Big sigh of relief

I'm SAHMing it for the next couple of days, with Steve off in Colorado and my Mom on the East Coast, no way I can see clients. What a great feeling to have nothing to do but stay home with the kids, cook, clean up and play games with them. Like this addicting one, which disguises some intriguing physics lessons as game play...

I'm trying to figure out why it's felt so wonderful to just stay home the last day or two. I've done many loads of laundry, baked a rasberry trifle and Guosim Shrew Shortbread from the Redwall Cookbook, and we're in process with a batch of no-knead bread that promises to be heavenly (I've always thought it impossible to get a crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside rustic loaf like this in an ordinary oven!)

I think a lot of it is just giving myself over to the day and enjoying how it unfolds. Often when Steve's home, I'm pricked by the thought that I should be off doing something, either hiking or running vague errands or just something, since I have the opportunity to go out. But I don't really want to and I end up wandering around the house a bit aimlessly and feeling out of sorts.

I do know I've missed feeling grounded at home for quite a while. I can remember getting tired of this much domesticity also, but for now, I'm revelling in it.

Steve is spending the day at the Loveland paper and his first impression of it, from last night's dinner with some of the design desk folks and editors, was that it was a flashback, not just to being back in journalism, but to his college newspaper, which was about the same size. He's so far not thinking that this could be an enjoyable growth opportunity. We'll see how today's tours and presentations went. I'm more excited about the magazine job in Boulder. He meets with the editor tomorrow, if all goes well.

And our neighbors' weren't able to negotiate a sale of their house, the potential buyers couldn't offer any more than their initial offer. Discouraging news all around, at the moment....