Country Girls

We don't live in an exotic place. We're not on an ocean or even all that close to a lake. Though, we are within a half hour of at least six lakes I could name off the top of my head.

We don't do much of anything each weekend.

We live so far into the country that the nearest place of business is at least three miles away.

And we like it.

We like our cute little garden in which six tomato plants and four pepper plants are growing quietly.

We love picking small, red strawberries from our berry patch.

Alyssa had a friend over on Friday and we found six red strawberries. They were small, they were weird shaped but when S ate the two that were given to her, she exclaimed that they were so good.

And they are. Strawberries from your own yard are always better than the giant ones you can get in the grocery store. They just are.

We don't have a pool in our yard. But we do have a small, inflated kiddie pool on our deck that Olivia thinks is heavenly. Alyssa loves playing with the water balloons I fill with the hose, pretending the balloons are sea creatures that only she, the fabled mermaid of northwestern Ohio, can talk to.

Instead, we have a wooden swing set with a slide, two swings and a pair of rings. When my nephew stopped by the other day, he cried as he and my mom left, sobbing, "I want to play on that park."

We aren't rich financially, but we are so, so blessed. We find joy in riding our bikes on the back roads between our house and my mom's. We love being able to walk there in the time it used to take us to drive from our house to hers.

We like the country, the quiet nights, the brilliant stars, the fresh strawberries and vegetables from the garden. We love letting the girls go outside on the back deck and knowing they're okay, they're safe way out here in the middle of nowhere.

I like knowing I'm raising country girls, girls who will remember the joy of chasing and catching lightening bugs and splashing in a bucket on their Gram's back deck. Of riding their bikes on deserted back roads and being able to hear that train that is over five miles away as it chugs along the tracks that go through town, a town that is small, quaint, friendly.

In the ways that count? We're so, so rich.