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We will be traveling at the end of the month. For nearly two weeks we will be on the road to Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. Ugh. I am not looking forward to the trip for so many reasons. It will be fun to go to Thibadoux for the first time. Lawrence is going to love visiting his Parrain, but the rest of the trip is going to suck. I hate being in Eupora and Forrest City! Both places are so depressing. Nothing ever changes. Both places will be dark and dirty and missing all the love we feel in our own home. My mother will be happy to see the kids, but all her conversations with me will be about me being fat, Margie being too skinny and how Karen never calls. Lance's parents will go on and on about everything his sister is doing wrong and how life is so hard, blah, blah, blah. We always feel so bad when we are back there. But, since we are the only ones willing to travel, we have to endure it as best we can. Now that Lance's mom is doing better, it is probable that this will be our only trip this year.

We love our home here in Sylva. It took me a little while to appreciate it, mostly because I was so miserable when we first moved here. I was 7 months pregnant and nothing was going to make me happy. Once Annabelle got here and we made it through the first couple of months, we began to settle in and enjoy our blessings. Our house is small, but it is affordable, which is a very big deal to us. It was only a few years ago that I would have been willing to pay a lot more for my "dream home." I now know that my dream home is wherever Lance and the kids are. Our little house is set on top of a hill with the best view in the world. We can look out our windows at any time of the year and see God in all the beauty he created in these mountains. I am always happy to share it when people come visit and am especially excited that Paula is coming soon. The only thing that would make it better is having friends. We have met a lot of people, and heaven knows Lawrence has made lots of friends, but we don't feel really close to anyone, yet. There's nothing like the friends you've had forever. The ones that are in your blood, like Paula, Sheryl, Jason and Mark and Becky. But, I've never been good at making friends, so that will probably always be missing.

It is Lent and I am trying to be more diligent in my reading. For anyone out there with a Catholic Bible, try to read from Sirach this season. It is used a lot in the liturgy during Lent and, like Proverbs and Wisdom, it has a lot of useful lessons for daily living. Chapter 29 deals with debt, which has been on my mind a lot lately. Thankfully we have been able to avoid bad debt so far, but that is not the case for so much of the country. One of the best things I ever did for my marriage was change my spending habits. I look at our finances now very prudently and wish our government would do the same. But, I will save the speech about our government's recklessness for another day! Take care all!