Dorothy

A smile for the shy child,
Followed by a hug
"I'm so glad to know you"
Earned my love and trust
And I was glad in turn.

And growing up, passing
in brick hallways,
Your arms reached out
and you asked me gently
"How's my girl?"

Coming home after seven
long years away
Was as simple as those arms
Reaching out as always
to say "I love you."

Long years stretch out
Anticipation dwells
In my heart
While I wait to see you
and reach out my arms.

A House

Everyone warned us. A house is a lot of work.

There's yard work (weeding, pruning, planting, raking, mowing, sweeping, watering, fertilizing, etc.)

There's cleaning work (dusting, vacuuming, mopping, sweeping, scrubbing, tidying, cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, etc.)

And there are projects. Projects are additional work that you take on - on purpose. Our first project was to have our popcorn ceilings removed; because they contained asbestos, we had to have professionals come and do the removal. Then we primed the ceilings. We've painted the ceiling of one room and started on the walls. Next we'll finish the walls of that room, paint another room's ceiling, and start on another set of walls; oh, and paint out the trim in the first room. This is an ever-expanding spiral of a project. But it's fun. And somehow it makes this house more like home.

But I think building my garden is going to wait until next spring.

Colorful

I made sure to take one picture that I could share - this is a view of my hip eleven days after my emergency surgery. The bruising doesn't look like a normal impact bruise because it comes primarily from internal bleeding. I never went through any other colors of bruising - it just went from dark purple to bright yellow to normal skin tone (my normal skin tone is seen in the upper right corner). This was the smallest bruise - only a few inches across.