You Know...It's the Little Things

For fun, I took a half hour today while Addison was sleeping and I just flipped through the channels to see what was on the old tube and came across ER. Suprisingly it was an episode from just last year (most episodes of US shows seem to be several years old) so I caught up on a show I missed. An amazing thing that occured to me as I watched for a 1/2 hour was that I forgot for a moment that I was in England. I felt like I was back home on a Thursday night hanging out and I was truly at peace. It's not at all that I am unhappy here, I love it, but there are certain "little things" that calm the heart and make you feel normal or at least make where you are start to feel normal. Later today we went to the grocery store and every trip still can be a struggle when you are trying to find what you are used to and you just want to find what you want instead of trying to figure out what is a good alternative. The little thing that brought me to peace again was finding cans of Campbell's brand Cream of Mushroom Soup. Later on yet during Addison's nap I sat in the conservatory and looked out on my super green grass and noticed that it needs mowing very badly. Then it occured to me that it is the 6th of December and I was depressed and longed for snow. I put in a tape of Christmas shows I recorded last year...the Grinch, Charlie Brown Christmas, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...as every commercial came on or weather update by the local Peoria news people...for those few moments I was back in my house in Washington. We leave for America in nine days and I am overly excited to head back "home" to where I dream it will be "normal", but I am sure things will be great, but most definitely different. I'm sure when we are home that I will have to check the internet to see who wins X Factor (UK's American Idol), I'll have to email my friends from the UK to check in to see how things are going, I'll feel odd not having to drive on the left side of the road and zip around round abouts. Anyway, its always the little things that count and make life interesting...and we should cherish them all.