at home for real comfort.
-Jane Austen
I'm busy. Too busy, I think. Staggering into the house today after an out-of-town conference, I collapsed on the library couch and didn't move for an hour. I didn't sleep - I just stared at the room - at my books and the fireplace and the pictures and the piano. Lovely piano. I'm home, I told myself. Home has to be the most comforting word there is.
I'm such a homebody. Terribly so, I'm afraid. I think I get it from my Dad. His idea of the perfect night is eating my mother's homemade soup before retiring to his recliner to listen to us kids talk and laugh and make fun of each other until bedtime. Like father, like daughter. Give me slippers and sweet tea and let me roam Freeman House all day and I'm happy as a lark.
Today I dusted and brought out fall decorations and folded socks and made my Mediterranean Pot Roast. I piled onto the bed with my steaming plate and watched episodes of To the Manor Born. It was heaven. Being among my pots and music and garden and books and pet allows me to breathe again, somehow. What sort of crime do you have to commit to be placed on house arrest? I might consider it. For me, house arrest would be perfection, not punishment.
So I suppose it's all starting up again, isn't it: school, work, sports. Obligations, obligations, obligations. I welcome the passing of summer vacation but vow to spend as much time as possible at home. Until then, I'll count the hours until the weekends, when my time is filled with songs at the piano and homemade dinner and twinkling stars and pecans falling like raindrops around Freeman House.
Oh home, I've missed you so. It's been too long. It's so good to be back.
I LOVE THIS POST! This is me exactly but I didn't have the words for it.
ReplyDeleteYour piano is lovely. I am going to steal your idea of putting pictures by the music rack.
Lovely photo, too.
Wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more ... home is the best place to be. While it's nice to travel during the summer holidays - I always look forward to the comforts of home & being back around all my familiar things.
Your "music room" is gorgeous.
I ditto that...I too am a homebody esp now that fall is upon us. I love the scent of apple pies baking,baskets of garden produce waiting to be processed, bonfire smoke..oh and all those other good scents of fall!
ReplyDeleteYou are already bringing out your fall decorations Brin, I have yet to say goodbye to summer.
I didn't know other people watched "To the Manor Born." I'm perfectly content to be a home body as well. Give me a good BritCom, and I'm in paradise. (But, I'll take coffee with cream over the sweet tea.) :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you are enjoying the calm.
What a lovely post. Made me feel all warm inside. I'm such a homebody too, and I also take it after my beloved Father. He loves to sit and visit and watch movies together.
ReplyDeleteLoved you post! Me...not so much a homebody...I like to be busy with family and friends. But now that I live in a new house. That might change, maybe I will bring the entertaining to my house!
ReplyDeleteTravel is great but home IS better! I love everything you said Brin - and could easily stay home forever! But, packing looms in the future - home to England in October - promised all the "cottage gals" more pics of thatched roofs and roses, ha! Glad to hear you enjoy British comedy - I think it's the only kind worth watching, of course!
ReplyDeleteHave a super week - sounds like you are ready for Fall too.
I have to follow suit here and totally agree with yet another post, I'm SO at home at home and could do house arrest anytime! I love being at home with everything that makes me shine! Wonderful post as always Brin!!
ReplyDeleteI share your sentiments of home. There's no place in the world I'd rather be.
ReplyDeleteI love the pic of your piano. It is beautiful how you've adorned the piano itself, instead of hanging pictures, etc. on the wall above it. It somehow makes the piano the center of attention, almost as if you've adorned it as a woman adorns herself with just the right amount of jewelry to make her shine. You've given me an idea for when my husband and I move out of our condo, into a home, and can finally get my piano out of storage. Oh happy day!
The pot roast looks scrumptious! Do you cater? lol
Oh, Brin, such a lovely post and I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteBrin,
ReplyDeleteSounds ideal to me......Betty
I agree~house arrest~now don't throw me in that briar patch ;-) I'm ready for the heat to leave, but not the summer schedule......as I walk out the door for a resumed meeting already. Don't you just love To the Manor Born and all the other great British comedies?
ReplyDeleteBrin,
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog and had to laugh because I didn't know any in the under 50 set would have watched To the Manor Born. I'm 33 and I'm not sure how I stumbled across it, but it's good stuff. Also saw you like Agatha Christie, which I appreciate; I just reread them. While the rest of my peers read David Sedaris, I am keeping it real with the rest of the septugenarians. Saw your post about needing a butler; I also need one, or to be more exact, a valet. Like Jeeves in Jeeves and Wooster, he would bring my tea in the morning and my cocktail in the evening. Oh, and do all the ironing.