I don't suffer from insanity,

There really isn't much to update since I last posted.

One week of not much. Now, mind, I'm not complaining. Not much means no upheavals, be they emotional, mental, or physical. However, it also means no stretching, no motion, no advance.

Just.... stillness.

Perhaps the cold front brought this lethargy when it blew in a few days ago. My only motivation is to curl up under a heavy blanket and cuddle next to my husband's radiating warmth.

Read a book.

Drink some warm, tasty tea.

And yet I wake up to the insistent whrr of my four-legged companion, stumble out of my warm bed and into my fluffy robe. Blearily I stagger down the hall, around the corner, through the dining room and to the back door to let the persistent pup out for his morning romp on the dry, yellowed grass and his very worn dirt track around the perimeter of the yard.

While he runs his laps, I sit on the cold concrete and wrap my arms around my legs and listen to the morning. Soon he comes dancing back to me, tail flying, smiling and ready for his cookie, which I give to him not bothering to stifle my laugh. Inside, he still whrrs, though, because now he wants his walk. I scratch him, and then stumble to the shower, then get ready for work.

I need to get up earlier so we can walk, especially now that the weather is so nice. Sunny and cold, with a slight breeze. He dances every time I lift his leash, and I smile at his antics.

At work, I make a list of things to do. While taking care of the more menial tasks, I daydream about living in the country, distanced physically from people, but in some odd sense still connected to family and friends.

I daydream of the simple, harder life of living on a farm, taking care of animals, learning to garden, enjoying fresh air and long, lazy evenings. Of watching my greyhound really get to stretch his legs and fly. Of sewing and making my own whimsical clothes, and wearing them because there is no one to please but myself.

Of actually seeing the stars.

It's not an idyll. I lived on a farm growing up, and know the commitments. But maybe it's the uncomplicated comfort of returning to my roots.

I daydream occasionally of children, too.

I love children. Babies, not so much, but children? Their open acceptance of others, their fanciful imaginations and delightful games of pretend. Their laughter, and even their tears. Reading to them, playing with them, comforting them, listening to them, talking to them, teaching them.

I'm not in a rush. It's something that will happen when it happens. Regardless of now or later, I think that maybe one day I'll be a good mother. I know that Matt will be an exemplary father, like his father before him.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, other than maybe putting dreams to words.

I lived in a large, older home from around the late 1800s. It was at the top of a hill, and I shared the home with the mayor and her ten-year-old(ish) son. I had the third floor all to myself. The first floor had a foyer, a formal dining and a parlor in the front, then a kitchen and a breakfast room, a sun room and a bathroom in the back. The second floor was the mayor's. I don't recall everything, but at some point there was this huge flood that washed through the city, but since we were at the top of a hill it only went up about two feet around the outside of our house. We stuffed towels etc in all the cracks and kept most of the water on the outside.

When all the water abated, the mayor went out to check on her citizens. Unfortunately, all the villans came out, as well, to loot and plunder the flooded homes. I was upstairs in my suite looking out the window when I saw five of them eyeing our house from the sidewalk in front. I went to my closet, got out my shotgun and went downstairs. By the time I got there, they had already come in the back door. I warned them that if they didn't leave, I would shoot. They didn't. So I worked the action of the shotgun (with difficulty, heh, which was realistic enough) and waited for them to come into the dining room from the kitchen.

I woke up at some point during the ensuing gun fight to my beep-beeping alarm.

Too bad Matt wasn't awake. Heh.