Pardon me...

K has taken over the more frequent documentation of daily life, but I've missed checking in too.

In my family, houses have names, and so for the first year-plus we lived here, it really bothered me that I didn't have one. We thought of a lot of options... K was pushing hard for Turtle Hill, as I remember... but this place we have landed is not at all grand. It's a 1940s bungalow with an awkward 80s addition that we've cloathed in cedar and cypress that will take a good five years to mellow to the gray we want as opposed to the orange it came. It's a Mississippi hill farm. It's hard to find a good name for a place that doesn't sound... overly inflated, shall we say?

I read the kids Pippi Longstocking and the description of the horse on the porch and the nonsensical air of the place reminded me of home. You're fairly likely to find a barnyard animal on the porch here. It's a place of whimsy, butterflies, big old trees and goats, and so I christened it Villa Villekula.

(I can't tell you how relaxing it is to have the name in my head.)

I have many plans awaiting our home but sadly, a complete lack of skill to execute them, so I am focusing on the garden and the rose bushes and the things that I am capable of impacting.

But what K has made already is pretty spectacular. The plan this year is I get Wednesdays off every week, barring emergencies, and both the children are in school now, which means I get to spend some time appreciating this corner of the world we are calling home. It's a beautiful one.

Feeling very lucky these days.

Can you tell?

This boy... five now, riding the bus with his sister to kindergarten. Handsome and smart and loving and... everything.

He's the one who really loves life at the farm. I found him underneath the azalea bushes the other day, crooning to our dog Olive, singing her to sleep while making a neat pile of mudballs.

More soon. Have to go meet the bus. But I want to get back to this.