Días sencillos

While my semester has taken off like a jet, and I'm a little surprised at how busy I am even when I'm purposefully limiting myself to only a very few specific activities and projects (in addition to teaching), the days at home mostly flow with a simple grace that feels like a blessing.

I think the feeling comes singularly from the fact that all of us inhabiting it are happy in this new home, and that we've settled into it like we had always waited to call a place like this our own. Darwin, especially, loves to perch himself at the highest point of the house, and play "lion surveying his savanna." Magellan, for her part, prefers a spot of sunlight on the carpet of my husband's office, where she spends most of her days.

Lizzy also has her perch, a new chair my mom and bought at a friend's tag sale for $5, and which my husband believes is hideous but which I really like. Lizzy and Darwin have both claimed the chair, however, and the dog specifically uses it to keep herself in alert to any potentially invading Amish horses that might come up and down the road in front of our house.

Meanwhile, most days my parents spend at their favorite pastime, reading, and they love to do it basking in the warm sun on the deck overlooking the yard and trees. When it's not a teaching day, we try to make at least one car trip out of the house so my dad gets some air, so to speak.

Today we went to the grocery store so I could get a Starbuck's decaf and to the drugstore so my mom could get some things she needed. The trip to the grocery store was doubly satisfying because my dad found the newest Dan Brown novel, which is now his reading project for the day (he does go through about a book a day these days, and I'm so glad that I have an ample library here after years of collecting books!).

These simple, uncomplicated days at home in the late summer, with my husband, my parents, and my furry children, feel like such a great blessing that, when I'm not in a hurry over some school-related something, I try to breathe them in, like perfume, so that I never forget them.