Busy Hands Homestead

My breath catches and the page I am looking at blurs. Recently I started working at a little toy store, Walking Stick Toys .  It is a magical place that fills a sentimental nook in my heart.  You see, much of what is sold here is from Germany and as I am organizing toys on shelves or flipping through the books I run across things that are familiar from my childhood. Today I am looking around the store, compiling a list of gift ideas for different age groups (a work in progress, but coming soon). I am flipping through Magic Wool Fruit Children .  A picture of sheet cake, with neat rows of plums stops me.   I found it. When I was almost twelve, we left Germany in a whirlwind and contacts with people dear to my heart got lost in the mess of it all. Once a week I would walk down the the city center, ring a door bell and climb up a few flights of stairs to sit on a sofa between bookshelves lined with the most impressive stamp collection I have ever seen ...

My eyes are squeezed shut, I am gripping the sides of the car, my feet are pushing into the floorboard I am so nervous I have to pee.  I am terrified.  There was an upside down car laying in the boulder field just below the road, granted, It looked like it had been there for 40 years or so, but it instantly gave an image to what I was feeling.  I have a phobia of mountain roads and yet I regularly sit in the passenger seat while Adam patiently tries to drive while I freak out.  Why?  Well,I like picking huckleberries and I love hot springs so I find myself in the situation more often than I would like to admit.  How did I get here this time? I am entering the fourth decade of life and to celebrate we turned off our cell phones, threw food, clothes, the tent, the dogs and the kids into the car and embarked on a road trip to places we have never been before.  A loop through Idaho stopping to dip into a few of the many hot springs that dot the state a...