Homecoming.

This weekend was fantastic. My sister's house is beautiful, Charlotte, NC seems like a wonderful place to live, her neighborhood is fabulous and cohesive and friendly and Ragsy had the time of his life. My husband got to play his fill of video games and I got to spend some time with family. The only thing better than going to their house was coming home.

Have I mentioned I love my house? It's not the house, per se, though that's certainly part of it. Mostly it's what it represents. The schedules that have fallen into place, the echoes of my son screaming with joy, making off-color, lecherous jokes with my husband and knowing that I can relax completely when I get there. That's home. But I also love the hot, wet scent of our yard in late spring and early summer. When I got home last night and walked around to get the mail, I was greeted with the greenest smell. My herbs were going wild in the garden, spilling out of their pots, the green beans I planted a month ago are nearly eight inches high and my peppers are starting to shoot up.

I can feel the humidity on my skin and the promise of hotter days, and that green smell is mine, and so is the satisfaction of making my garden grow and creating memories of playing there with my son and husband.

The only negative thing about coming home was the mess at the house. I'm not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but I find it hard to relax in a home that looks like a paper and kitchen utensil bomb went off in it. It's not about keeping up with the Jones's (meaning, having things as nice as my sister), but that it's pretty clear that even going to school and working full time, she still manages to spend a lot of time cleaning and making her house someplace she loves to live in. Yes, I get it - we've got a toddler, who contributes significantly to the mess. And we've begun that process of organizing and it's coming along, but it's time to advance beyond the baby steps we've already made and put together a larger plan. Ragsy is older and more than capable of following directions, so we can no longer use the toddler excuse since he knows well enough to pick up his toys.

We've done really well so far, but seeing the clear effort my sister has put in has given me renewed desire to put the same effort into my house and to keep doing it. Because I love the way it feels when it's clean and nice. And if we do ever have another kid, I want to have a foundation in place to keep it that way (somewhat, anyway).