Travel isn't really my bag. I admire those who, passport books stamp-full, rattle off their favorite destinations and boast an equally impressive list of places they will one day visit. Me, I like being home. It probably makes me a poor citizen of the world, having less of an understanding of different people and cultures than my more travelled friends. But I have an intense discomfort with being a tourist, being out of my element. It somehow just makes me feel like a transient in my own life, not quite fitting in even in the place I call home. Call it a self-consciousness, a hyper-sensitivity about race, or a quashing of any spirit of adventure that may have threatened to poke out its head in my development, or a lack of travel to places that didn't involve staying with relatives during that same period. Whatever. I'm just not comfortable when I'm not home.
So, while our recent trip to Vegas, our first vacation in ages, was a nice little departure from the routine of our days, I was happy enough to board a plane and head home. The problem is, for the past two years that we've been in Houston, homecomings have been a bittersweet affair. We arrive back at the doorstep to our rented home in the city that, for many reasons, we've never quite settled into, and turning the key just doesn't give me that warm fuzzy comfort that "home" should.
Our solution? House-hunting in Seattle. Not the idle just-curious-what-the-housing-market-looks-like-right-now kind of house search. No. Honest-to-goodness financing-pre-approval, moving-pod-reservation-making house-hunting. We're coming home, aiming for an arrival date around July. Which leaves me a tad preoccupied in the meantime. Right now, things are still rather in limbo. Housing needs procurement. Travel needs arrangement. Belongings need sorting and packing away into many, many boxes.
And yet I have time to browse through projects I'd like to one day, maybe, kind of get to, when I once again have spaces designated for things like craft detritus and plants I'll forget to water.
The short list:
Lightbulb terrarium so I can play a little with glass and metal and plantlife. Sweet.
Twig hooks and pins to better organize ideas, light rain jackets, projects, and everything else. Right.
Pocket mirror to feed my inner narcissist.
Fabric tape because the combination of tape and fabric is quite possibly pure magic.
Bloomers so my tooshie might be as cute as The Girlie's.
Bottle garden to give me an excuse to get glass cutting supplies.
Paper because it seems like a project suitably messy enough to entertain The Boy for a couple minutes.
Bird's nest helpers because, while the Seattle birds don't have all the flash and glam that these Southern ones strut around with, they deserve to live in fancy, technicolor homes.
