Clean.

H-O-M-E.

Coming home after eight days is like dessert. The meal was great but dessert - always the best part.

We had a delightful vacation with family and old friends, and now, at last! we are home. Our week was busy, relaxing, challenging, fun, exhausting, and inspiring.

We grilled out and swam in the lake.

We caught frogs and crickets (and sniffles).

We went to the park and the pool and the baseball stadium.

We had chocolate cake twice (one birthday, one wedding). And watching my high school best friend marry the right guy made my heart smile.

We colored and baked and made messes and cleaned up and went to bed. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but nearly all delightful.

Parenting without my sweetie was sometimes trying (and I missed him besides), but I think we'll spend a week there next summer too. It's good for us to break our routine and head to the city.

And now? It's time to unpack. We leave in three days for another week away!

My Parents.

We're off to Nanny and Bumpie's (Grandma and Grandpa).

Because of Lupine's road-personality I haven't been to visit my parents since Christmas. That's a bit embarrassing considering that they live only three hours away.

My parents are a treasure.

When we visit we arrive to a food stocked with organic food. For us. And the TV? They don't turn it on when the kids are around. Really.

Though we don't parent like they did, my mom and dad treat our parenting decisions with love and respect. They treat our kids the way we do, even cosleeping on Sage's many visits. I feel so blessed for the love and respect I get from my folks as we homebirth, choose not to vaccinate, extended breastfeed, homeschool (unschool!), and live an otherwise natural existence. Perhaps that is a testament to their parenting - that I have found the courage to swim against the stream and find my bliss in authentic, loving patenting.

So we're off for a week in Brookfield. And what a week it will be.

A baby shower.

A birthday party.

A visit with my sister, AKA Titi.

A Brewer's game.

A hindu ceremony.

A wedding.

A reception.

A sleepover at my high school best friend's house.

A trip to the pool. Or maybe two trips to the pool. (I have to say, the pools in the suburbs are freaking awesome.)

A visit with our naturopath to get to the bottom of a food allergy.

And of course a few hours at the fabric store, a necessity with every visit home. Sans kids I hope so I can do some serious stash filling.

So we're off for a week. Hope yours is packed with magic and love!

Beauty.

I have begun to stalk the beautiful.

I carry my camera with me everywhere, seeking beauty in the most obscure places. Like coffee. Or legos.

Beauty. Right here in the family room at 7 am.

But really, this is my life. I can find the beauty in this everyday or lose myself in the minutia of what isn't pretty. Like the sandy floors or heaps of dishes or mountains of unfolded laundry, all beckoning my critical gaze.

It won't ever all be done, so I'm working to find the beauty lurking behind the chaos; the bliss lurking inside of the "work".

Yesterday we were blessed with an afternoon with friends on their homestead, tucked into the hills outside of Viroqua.

They are a brilliant study in finding the beauty and joy in the everyday as they grow their food, wash their clothes, cook their meals, raise their girls and build their home - all by hand, day by day.

Welcoming beauty and purpose into a day so filled with "work" transforms their existence into something rather magical. Their life is full, real, lived, and beautiful. And I admire them in a very big way.

The Non-Negotiables.

We moved to Viroqua, Wisconsin nearly two years ago. I was extremely pregnant, and extremely ready to be Home with a capital "h". We fell for Viroqua a few years before because it fulfilled our requirements of What-We-Want-To-Surround-Ourselves-With-Everyday.

Pete and I very deliberately aligned ourselves with this life we now live. We sat down one night and made a list of our "Non-Negotiables". After a week of tweaking, six items remained on our list. They are:

1. Community: We chose to surround ourselves with kindred souls. A beautiful place loses much of its beauty without the connection of community.

2. Proximity to my family: Close enough for weekend visits with my parents and sister in Milwaukee.

3. Green Space: We all need to surround ourselves with the peace of nature. Especially moving from the country, we need our biophilia fix.

4. A home that we love: Why settle for anything but a place to make your heart sing?

5. Alternative schooling: Should our kids ever decide to go to school, we'd like to have a rockin' option. (Viroqua's options are Waldorf, Waldorf, and charter. Not too shabby for a town of less than 5,000.)

6. Work: Pete was commuting 2 1/2 hours a day. Done with that.

And so we looked at the map and, as one friend here put it, Viroqua was the place where all of those lines intersected. How true. Each year a few more kindred souls roll into town, and we're thrilled to meet each of them. This place is magic, and they are much of the reason why.

It seems Mother Earth News thinks so, too. Our little town is one of this month's Nine Great Places You've Never Heard Of.