Quick random thought – I wonder how many people actually read my blog? I know of a few, but I’m always curious. One friend posted on her blog something that made me think about that…basically asking why do people blog? Personally, it’s a mixture of getting things out somewhere, being able to do some writing, and keeping in touch with people who care enough to read this thing. 🙂 There’s something deeper, maybe, but I don’t feel like going there right now. My head hurts as it is.

I’ve been feeling pretty ill the past few days. It started a couple of days ago when I woke up feeling nauseous and really low energy. I still got ready for work, but as I was toweling off from the shower, I couldn’t help but notice that the towel felt like sandpaper…and it was taking a surprising amount of effort to dry off. I was hoping the feeling would pass, but, after taking my first conference call of the day from home, it didn’t. I ended up in bed most of the day, unwilling to eat or move.

Enter my amazing husband. Yes, my husband is amazing. The man cooks, cleans, does the dishes, and washes the clothes. He supports me, he comforts me, and he makes me laugh. And, when I’m sick, he brings me soup in bed, and sneaks my medicine into my ginger tea because I’m too blasted stubborn to drink it myself (I hate syrups – I’m fine with pill form meds, but NOT syrups). He makes me eat so I don’t pass out entirely, and he frets over me, constantly asking if I’m okay, teasing me when I tell him I don’t want to move and talking makes me feel sick.

My husband makes me feel so loved in so many ways. As I lay on the couch dozing off a bit (I managed to get out of bed only because I was tired of being in bed reading and wanted to watch TV for awhile), he quietly came to where I was laying and started pulling my hair away from my face. He was tucking it behind my ear, and just running his fingers through my hair. I felt like a little kid whose mommy or daddy was looking in on her while she was sleeping. I just felt so loved!

The next day, I was feeling better, and eating a bit more than I had the day before (which is to say, I was eating). My husband kept telling me how happy and glad he was that I was feeling better. Now, those who know me know I can be very slow at times, so it should come as no surprise that it took me awhile to realize how sincere he was! He kept hugging me, kissing me, telling me how happy he was I was feeling so much better! Again – I felt so loved!

I saw this comic the other day:

No, I don’t have children, but my husband does make me feel like a superstar when I get home from work. He’s happy I’m home, he tells me he’s missed me, and he means it. It makes me feel appreciated and loved. (And, to be honest, I’ve done my best to quit being grumpy after a long day when I come home, because I’ve realized that the last thing I need to do after hearing, “My baby’s HOME!!!” is be grumpy!!)

My husband makes me happy. He makes me feel cared for. Evenings I’m getting home late from work, he has dinner waiting for me. When I do stupid things, he doesn’t hammer me over the head with the fact I did them – doesn’t ignore them, either, but he doesn’t rub it in. He works with me through whatever we have to deal with; he listens when I’m having issues and gives me advice; I feel like I matter in his life. And, he really, honestly, whole-heartedly LOVES me.

So, what can I say? My husband is amazing.

What makes a home…home?

Have you ever thought about that? What is it that can make a place feel like home?

Yes, definitely, there are things like family, love, etc. I completely agree with that. But…for me, there are other things that make a place feel like home.

A feeling of familiarity — nothing quite says home like knowing your way around a place, knowing where a good place to eat is, or knowing where the grocery stores are. But even more than just that bit of basic familiarity is knowing where some of the not-so-well known areas are…like the parks and trails. I think, too, there’s knowing the alternate routes to get somewhere. In the Tri-Cities, it’s knowing that if the bypass (Hwy 240) is slow, you can get onto GW Way to get to Kennewick, or knowing that you can take Davidson to McMurray if even GW Way is really crowded.

There’s also familiarity with the place you’re living IN, at least for me. It’s little things like knowing where the light switches are and which one turns on what light that helps.

A feeling of comfort — you know why I think family is associated with home so much? I think it’s because, for the most part, we’re comfortable with family. We can let our hair down around family. We can be ourselves around family. The same goes for good friends – you’re familiar with them, and they’re familiar with you, and you can just have fun.

