Reflections

When I got up today, I noticed the icicles hanging off the eves from the kitchen window. The morning sun was glinting on it and they were so sparkly! I tried to snatch a few photos of it, but even though i could see about a quarter of my nose in it, I couldn't quite catch it. But it made me reflect on life, people rather.

More specifically my family.

Ughhh I miss them. It has been a good long while since I've encountered homesickness. But here I am, wallowing in the grief of it. It's ridiculous. I'm 30 years old for the love of pete and there is no reason why I should be given it's only been 3 months since I saw the lot of them.

But there is something about living with my sisters and fighting with them or joking and getting an a-HA moment at 10pm that it's a good idea to rearrange the pantry. Or having a brother drop in to clean out your refrigerator and around a mouthful of chicken ask if you're going to make him a pie. Just cuz. I miss them a lot. I miss sunday dinners with mom and dad helping get the meal on the table and the afternoons being lazy and picking on my brother as he tries to duck out of three sisters opinions of how to snag a wife for him. We never were popular with our insight. Poor guy. He'll be the stronger for it! I'm just getting back from him always scaring me as kids.

And my mom. You know there is something about having your own mother 3 miles away knowing that you can duck in for a cup of sugar or dive into her hug because still, as yet, apparently at 30 I can't navigate life on my own (even happily married) without my mom. Only a mother can dry tears of doldrums and offer comfort in her hugs and with a cookie. My mother has the best kind of love for her kids. All sympathy until she gets tired of us wallering in our own soup and then it is the toughest kind of love. I feel sorry for the child who hasn't a mother like that. And she is fun. No one can have a good laugh like mom and make her kid feel better.

Or being out and about with my daddy, fixing on something. I miss my father's quirky sense of humor and laughing til my sides ache when he gets in one of his tirades. He has lately become boss of the kitchen and I can't tell you how many times he's told me how proud he is of his messed up venison and potato roast. And "mom even liked it!"

I remember a week that mom went to her uncles funeral when I was about 10. Dad was the cook and I can remember 4 pairs of eyes that were around the kitchen table eying dad as he made none other than a Huckleberry Pie. We were slightly shocked as I didn't remember dad puttering in the kitchen so much. But make a pie he did. Shuffled around, found a recipe, rolled out the dough and all of us had our input of, "but dad, mom does it THIS way....." and so on. He took out a gallon of hucks, poured them in the pie shell, poured more in, and a little more, then took the sugar bag and heaped cups of sugar on the hucks. I informed him that, "mom puts butter on top before the top shell" and he popped it in the oven. I remember it being the BEST pie ever. With lots of ice cream, even more than mom would have allowed.....

With mom being gone a week, we ran out of bread. So he called grandma, got a potato bread recipe and we peeled potatoes like you'd expect to have for convention stew. We mixed the dough up, left for Wednesday night meeting and by the time we returned, the dough had oozed out of the pan, the towel kind of suspended in the air and had started it's decent on the way down the cupboard, floor-wards. We rescued it in time, but neither of us were really prepared for the result of adding too much yeast. We made 3 loaves of bread, and a pan of cinnamon rolls- the carmel-y kind that oozes around, but we didn't know that you must immediately upend the baked rolls and goo onto platter after taking them out of the oven. We didn't and the result was something that would have made JB Weld proud. We pried out the rolls, and were happy as clams about it. I have no idea how many days mom had to soak that pan upon her return!

I even miss the dog. And I'm pretty sure that Little Whiski misses her aunty the most. Because she is soooo cute. And she has the best cuddles.

And the way the air is still. Not a puff of air. It's amazing.

I miss the comfort of trees. And the way the ice moans and pops at night from the lake.

I miss the wood heat of the fireplace. 90 degrees inside and wearing a summer dress while it is 20 below outside.

I miss the comfort of that old lake house which architecturally makes no sense and is designed exactly opposite of 'having a view in mind.' But there is a lot of memories there.

I miss the garden there and the flowers. Talk about a labor of love, but I enjoyed it.

And, I honestly miss the snow. I'm so cold now it's ridiculous to admit, but I miss how it stacks up! In inches and feet.

Okay, that's enough homesickness.