It's Just Like Having A Baby....In A Way

I dream about this place all year long.  I still find the initial adjustment to be an interesting process.  I arrive after spending days in a car driving across the eastern United States.  It is like giving birth!  Think about it, I  look forward to being here for 9 months, then comes the labor of the long drive, followed by the initial recovery from the pains of that labor, then the awkward first days getting used to this new life and finally the reward of new life.  I guess with all the babies being born in our family the analogy of birth seems very appropriate!

For nine months my memory idealizes this place.  The weather is always better  here, the food is fresher, the skies are clearer.  We have so many people around us to visit and who just drop in for a visit.  I live much healthier here.  Life goes by at a lovely, relaxing pace.  All these things float around in my mind while I am away.  As with anything, absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Like a pregnant woman, who dreams about how sweet that baby is going to be once it is born.  You idealize life with a new baby, even if you've had one before.  We always remember the good stuff and forget the bad stuff.

Sunny days and sandbars

In my case, labor comes in the form of 40 hours driving through 17 states and 1 province in 5 days.  This year I left Houston while tropical storm Bill was making his presence known.  Once I got about 2 hours away from Houston, Bill was not an issue for a few days.  We met up with him again in Pennsylvania.  It seemed we were chasing him all the way here.  We could see the storm in the distance, we would get very close and catch him only to take a lunch break, a bathroom break or stop for the night and Bill would march ahead of us.  Out of the 40 hours of driving I think we drove through 4 hours of rain total, not bad for following a tropical storm!  But it was definitely a labor...of love to get here.

Bill escorted me out of Houston

Driving through Virginia made me feel very patriotic

Virginia rest stop.  Good thing Virginia is beautiful because it takes a long time to drive through it!

We caught up to Bill again in Pennsylvania right before we stopped for the night.....

He just loomed over us for most of the rest of the drive until
 he just had to let go and welcome us with rain just like he had done in Houston.

Once labor is over there is joy... and recovery.  We were very happy to finally be here and finally be out of the car!  The reality was a bit different than all those fantasies I have all year.  My beautiful farmhouse is a Venus fly trap over the winter, dead flies everywhere!  There is always so much cleaning to be done upon arrival and this year it was not done with the windows open on a sunny day.  It was done on a cloudy, cool day with a fire in the fireplace.  Not complaining!  I left behind some very hot, humid weather, this felt perfect for a day of work.  It takes but one day for me to remember that this ideal place is a lot of work.  Just like those pregnant dreams of quietly cuddling with your new baby and the reality of sleepless nights, aching body parts and an inconsolable baby.

I'll be honest here, for the first couple of days I question myself.  I live in Houston, surrounded by a huge shiny city, in a nice suburban neighborhood with anything and everything one could ever want or need in close proximity.  It is about as far from this rural setting as the east is from the west.  It takes me a couple of days to shift gears from city to country.  But for those couple of days I occasionally question my sanity.  I'm not in Kansas anymore....    This became quite apparent when we approached the border in Maine and stopped for lunch at this fine Irving station diner....

Diner food at it's best
a far cry from Houston's top 100
I just love the vacuum cleaner next to the pie fridge....no dessert for me!

This was the moment I realized I was still carrying my city snob with me.  The food was good and the waitress was very nice.  I needed to check my city girl at the border and embrace my farmhouse girl.  After about three days, my blood pressure goes down and my focus begins to change, I see beauty in simple things like the birds at my bird feeder and the flowers that pop up everywhere.   I spend time riding around the yard on a lawnmower instead of on the freeway in traffic.  This is the settling down in my new life just like a new mother has to finally settle down into her new life with her new baby.  It also has different priorities.

And just like that new mother who can sit and look at her new baby for hours on end, I can sit and look out of my windows for hours on end.  Sitting for hours on end looking at anything does not lend itself to productivity but it can lower your blood pressure and make you very happy.  So even though my baby "the farmhouse" is a lot of work... puts me in my place at times and requires much effort to reach every year, at the end of the day it is all worth it to spend 3 months in a different world.