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I took these pictures of the outside of the house late this afternoon.

I look at the house now and still like it very much.

It still fits my lifestyle - enclosed area for Jamie - a covered car port to lock my bike - kayaks laying on blocks securely in the back yard.

But I find myself often wishing that it were located in Wyoming.

Or even some place further out of town and somewhere out in the country.

But better in Wyoming.

Thankfully this neighborhood is generally quiet, the lot is large and we have a privacy fence.

Not as much privacy as I would like but it will do the job.

There are two azalea bushes on the property, one in the front and one in the back yard.

I had forgotten that the bush in front flowers pink, and did not even realize that it was ready to bloom until I pulled out of the driveway this morning, looked towards the front of the house and saw unexpected flowers.

We need to plant some more of them because I like them.

They make me smile.

The light green door needs to be a different color.

The wooden shutters are old.  They were on the house when I bought it and they need to be changed out.

One of the columns by the front door is leaning slightly.  LC tells me that it was always like that but I don't remember it.  Or had never noticed it before.

I was always working and training so it would have been easy to miss.

My Mountain Boy offered to straighten the column for me, but I saw ivy growing around front porch posts the other day and wonder if the same would look good on this house and if it would hide the leaning post.

I suppose it would be simple enough to plant it, train it, see what it looks like.

When I called my oldest son the other day to find out where he wanted to meet for lunch he told me that he was mowing his lawn and pulling out plants in the front of the house so that he and his wife could plant new ones.

He is already more domestic than his mother ever was.

He still laughs remembering me leaving messages on the counter for him and Chris when they were in high school.

Find something in the cupboard for dinner.  I have gone for a run.  I love you guys.

Nowadays they both cook better than I do.

Not surprisingly.

Planting ivy is not something I would have given much thought to in my former life................

A beautiful pink flowering tree in my neighbors' yard...............

My very old silver leaf maple trees in the front yard.

Some of the branches are VERY long.

Some of the gnarly branches extend far out to the sides of the trunks, making the trees appear as if long arthritic fingers are reaching across the width and breath of the lawn.

There are few maple trees on this street and I don't know why the original owners more than 50 years ago decided to differ from their neighbors.

But they are beautiful and I love them, just as I love the trees in the back yard................

My concrete squirrel has traveled from Tennessee all the way to Alaska and then Wyoming, and then back to Tennessee over the past couple of years.

When I bought him years ago at a yard sale he was not chipped.

An injury incurred when an inattentive and rogue UPS delivery man accidentally knocked him off the front step the first winter I lived at the house...............

A random metal sculpture that I picked up at a yard sale not long after we moved back into the house last fall............

A couple of years before we went to Alaska LC and I were canoeing together on the lake at Woods Reservoir.

We pulled the boat onto the shore of a large island in the middle of the lake part way through our journey to eat lunch, and after we were done I wandered part of the island on foot, curious to explore.

We found this log on the shore a few hundred yards from where we pulled off the water.

It is very heavy, but we none-the-less dragged it back to the canoe, loaded it into the boat, loaded it into the truck and brought it home with us.

An angel used to sit on this log that we placed in the front yard. 

LC brought the angel to Alaska for me and it sat in the yard up there as well.

When we were packing to leave Alaska I grabbed the sweet little angel and unthinkingly threw her into the truck.  She broke into two pieces upon impact.

Exhausted and with raw emotions I looked at my angel laying in two pieces and almost cried.

It wasn't about the angel............

I love this guy.

Bought in Wyoming at a yard sale and now on the wall beside the front door.............

I bought this milk can probably 20 years ago at a yard sale in Ontario Canada.

It was rusty and I paid too much money for it, although it was not really a lot of money, and dragged it down to Tennessee when we moved to the United States.

A year or so after we moved here I went through my one very brief creative period, and painted the can in stars and stripes.

The stars are on top of the can underneath the turtle.

The stripes are all evenly spaced except for the one section in the picture.

Bad calculating on my part....................

Until I write about these things on the blog I do not realize just how eclectic, how far reaching my belongings are.

Canada, Wyoming, Alaska, Tennessee, some things from Australia.

They tell a story of someone's life.

The story of my life.

The moose was bought at a yard sale in Juneau Alaska a few months before LC and Jamie arrived, and found on the way home from an extraordinary whale watching cruise I had just completed that morning.

The bear and the moose are just beautiful and rustic signs.  Most people are not really welcome..............

There were times in Wyoming when LC and I looked at each other and commiserated about how much we missed the green of Tennessee, particularly when we spent too much time in the predominantly beige town of Cody.

We could find green out there in that very beautiful state - it was in the irrigated fields, the trees standing tall alongside the rivers and streams.

And we drove often out to the untamed, wild and extensive Shoshone National Forest.

It was all so incredibly beautiful.

But the sheer lushness of Tennessee is staggering.

Staggering on a large scale when we drive into the mountains and are encompassed in a world of endless trees.

Exciting when I run and bike at the base.

Sweet and lovely and welcoming in our own back yard.................

A bright red azalea bush in the back yard..............

In one corner of the yard is a large bush, and in the spring huge white flowers appear.

I am not certain of its official name but locally it is called a "snowball bush"

Large white and round balls of color and sweetness.

Many snowball bushes are already in full bloom in Tullahoma, but this one in the yard is only just beginning to flower...........

In the opposite corner of the yard is another snowball bush and when we left for Alaska it was alive and well.

I have no idea what happened to it while we were away but it will have to be replaced...................

LC and I jokingly call this concrete pad our "patio".

In its last life it was actually the concrete pad for our HVAC system.

I knew when I bought the house that the heat and air unit was getting old but hoped to buy myself at least a few years before having to replace it.

I bought two years before it died a horrible and noisy and painful death, thankfully right at the end of winter and not in the middle of winter, because it was another couple of months before I could afford to get it replaced.

When the HVAC was replaced it needed a different concrete pad, and since they were planning on breaking the existing pad into pieces and carting it away we asked them to set it in the back yard instead.

A place for the bar-b-que grill....................

These seeds are now flying everywhere, and beginning to pile up on all hard surfaces outside.

When my two grown men (who used to be my two young sons) were little they used to call them helicopters, because of the rotor-like twirling action of the seeds as they fall down to the ground.

It is an accurate description....................

Home

Home is the place your heart resides

Home is the place that you decide

Home is the womb that holds the soul

Home is the place where one is whole

Home is the glow you hold in your eye

Home is the emotion that makes you cry

Home is safe and a place of peace

Home is where all strivings cease

Home is protective against the others

Home is full of sisters and brothers

Home is where you find your rest

Home is where you feel your best

Home is a memory that follows your being

Home is a dream for those agreeing

Home is the place where reserves fall

Home is the place you yearn to call

Home is where the family meets

Home is a place of restful retreats

Home is the place you know you’ll be heard

Home is the pace where nothing blurs

Home is all these wonderful things

Home is the place you develop wings

Home is the place that you’ll find one day

Home is the place where your heart will stay

Aisha Patterson