Counting my blessings

Spending my birthday in a strange place without my friends to celebrate with left me a little homesick today, so I decided to take some time for myself to look around and focus on what I love my new place. It's actually a lot.

I have a strawberry patch in the back yard that looks like it will produce fruit in the spring. I also have some kind of spring bulbs already coming up in the yard. It looks like they might be crocus or snow drops. There's a lot of little chickadee kind of birds and there's a little cat that comes by to visit me when I'm outside star gazing. It won't be true in the summer, but right now you can see the Milky Way from my front porch and Orion is dead overhead all night.

I took a walk tonight at 5:30 around my neighborhood, saw a fabulous sunset and still got home before it was completely dark at 6:00. I wasn't wearing thermal underwear. One of my neighbors has a pink 57 Chevy with a black vinyl top that's faded to a dark charcoal color. Gorgeous car. Another neighbor never took down their Kerry/Edwards campaign sign. The neighbor across the street has a wishing well. People are friendly, even the convenience store clerks and people wave at you, including the state cop that cruises the fancy hood my family lives in.

It takes my house about 30 seconds to get warm when you turn the heat on. It takes my car a half a block to do the same. There's apparently a good blues bar in the center of town and a good pizza joint a couple of blocks away that delivers.

But the best thing. I haven't had a bad hair day since I got here. The damp environment keeps my hair from going all straight and flat like it does up north. My "do" stays perky all the time here. It surprises me every time I happen to see myself in a mirror.