Put and Take

Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate to pack for a trip. I get anxious, cranky, weepy...well, you get the picture. However, I LOVE unpacking once I get home. I love to 'put and take' as my mother called it.

When I was a girl, the day after we got back from camping (an ordeal of packing I am sure with six kids) my mother would engage me in the 'put and take' of it all. I loved helping her do this. Running up and down the stairs - to the basement with laundry, upstairs with books and toys, to the kitchen with food and pots and pans. Putting away the suncream, the polysporin, the curlers and comic books.

So I am home after seven glorious weeks away on three different gulf islands. I think I have found my next home, but that is a topic for another day.

Today I happily unloaded the camper, putting away food, doing five loads of laundry, filling the bird feeders, dead-heading the mimulus and marigolds on the back porch, picking the tomatoes, admiring my jade plant, sorting the mail, changing the calendar to a new month, putting away my new treasures and finding some hidden ones, re-charging the batteries on my phone, camera and laptop, and sweeping and dusting my little house back into order.

It makes me happy to do these chores, and then once done, it makes me happy to sit on the couch and knit. As I was finishing up this afternoon the sun came out and filled my house with light. It was that kind of day. Light filled.

My back is a bit sore from all the stairs involved in 'putting and taking' but it is a good kind of sore. One that will be gone tomorrow after a good night's rest.

Oh there are still some chores to be done, but the last load is in the dryer, and a new box has been started for goodwill.

It is the little things, sometimes, that make me the happiest.

Putting and Taking.

Thanks Mom.