I have that life

Today CJane posted about illustrations in children's books and how she wanted that life for her children. You can read about it here.

As I read about the land, the cozy home, the child pulling a sled in the snow, the mountainscape, I realized minus a pond I have that life. (Our neighbors below us do have a pond however.)

How lucky am I that I get to borrow this place for a little while?

How sad I am that someday I have to leave.

A couple of very wise people gave me some great counsel right after we moved here. I actually blew them off because how could I ever really love here as much as I loved "home?" This was just really going to be an extended vacation and not somewhere I wanted to live forever. I had cried buckets of tears for weeks before we moved from Roy.

We had only lived here 3 weeks and during a visit from our dear friends the Satterfield's our friend Trevor sat at my kitchen table and said, "You are going to fall in love with this place and yes you will move back to Roy but it won't be long and you will be moving back here."

Next, in October our previous bishop stopped me in the hall of our old church because he knew I had been driving back and forth at least 3 times a week because I could not cut "the apron strings" and let go of my life in Roy. He said, "You know Sister Parish even though the pioneers moved a lot, every place they moved they planted trees. Do you know why they planted trees even when they knew they might never see that place again? They were putting down roots."

I was like, "K whatever. (roll eyes) We'll be back in 10 months."

Well guess what? They were both right. We have put down some roots and this place is amazing.

The Wellsville mountains behind our house in the fall.

Thank you Cheney's for letting us borrow this little bit of heaven.

The yard in the spring.