more or less.

i was sitting in my professor's living room last night, in a big and beautiful house in the suburbs, in a big and brown leather chair, in my last class as a graduate student (which is a whole other post which will come on another day. more like a few posts really.) staring at the walls and out the windows and at the sleeping dog on the floor when a few things hit me:

i am so tired that if i closed my eyes right now, the combination of this matilda and this day will do me in.

i love that the quiet of this house is tangible. i feel it wash over me. it's the same quiet i feel saturday nights after we put eva to bed or sunday morning while ben makes pancakes and i stay far away from that pan because if my life depended on it i just could not make a quality pancake. and eva loves her pancakes.

i love this giant, friendly dog that is just milking all the petting and fawning over he's getting.

i want bookshelves like those that start at my waist and go to the ceiling.

i want to fill a home with this many photos and chairs and big, open windows. 

i want to fill a home with life and laughter that cause me to cry the best kinds of ears, the full body full heart ones. 

there is a lot of life here in these four walls. 

i feel so much calm at these steps i'm about to take. more calm and less fear.

i'm choosing to let the happy continue to wash over me.

and this morning, as i changed my address on everything from my bank to magazine subscriptions i was reminded that i'm in the process of doing these things. of making a home with this man and his daughter and happy dog, all of whom i love so much. as we combine things like my audrey hepburn clock with ben's mounted fish all i can do is smile. 

pretty darn blessed. pretty much an understatement, more or less.