11 Things I Miss About Home
*Disclaimer – None of this blog should be taken as a complaint. I am perfectly happy right where I am. Quite simply, I am having an incredibly reminiscent month, and what better to be thinking of than the Greatest Place on Earth!
1. The Dairy Mart! Everyone on my team knows all about this place by now! Someone tell Tommy to fire up the grill and have a cheeseburger (pickle only), fries and a chocolate-banana milkshake ready and waiting!
2. Bellview Baptist Church! Almost every Sunday we are in services in a different place, usually we don’t speak the same language as most of the people present, but we are always welcomed with warm smiles and generally with an invitation to sing a song. It never fails to make me miss Sunday’s at Bellivew, singing in the choir, hugging no less than 20 people between Sunday School and Preaching, sitting in pews with padding and backs and simply being in one of the places I always feel most at home!
3.Fishing at Settle’s Lake! I’m about ready to catch back up on one of my favorite pastimes – sitting bank side with my Pa Henry, baiting my own hooks but always making him take the fish off for me, talking, or not talking and marveling at the beauty God has created, quite literally, in our backyard!
4.The Great Escape! There’s no counting the number of movies I’ve watched on my laptop over the past seven months. I’m ready for a big screen, some over priced popcorn, an overload of candy, an Icee, squishy seats and cold air! Let’s go to the movies; let’s go see the stars!
5.Pandora! Okay, so that one isn’t exactly specific to “home,” but it is specific to America. I thoroughly look forward to the day when I can put on a random shuffle (that isn’t the extensive iTunes library I’ve been through at least ten times) and dance around my house, or drive for hours on end while unashamedly singing at the top of my lungs.
6.Folgers in My Cup! In the past eight months, I’ve consumed enough instant coffee to last me a lifetime, thank you very much. Even though we have pretty much mastered how to make it as close to delicacy as possible (you’d be amazed by what one can accomplish using condensed milk, more sugar than should ever be legal, hints of hot chocolate mix and cinnamon) there is something to be said for filtered brew! Give me an ENORMOUS, US-sized mug, top it off with hazelnut creamer and sugar that actually dissolved, plop me across the table from any loved one of your choosing and feel free to keep the refills coming.
7.Driving! Slightly sore subject – just before I left home, Mom and I were driving one day and we passed a Jeep with a For Sale sign in the window. We happened to be in our own Jeep Wrangler at the time, and I instantly said, “Mom, don’t sell the Jeep while I’m gone. I want it when I get home.” Less than two hours later, she informed me that she had seen a car on my uncle’s car lot and she wanted to trade the Jeep for it. (She went on to do so.) Such is life. Regardless of what I am driving once I’m home, it will be on the right side of the road, on the right side of the car, A/C cranked up, music blaring, and the ever-increasing speedometer will read in miles! Glory!
8.High-Nine! Apparently this phenomenon is known only to the wonderful people of Allegre, Kentucky. It’s been far too long since I’ve been in a nail-biting round of card play – I haven’t bid, called suit, gone set or shot-the-moon in, literally, months! I often sit alone, shuffling my deck, asking any passerby if they know how to play (they never do) and usually resorting to playing Rummy or Speed (it’s not the same.) Family game night, here I come!
9.Wal-Mart! Again, not entirely specific to “home,” but you have no idea how badly I want to spend hours wandering around in a store where I can literally find anything I might desire at that given moment. Oh the joys of one-stop-shopping. Furthermore, the joys of it not being an entire day’s adventure to get to a store. Retail therapy holds an entirely new meaning after the Race!
10.FFA! You laugh, but having been away from American Agriculture, and (in my opinion) the greatest breed of people on Earth, for this long has shown me just how much of an Ag nerd I truly am. I miss being engulfed in seas of Blue Jackets, judging contests, watching the most promising youths in America work hard and so often getting rewarded for their toils! This stuff really gets in your blood – while I’m sure people are sick of hearing countless glory days stories of way back when, I am forever grateful to have gained from FFA an incredible foundation in the concept that has made this year so incredible for me – “Living to Serve!”
11. My People! Rodney Adkins says it best:
“These are my people.
This is where I come from.
We’re giving this life everything we’ve got, and then some.
It ain’t always pretty,
but it’s real.
It’s the way we were made, wouldn’t have it any other way!
These are my people!”
Know that I miss each and every one of you. You’re constantly in my prayers. I speak of you ridiculously often and I love you dearly!!! See you in three months!!! (I’ll be broke and hungry, so feel free to sign up for taking me to or preparing meals. I’ll provide 11 months worth of stories as entertainment…) J/k. (but not really!)
Be Blessed,
Ashlee
