We’ve been in this house for four and a half years. Notable dissatisfactions: The mostly-dead giant tree in our front yard (ivy strangling it despite our efforts to clear it away). The kitchen sink, the faucet of which has had a bad diverter for two years now. The weird shed and smaller buildings in the backyard, irritating as much for their potential to hold stuff for us (and keep us from selling or gifting it elsewhere) as the completely creepy lumber and assymetrical floorplan it is built with. The universally bad blinds on the windows, all of them broken or in relative disrepair. The state of the grounds – which our mediocre efforts have improved upon only but still remain shoddy. The layer-upon-layer paint job in the kitchen cupboards, which means I can never truly get them clean no matter how often I scrub them.
But. I am so glad to be home. To smell our laundry soap on my husband. The scent of fresh-cut grass (Ralph did the lawn today) and a few candles on the clean kitchen table. Our bed, made up in the red-and-white quilt I bought Ralph for our first anniversary. To feel cleaned wood floors under my feet. My bathroom and the olive oil and honey soap I so love.
Sophie feels the same. She sighs, “It’s so nice to be here in my home!”
Amen, sister.