I realized recently that for me, there were some other things that made a place home…the house we live in didn’t quite feel like home until I baked bread here. For some reason, actually baking something – for me, specifically bread – was like breaking in a good pair of shoes. I was surprised what a difference it made to me. At the temporary housing, I had this almost burning ache to bake something, ANYTHING, to make the place feel a bit homey. I bought a really cheap foil cupcake baking thing, some cupcake liners, and a cheap little box of muffin mix (love Jiffy!), and the place just felt more comfy after I’d baked them!

There’s also a smell associated with home – and maybe that’s what the baking did for me, bring in that homey smell for me. But you know how a place will have a unique smell when you move into it? Having your own smell in a place adds to that feeling of home – it’s like it has YOUR smell. I know it sounds a bit weird, but I hope you get what I mean.

I guess I’ve just been thinking about all the things that make a place feel like home because of the recent move into this house. I’m still not 100% feeling like this is home, but it’s getting closer. I think when everything is unpacked and has its place, that’ll help, too.

And, maybe a few more baked goods wouldn’t hurt. 🙂

So, we’re in the Tri-Cities for a quick weekend visit. We’ve only been here a few hours, but there are a few things that I couldn’t help but notice as differences between the “West Side” and the “East Side” so far.

Traffic

I’d forgotten about traffic in the Tri-Cities. It annoys the HECK out of me! I just don’t get it. And maybe living in Seattle has added to the annoyance I remember having earlier. Do people in the Tri-Cities realize just how incredibly open the roads are? No, seriously – WHY, dear people, are we driving 55 mph in a very clear freeway with a 70 mph speed limit? See, I can understand Seattle’s traffic – it’s a heavily populated area, lots of cars, funneling into a few lanes of traffic with stop lights every block that aren’t exactly synched. So, that naturally leads to lots of cars backed up on the road. But in the Tri-Cities, there’s space between cars, there’s space between lanes, and we’re driving under the speed limit! We also watched one person keep driving with their blinker on to change lanes – with quite the open space to change into between us and the car in front of us, but until we moved, they didn’t want to move into the lane. I told Rich, “If they were in Seattle, they would have changed into that spot a long time ago!” It just cracked me up.

Speed Limit Signs

I know this sounds silly, but it took us awhile to actually FIND speed limit signs in Seattle. Then we realized why there probably aren’t that many — why bother telling people the speed limit is 50 mph when you’ll probably be going 35 mph most of the time on the road? And even when there ARE signs, it doesn’t seem like people follow them – when the roads are open, and traffic is flowing, it’s like people in Seattle are trying to make up for all the time they’ve had to spend waiting for traffic to move on other days and other times. Just because it’s 40 mph on the road doesn’t mean that anybody will be going 40 when there isn’t a delay! Try 50! Just because you can!

On our way from Pasco to Richland, I was a bit surprised how often we’re reminded of the speed limit. I told Rich at one point, “It’s a bit weird to see so many speed limit signs through here.”

Street Lighting

I forgot what it’s like to actually drive in the dark. It actually dawned on me one early morning as I was driving in to the gym before work — there are LOTS of street lights on I-5 in Seattle! And today, coming in on I-90 before the exit to 182, I was amazed at the LACK of street lights! I’ve never been all that comfy with how dark I-90 is driving past Benton City at night. I don’t think I’ve driven it enough to remember where the curves in the road are, so I feel very disoriented along the way.

The downside in Seattle is I get disoriented with how much lighting there is! There’s a Hwy 99 tunnel (Hwy 99 south) that spits you out onto Western in downtown Seattle that can really throw you off — it’s dark, but street lights are on, then suddenly you’re in near-daylight lighting in the tunnel, then it’s dark with street lights again as you get onto Western! It’s quite the eye exercise as your pupils adjust to each lighting setting.

Political Issues

Lest you think I’m going to ramble about candidates running for office, I’m not. I couldn’t think of another way to capture the difference in what suddenly matters to us now that we live in Seattle. Yes, the big issues – taxes, the economy, health care – we care about. But there are these initiatives on the ballot that we started talking about with my in-laws…related to…roads and traffic! We suddenly care whether or not the initiative to let HOV lanes become full access lanes during peak traffic hours passes or not. We suddenly care about how they’re planning on fixing the viaduct. And we’re explaining it to our family in Eastern Washington.

Oy – that just can’t be good!