have a martini.....he really loves a good martini......he's so "James Bond" sometimes......

so here we are....hedionistically ensconced in the house.....in our little town that swells to 413 when we're home....and where everyone calls us by name...(so "Cheers", huh??)...and not by our truck number.....and loving every moment of it......tomorrow i am going to break the chain and head down to Parkersburg with Wanda.....she is having a mini-reunion with some classmates from highschool that she has reconnected with on facebook and she has enticed me for a ride-a-long with lunch at Olive Garden and a stop at Crafts 2000.......i'm not worried, tho.....Brad will be safeguarding all the smells, and dust and creaks till i get back.....