roses.........

wow. i just finished a 600+ page book. and i could not put it down. seriously. it was to the point that mary peyton was even asking if i was almost through. my goodness.

my sweet friend, lisa, was given this book by a friend. she said that she thought of me the whole time she read it. it's called Roses and really, i can't say enough how much i liked it.

you know those books that become real to you? i mean the ones where you have to read "just one more chapter" to see what is going on with your "friend" next? yeah...it's one of those.

or at least it was to me. maybe it was that i felt like i understood where mary toliver was coming from - loving her family's land so much. i don't know. but by the end i wanted to know her - or rather, i wanted her to know me (since i already know her and all!).

i love that mary peyton loves our family's land in the Delta. she asks questions and wants to know what her big daddy is growing. she plays in the dirt and doesn't mind a scratch on the knee if it meant fun in the country was involved.

i hope that she will always look out at our land and appreciate it the way i do now. i always considered it an honor to grow up on land purchased by my great-grandfather. land that my grandfather grew up on, my daddy grew up on, i grew up on. the older i have gotten, the more sentimental the dirt becomes.

it's not just dirt. it is soil that has served as the provider for so many throughout the years. and though mary peyton's "direct" livelihood will never come through that land, i cannot wait for the day that my home stands in one of those fields and i'm able to look out over everything. ya'll, THAT'S when i will feel like i'm back at home.....