Country Roads, Take Me Home...

to the place I belong...

I was away this last week helping my Mom and as much as I enjoy spending time with her, I begin to hyperventilate long about day 3 when I'm in a city. She doesn't even live IN the city. She lives in a very quiet subdivision, but I can't breathe. Just the thought that there are too many people surrounding me makes me cringe. I grew up here, but in my very first post ever, I mentioned how I always felt like a fish out of water and that still holds true today...maybe even more so.

Those of you who are regular readers know that I even have trouble dragging myself the 30 miles to town once a week.

This time I flew:

 That too puts me off balance. I grew up flying as we flew to Europe a lot to spend some summers and Christmases with family, but I hadn't flown in over 20 years until we flew out to California for our boy's Marine Graduation a few years back. That was SO worth it, and I wouldn't have missed THAT for anything in the world, but I did a lot of praying.

I'm not a fan of flying, but I took along some hand stitching to settle the soul.

Stitching does that, but those of you that sew, know that. It's hard to explain it to someone who doesn't sew. My mom asked me to make some potholders for some of her friends so before I left, I blew off the dust from my sewing machine and stitched some up so that I had bindings to work on. I have 2 quilts awaiting binding, but they are both 100" x 100" and would be a bit unwieldy to work on while flying.

I like to drive the back roads, but Mom thought I ought to fly and even though I am on the downhill slide to 50, sometimes you still do what you are told when your Mom is doing the telling. :)

I laughed when I saw this sign:

That is me up there and unfortunately, our girl inherited that trait although I blame hers on the fact that she never wears matching socks. :)

Flying from Dallas, there was a darling 18-month old little girl seated behind me who was so good. She serenaded those of us who were seated in close proximity to her with multiple renditions of "Tinkle Tinkle Little Star". She was using her indoor voice and it was very sweet. Some might be irritated by this musical concerto, but you could not help but grin and be completely charmed by her unless you were a close relative of the Grinch, and even then, I'm thinking she would have wormed her way into even your heart.

When I arrived and opened my suitcase, I had a lovely note from the TSA:

Hmmm...I wonder what they deemed suspicious. Could it be the paper piecing box of hexagons  (no scissors), or the chocolate covered almonds? Surely my devotional didn't raise the alert. The note says they search random pieces of luggage, but they broke my zipper. :( Perhaps I should have left them a note on the off chance that they would search my suitcase that told them that they must hold their tongue out in order for it to zip properly.

My parents have built an amazing circle of friends through the years. I love their friends. Some of them even come out to visit us and spend holidays with us. They have become extended family. They all live on the same street so there is always something going on. One leaves flowers at the door, one brings a homemade Lemon Meringue Pie, one invites us over and cooks amazing salmon for us and another invites us to dine on Ossobuco, another leaves a still warm loaf of banana bread at the door because we are gone, another invites us over for dinner and a movie, we attend a grandchild's baptism, we have a group of them over for supper...and brunch, we gather at one home and everyone sets up tables in the circle drive on Halloween for trick or treaters...hundreds of trick or treaters, and everyone brings food to set up in the garage. I am wiped out when I get home. I guess you could say I have reached my socialization threshold. Or I have reached my socialization saturation point. LOL Yup. Socially saturated. That says it best.

I felt a bit better once I looked out the window and began to see crop circles instead of houses:

 And before long, I recognized the Cap

and even spied part of the ranch:

Our girl came home this weekend! She came home on Thursday to spend some time with her Daddy. She said, "I know how he gets when you're away". :) And she too needed some dirt road time. Being socially saturated runs in the family. LOL So it was nice to have both of them greet me when I arrived at the airport and it is really, really good to be home.