It’s been quiet around here for a few days, and for good reason. I headed to my parents’ house on Wednesday afternoon for Thanksgiving and the subsequent weekend, and, well, I’m still here. My parents live about 200 miles east of where I live, and suffice to say that their area is much, much more rural even than southwest Missouri. The town they live near has a whooping population of 2,000, and the “big” town that’s about 30 minutes away has a whooping 13,000.
And I love it.
I really have a bad/good habit of ignoring my email and my phone when I come over here. My parents’ place is not quiet the anecdotal “cabin in the woods,” but it’s pretty close. And while I’m here, I tend to focus less on my missed calls, my text messages, and my emails. It’s a very nice, albeit short, escape from the reality of my technology-filled life.
It’s been a fun weekend. My brother shot me with a BB gun … twice. It was hilarious. Painful. But very much hilarious. My parents, my brothers, and me spent several hours playing board games. We’ve all eaten our collective weight in junk food. (I’m fairly certain my mom is trying to fatten us all up for the kill!). We had Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s house with about 20 aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandma. We wasted an entire bottle of Diet Pepsi by tossing Mentos in and watching it erupt. We did a little Black Friday shopping … though we went later in the day and avoided all the early morning ridiculousness. We played pool. We chatted. We chilled.
Of course, when families get together, there are little snips and arguments. We did that, too. But all in all, it has been a great trip. I’ll be heading back to my little apartment tomorrow (although big news on the tiny apartment front … that will be changing in about a month!!). I’ll be back in my world of a fat cat, Netflix DVDs, text messages, work orders, emails, server slowness, and nine hours a day spent staring at a laptop monitor. Don’t get me wrong – it’s my little life, and I love it …
… but the short escape from it has been nice, as it always is, and has done wonders for rejuvenating my mood.
