Home Again and Gone Again



Goodbye Australia!



Sunset



Hello USA!



Everyone told me that coming home is a little harder to adjust to and I agree. It didn’t help that I had a cold prior to returning home and once you leave you just want to be home. But we made it home safe and sound.  As much as I loved being in Australia it was so nice to be welcomed home at customs and to see the American flag displayed. When we arrived in Detroit we saw a soldier and I asked him if he was coming home or heading out.  When he smiled his great big smile and said coming home it was a pleasure to shake his hand and congratulate him and welcome him home. I’m sure the feeling of arriving home was much greater for him than for me.

We had Sammy the cat greet us when we arrived home, although he wasn’t yet ready to warm up to us at first and acted  like we had abandoned him. He eventually warmed up and slept with us that night and many nights since and the first week he was my shadow and sought out our laps whenever we sat down. Now he is back to normal and he seeks us out only for food, play time or the occasional cuddle.



Sammy says, "I missed you!"



We were anxious to see all our mail that was placed on our dining room table and I had planned on taking a picture of it for the blog. But when our pet sitter brought Sammy home before our return, she kindly put it in a box to keep him from bothering it. In this electronic age it was mostly junk mail, the weekly town paper and magazines and Bob spent that evening putting it into piles of shred, recycle and read. It took one evening of shredding and just a few days to read all but one magazine.



Box of mail
(Sorry it's blurry, jet lag!!!!)



It has taken almost two full weeks to feel that I’m on U.S. time.  I now know why Bob said he would wake up in the middle of the night and be wide awake and unable to go back to sleep and why it wouldn’t take long once he sat down for him to doze off to sleep. Your body clock sure does get used to the time change after three months and needs to readjust.

We have had one 80⁰ Sunday where we were able to get back in our shorts and take a nice long walk. I’m still cold a lot of the time, but hopefully that will change quickly! It was hard to see how brown everything still is after experiencing summertime but it was good to see the robins and now the forsythia is blooming and I have seen a flock of geese heading north.

Although I miss the beautiful weather and would love to be on the plane with Bob now as he heads back it is good to be home and now he is gone I’m even more anxious to visit all my kids!