Home Sweet Confusion

Well, well, well! I write this from the couch in my daddy's living room in Scotts Valley, CA. We had an uneventful travel day (always the best kind of travel day) on Thursday. Since arriving, we have enjoyed time with my dad and step-mom, my grandparents, my Auntie Maggie and Uncle Dave, my sister, my cousin Missy and her girls, and our BFFs, Stan and Noel. Sunday was a great church and family day. Yesterday we spent a few hours at the beach. I'm loving being home again.

Home. Or is it? Coming back to where I spent the first 26 years of my life has been different this time. As soon as we pulled out of the airport, I felt like I had never left. The highway over to my dad's house has not changed. The city of Scotts Valley is mostly unchanged. The road up to my dad's is the same. His property has lost a few oak trees, but is essentially the same. It wasn't until the next day that reality sunk in. We were headed over to San Jose to see my Granny and run some errands, and I totally drew a blank on how to get where we were going. Streets and stores I've known my whole life, missing from my memory. I was thinking of Walgreens and could not picture where any Walgreens locations were. All I could think of were the 2 Walgreens in our Arkansas town. It was the eeriest sensation.

In the past 3 years since we moved to Arkansas, life has continued to happen in my hometown. It's kind of like when a child sees his teacher in the grocery store on a Saturday and can't figure out why that teacher isn't at school. For whatever reason, I guess it never registered with me that a lot changes in a place in 3 years. Kids grow up. People pass away. Businesses close and are replaced by other businesses. Homes are remodeled. New roads are built. As we drove around on Friday, I realized just how much HAS changed here, and it threw me for a loop. I was not expecting the changes, and I was definitely not expecting to have lost a lot of my familiarity with this area. All day on Friday and Saturday, I was totally weirded out. I found myself homesick for this area--not for how it is now, but for the way it was when I left. Is it weird to be homesick for the place where you are? Yeah. I'm totally confused.

I also have done a lot of thinking about Arkansas. Our town in Arkansas is my home, my present, my reality. I have a great life there. I know where the stores are, the great restaurants, my friends' homes. I have learned the shortcuts, the back roads, a lot of the insider spots. I have established lots of nice friendships, and a few close friendships. My kids don't really know any other place. Arkansas is my home. California is not anymore.

I'm not sure how to feel about all this, so I'm focusing on everything that is ahead of us these next 4 weeks. Our schedule is filling remarkably fast, and I'm so excited for all the people we get to see and the great things we get to do. I love how bright the sky is, how much richer the colors are. I'm CRAZY about 75 degrees with low humidity in the middle of JANUARY! This is a great place to visit, and I'm going to enjoy it.

I'm feeling kind of weepy, probably because I'm tired. So I'm going to go ahead and sign off here. I have to post a couple of my favorite beach photos for you before I go, though.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

I do! It's on the 8:30 American Airlines flight out of Little Rock tomorrow! Actually, that one goes to Dallas. We'll pick up the flight to San Jose from Dallas, and we land in the good ol' 408 at 1:05 p.m. I'm so excited...

It promises to be a great trip. We'll be spending some good time with my family. No one besides my dad has seen Pepper since Pepper was 10 months old. This is so overdue!

The main focus of our trip is to raise some new support. The economy has been tough on our support, so we need to rebuild our team. This task will take us all over the state--as far north as Redding, and as far south as Disneyland, where we'll spend a day with my cousin Katie and her family. Matt will be preaching at a church in Monterey on the 25th, and speaking at a men's breakfast in Redding on the 31st. We get to see old friends, meet new people, and eat good Asian and Mexican food. Yup, should be a great trip!

I'm very proud of myself. Because American Airlines now charges $15 EACH WAY for EACH PERSON'S first checked bag, and $25 EACh WAY for EACH PERSON'S second checked bag, I had to get creative. I can't afford to spend $120 to ship my clothes to California! I considered UPS or mailing them through the post office. But I don't have enough clothes to get by without the ones I would send. Since we will be traveling a fair amount again this summer, Matt and I invested $120 in carry-on suitcases that meet the airlines' size requirements. I spent another $20 on vacuum pack bags. We chose our clothing carefully. And I packed. Here's why I'm proud of myself...I was able to get 5 weeks' worth of clothing and necessities for 4 people into 4 suitcases measuring 20"x14"9" each! Each bag is at least 5 pounds under the weight limit, too! I'll be able to do this again this summer. The best part of this is that we won't have to worry about losing our luggage, and we won't have to wait in the baggage claim! Woo hoo!

The only part that concerns me about this trip is that we're leaving our pregnant kitty behind. Did we want kittens? No. We were told when we got Zoe that she was fixed. She is an indoor cat, so even if she was not fixed, it wouldn't matter. But then she developed lightning paws and escaped out the door one day in December. About 2 weeks later, Zoe's personality changed. She started sleeping a whole lot, seemed lethargic and queasy, had bad breath, and got ultra-cuddly. I would have gotten very worried, except that her weird behavior was only in the afternoon and evening. So I got online and did some research. Sweet Zoe exhibits all the symptoms of pregnancy, including morning sickness (in the evening). It has been fun to watch her little body change over the past few weeks. The morning sickness is gone now, and her belly has firmed up quite a bit. She still sleeps a lot, is much more mellow, and very cuddly. She purrs all the time and follows me everywhere. I've also found her in some very strange places. I figure she's scoping out delivery rooms...Anyhoo, by my calculations, Zoe is due a week before we get home from CA. I'm so glad Debbie will be here. Debbie has lots of experience with mommy cats and kittens.

Okay, I need to get back to work. I still have kiddo backpacks to pack, and a house to tidy up before I leave to pick up Matt in 2 hours. It's pretty clean already, just needs a few things put away and the vacuum run. I am so excited for tomorrow! It can't come fast enough for me.