There's No Place at Home

Number 7 on my list of things to post when I’m too busy to think: When all else fails, make a list.

Here are 5 things that I think help make a house a home.

1. A front porch. My front porch is very small, but I stilI love to sit out on in the summer to watch the world go by as I drink my morning cup of coffee. And in the summer, it doesn’t hurt if the front porch has a few hanging baskets full of blooming flower.

2. Pets. Nothing makes the place seem cozy like a couple of dogs and cats sleeping.

3. Babies and toddlers, although I have no wee ones living here and no grandbabies to visit, either. But if I did, they’d help make the place more homey.

4. A little untidiness. A homey house looks lived-in. True confession: In my obsessively tidy days, I’d put every single thing away, clean from top to bottom, and then lay an open book here, a jacket there, a cup and saucer on the kitchen table and a tea towel on the counter, all in an attempt to make a too-tidy house look like a home. Fortunately, that phase of my life ended a long time ago and I no longer need such props—ever.

5. Fresh flowers. I always have them, and no, I don’t feel guilty about the money I spend on them. And when I can’t have fresh flowers—like when it’s -40C in the middle of the winter—I have candles lit as a bouquet substitute.

What about you? What do you think helps make your house a home?

Email and Other Bloggy Business

I have a big backlog of email that I need to respond to, but I’ve got other things to take care of right now. So if you are waiting for a response from me, it’s coming soon, but not yet. Unless of course, you sent me the kind of email mentioned in the next paragraphs.

I’ve been getting a lot of email requests for me to promote various Christian causes and organizations (and all good, I’m sure) on my blog. Unless I know you well, I probably won’t be promoting your cause or organization, no matter how urgent the need is. I just don’t have the time or resources to look into it to see if the need is real and the organization is up-to-snuff.

And I’d drive myself crazy if I tried to respond to all of the email like this that I receive so I don’t respond to any of them. I don’t like it much that I’m leaving what I judge to be genuine messages from caring people unanswered, but I’ve had to draw the line. For my sanity, you see.

Thank you to those who have sent me links to home posts to include in my collection today. Once again, the Home post will be coming later in the day. Sorry about that.

Fishing for Juveniles (and Adults, Too)

There are at least a couple of juvenile bald eagles—and grown up eagles, too—hanging around down by the river where I sometimes take my daily walks. Last week, while walking with a friend, we saw one juvenile sitting on the river edge very close to the walkway on the bank. He was, I think, hoping to catch himself a fish, but he left when a small crowd gathered to watch. Fishing, you know, is not a spectator sport.

And on my way home later, I saw two or three juveniles—I think there were three, but I was driving and had to pay attention to the road, too—sitting out in the middle of the river on a sandbar. If I’d had my camera, I’d have stopped to take a photo for you, but I hadn’t yet retrieved it from oldest son.

Do you know what a juvenile bald eagle looks like? Here’s a very short (16 seconds) YouTube video of one eating a salmon.

It takes five years for a bald eagle to get its full adult markings, so they reach full adult size before they get their adult feathering. (If I were a bird nerd, I’d call it plumage.) The one in the video looks to be largish and the ones I saw certainly were. Adult size for an eagle is pretty big, at least as far as bird go—around three feet tall for the girls and a few inches shorter for the boys. Wing span? Six or seven feet, and here the girls excel as well. Eagle men, I guess, prefer big women.

A few years ago, I told a story of how the eagle got her fish. (I never did get around to telling the wedding story I mentioned in that post, but sadly, the marriage has already gone kaput, so I hope you didn’t hold your breath waiting to hear that one.)