MUSINGS FROM A RELUCTANT EMPTY NESTER

"Soooo......what are you going to do NOW?"

I've been hearing this for three entire years, ever since our son Cameron started taking classes at the local community college instead of following the path of many of his peers towards graduation from a public high school, cavorting off to University and the subsequent amazing life that supposedly follows thereafter.  He is our firstborn;  i.e. WE DO EXPERIMENTAL PARENTING ON HIM.  I have wanted to reply  "What, he's going to start making his own nutritious meals and doing his own laundry and making his own Dr. appointments and getting to bed at a decent hour without my constant reminding?  Have you forgotten he's got a sister who's 17 months younger, practically still a BABY?"

The truth is, I should have been letting go a lot earlier.  For my sake.  So now, Baby Sister has gone off to University and Cameron is headed back out to do missions work in HAWAII.  And guess what?  That leaves old Larry and me back here on the farm.  I've always had an issue with people calling their house a farm when it's not; it's a home in the country.  Seemed sort of pretentious and the littlest of  white lies.  Conjured up thoughts of overalls and manual labor done outside with a pitchfork.  I'm all sorts of literal that way.  But I've decided to start calling it a farm now because very few of our family ARE home. And we have chickens.  I'm pretty sure that qualifies the whole farm thing.  

So what do I DO NOW?  Well, I got a Kindle for my birthday.  I've kept it well fed, since I have very few other mouths to feed.  That's been kind of fun.  Yes, it seems a bit extravagant to me because all you do is push a button and presto!  you have a new read.  Sure it hits up your Amazon account but that's not real money, right?  You never have to watch it slip quickly through your fingers.

Larry has waxed up my Grandmommy Helen's 64 Impala and we are hitting the back roads of Floyd County.  We couldn't drive it for the past 20 years because there are no seatbelts in the back.  Not a problem these days, not with the nest empty.  And if we are feeling especially frisky?  Sometimes we even drive it down the mountain and all the way to church.