Back to the Comforts (and Clouds) of Home

We arrived home from a week in Florida late Monday evening and now it is suddenly December. With the dregs of the turkey leftovers taken to work by R. for a last lunch for one just before we left for the Orlando airport, Thanksgiving was officially over. We came home from the airport by taxi just before midnight and noticed all the Christmas lights brightening the neighborhood.

On the way back from a 5-night stay in Palm Coast, we ordered an unpeeled shrimp appetizer to eat outdoors in the cool ocean breezes off Flagler Beach. Later that evening we enjoyed a dinner of scallops and kale soup, the fish being a welcome change from the rich and buttery turkey and trimmings leftovers, even though they held up way better than I had anticipated. Even the totally amazing pail of homemade pumpkin ice cream with gingersnap pieces made it back okay to R's Maitland freezer successfully, so we still had a bowl of that after all that fish and kale.

Although to be perfectly honest, I had half a burger and amber bock at the beachfront restaurant after the shrimp, and insisted on going to the Shake Shack of Winter Park for lunch Monday--so I was hardly finished with holiday indulgences.

But for my first dinner home, I craved some simple tomato bisque soup, eaten with a smooth and quiet plastic spoon (partly for the benefit of the newly diagnosed misophonia sufferer) while watching Life Below Zero from our DVR queue.

After all the incredible in-and-out weather temperatures--with ocean breezes flowing through the open screen-less doors of our 5th floor condo, and after enjoying so much delicious holiday food, I was content to coddle my bare feet under a heated throw while I sipped hot tomato soup!

It has been said that home is where the heart is. I think home is where your stuff is--the rumpled sofa, the refrigerator stocked with recognizable brands of favorite foods, the cable programs found easily on your own familiar channels.

I am a bit of a news junkie, and, having suffered some vacation deprivation, I actually watched a news program for an hour on the plane from Orlando to Atlanta. The husband seemed to be having trouble exiting out of the Spanish language on his screen and was soon found taking a nap. He is able to sleep anywhere, it seems, even in the airport! But it is also good to once again enjoy the comforts of the home bed.

The Husband--taking up three seats!

Anyway, as nice as Florida weather is, as long as we have stuff in Michigan, that is where I want to return to. If we downsize to an RV one day (don't laugh), then home might be anywhere...

Which reminds me, I still have a yard here, with no snow. The temps are a chilly low 40's (80 exactly when we left Florida--we were steamin' as we donned our Michigan clothes), but it is nice enough outside to rake or blow a few more leaves that have fallen since we left town! Gotta go.