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Its evening and I'm doing my daily walk around.  Push roast in oven, check bread, start dishwasher and wipe down counters.  I disentangle a puzzle piece, a ball, two magnets and a "My Little Pony" from the rabble of winter gear near the door, stop and sweep up the kitchen and head to the dining room.  More mayhem here, wipe down table top, light a candle and whisper some gratitude.  Joboy rides his push toy around my feet, cowboy hat perched on the back of his head, train firmly grasped in his perfect little boy paw.  In the living room, Daddy on the couch tickling F and D, snow sparkling through the windowpane as shadows lengthen and dress the world in ice blue robes of twilight.

There's a basket with folded laundry waiting for me to carry up the stairs and put away.  B will be along soon, rushing home in the evening gloom to warm house full of light and table set with steaming plates.  I trip over toys and gather them in a small pile, set on the stairs again, knowing full well they'll be knocked over or grabbed up to play with again before I get to them.

I know that this lacks so much glamour.  Not much of an adventure, this little house and these messes and excitement purely over having ice cream for dessert.

I am certainly nothing if not un-glamorous, jeans and t shirt my perpetual uniform of stay at home mom-hood.

I was thinking the other day, how my mom grew up in this town, birthed 7 babies and lives here still.  How many may say her life was small, lacking adventure.  Here I am, living approximately 50 yards from my childhood home, raising 5 of my own and following those same rhythms of babes and bread rising and schooling and wiping crumbs.

We hear it in Disney movies - the heroine always longing for a great adventure - usually one far away from "here," wherever here happens to be.  As if just simply leaving a place makes wherever you are going that much more magical.

Wherever you are, there you are...and you are not someplace else.

I'll take here, thanks.  Small college town in the mid west.  Not because its better than someplace else, that's not it at all.  I'll take here because its right for me - right now.  I'll take just-because 3 year old kisses and exciting ice cream for dessert.  I'll take watching my 7 year old trek homeward in the snow.  I'll take bread rising and young'uns whooping and snowballs flying and early bedtimes.  It may not be a wild adventure, but it is more than enough for me.