Mulberry not Mayberry

Ernie and I often long to live in the country...rolling hills, peace and quiet, a large garden, woods filled with deer (the deer part is Ernie's dream, but I like woods, too). We keep our eyes and ears open for the perfect piece of land just outside of Muscatine. We haven't found it yet, so as long as we're living in town...

We don't have peace and quiet and we don't have a view of rolling hills. (We do have woods with plenty of deer, but Ernie can't hunt in them so it doesn't count.) We hear traffic in front of our house 24 hours a day and usually a screeching ambulance or two rushing to the hospital. No, it's not our dream, but let me tell you what we do have...

Last night our neighborhood had it's second soup supper. We all crowded into someone's dining room and feasted on sweet potato chowder, cabbage soup and ham and beans. The kids played (there are only three - two of which are Joshua and Abigail), the adults talked and the grandmas fought to hold little Madelyn (our baby) and Logan (Jason & Mary Anne's baby).

Every Wednesday morning the same women from our small section of Mulberry get together for a light breakfast and coffee. Someone (sometimes at the last minute) volunteers her house and a few pastries or such. We get together to chat and then go our seperate ways.

Is it Mayberry? Absolutely not. I often don't feel comfortable. Sometimes I have a hard time relating to the others. Sometimes I feel like I don't belong. Often I don't even feel like going. And I had to tell Joshua and Abigail to clean up the legos three times before leaving to come home last night. :)

But it is good all the same. I feel like I live in a neighborhood. Not the country (which is what I am still longing for), but a neighborhood is pretty good.

I can't take any credit for how pleasant our neighborhood has become over the past year. I haven't initiated one part of it (although I often think I should have). I have just been along for the ride. I think it is a ride God orchastrated for me to be on, though, and I often pray that he will use this intimidated, uncomfortable mother of three in some small way during my journey to the country by way of my neighborhood. -m