home again

We are Home. We are Home. We are Home!!!

This is the first time our family has left and returned to this home in the year since we moved here, and it feels really really good to be home. This in spite of having had a wonderful trip to see family and friends. This in spite of coming home to a house full...of fleas. Yes, we actually cut our trip short and drove 12 hours straight when we heard that the flea population in our house had exploded. Fortunately, the situation was not as grim as we had expected - we had left a bag of diatomaceous earth with the woman who was looking in on our kitties, and I think that stuff works wonders (it gets in the respiratory system and mechanisms of the fleas) and the kitties did not look as I'd feared they would. Nevertheless, we went ahead with our emergency plan to have an exterminator come and do his thing while the kitties went to the vet and we stayed in a hotel - quite a fancy way for us to end our vacation, I must say. I spent the day today cleaning and cleaning and then cleaning, doing laundry, running the vacuum again, doing more laundry (you get the idea) while Dan got started on all the reading and class prep he has to do this week, and the girls settled back in to their digs. This alternately meant scrabbling over space and stuff and coming up with very creative ways to explore and reclaim their territory (ie: our street). They greeted Dan in some crazy get-ups - I believe they were detectives, spying on the spiders in the neighbor's bushes - and we ended our first full day home with a walk to the river to watch the marching band practice their fancy moves. All this, with a gorgeous almost-full moon, a purpling sky, and chimney swifts. Home.

PS - The photo is of Ani creeping through the tremendous growth in the community garden. You can just make out Dan and our faded prayer flags in the background - our plot was totally overgrown. Like, wow. I'm so glad we're back...