Sunday blissful Sunday

It is now Sunday afternoon...early, around 12:50. Got up late this morning because our heat never came on, signaling time to get up or smother under three comforters. Yes, I sleep under three comforters, one down, two fake down. We turn the heat down so far at night that for all intents and purposes it is off. But it creaks on at 6 am, flapping and groaning and spewing out parched air. But this morning it did not. So we had to call the gas furnace man, who will be out on Monday. Meanwhile, the weather is so springlike, I am willing to just let the darn thing sit idle. Fortunately I am married to a much more practical person who realizes it is March 2and we are not out of the woods yet. But the forsythia is blooming, some redbuds are out, and the dogwoods and azaleas hold promise. Earlier Dennis was out chopping firewood to warm the living room tonight..to which I said "it is going to be warm today.." and he scowled at me and said "Just play along, ok?" OK! Now he is scrounging under the house for the deck furniture. The sun beating into the "morning room", our glassed porch off the kitchen, convinced him it is almost spring. A couple of hours ago I was chopping vegetables for potato leek soup, which is now simmering in the crockpot (yes, it is VEGETARIAN, Devon, no chicken stock)and now I am listening to Diana Krall on XM Radio. When my fingers completely stop bleeding, I will bathe the filthy Scottie and put some more laundry in the machine.

On days like this, I wonder why our lives have turned out like this. Of course, we made decisions, and that's pretty much why we are living in the burbs in a country club neighborhood, with no interest in joining the club,or playing golf, or playing tennis. We don't care much about going out, eating out, joining a church or making any of those kind of social connections. The two people who seem to share some of my interests, besides my husband, are my two daughters. But our real enthusiasms at this point are our animals, and doing homey tasks, cooking, maintaining our old house, reading by the fire, gardening, listening to music. So many times in my life I have wished I had completed my liberal arts degree and gone on to advanced degrees and teaching at a university, my dream in high school that some how got sidelined at UF. I finally I got my degree in nursing so I would have a decent paying career....a career for which I am so remarkably unsuited, something in which I have no interest whatsoever. But it has helped to support us over the years, and I have managed to find jobs that are removed from patient care, something I found much too intense and personal.

But I can't help but think that we would be so much happier living on some acreage, perhaps in the mountains, away from suburbia and fast food and meaningless jobs. Maybe we are too old now to "get back to the land." Maybe we can't afford to retire.
I just wish we could try. I just wish we could try before we die.