So our new lives begin.

Alexandra and her family are settling into their home in the prairie. It has been raining there, something Tom and Lily rarely saw here in the desert. Their toys are still on the shelves in the rec room. They are, I know, quoting Carol King (again) just "time away".

So our new lives begin.

I automatically make sure the scissors are out of reach. I double-check that the iron is unplugged, even though it is the automatic shut off kind. Tom never really got into things here, but his sister, whose hobby, according to her grandpa in "naughty", had radar for what she wasn't supposed to be into. We watched her like a hawk. We were complacent when
Alexandra was little because, if we told her not to do something, she wouldn't. Yes, she was the oldest. Lily's temperament is much like mine. I know that I was into everything, but that is in the handbook for second-children-after-really-well-behaved-first-children. It's a cosmic law.

So our new lives begin,

but I will miss our dinners. I will especially miss the walks around the neighborhood to visit the horses, but I promise, Tom and Lily, I will tell them hello and wave good-bye just as you did.

So our new lives begin.