I am two espressos into the morning. I keep forgetting to buy coffee beans. This morning i sent my daughter across the road to the coffee shop to get me something. Instead of drip she came back with the thick syrupy espresso.

I like this. I like this village living. I like the streetlights.

I haven't lived near streetlights for six years. I wander home from work, late at night, under their orange glow. The village is empty, quiet, peaceful. The flashing red light at the intersection is the center of my universe.

The kids rush in from school, tossing backpacks and the day aside. Grabbing pocketfuls of snacks and run back out the door to find friends and wander the village giggling and laughing and getting up to the perfection of kid trouble.

I watch them from the windows of the restaurant. They march by in packs of two's and three's. I sneak out the side door to watch and listen. "Doesn't your mom work there?" There are whispers and adrenaline as they embrace this new freedom.

They are village rats now. They own this town. All three square blocks of it.

I woke up this morning feeling bleak. I have been feeling a little bleak lately. Not in a super depressed way, more of an "is this it?" kind of way.

I think i have finally slowed down. When i drop the kids off at school the day spreads it's expanse in front of me and i think "im just going to stay home today."

I think that every single day.

I can't remember the last time i wanted to just stay home, enjoy being home. I'm getting caught up on rest and phone calls and myself.

I am getting caught up with myself. I have been in a state of flux, not just since the fire, but since september 7, 2007. The day i first walked out of my marital home. I have moved six times. Once back into that house for eight months. I haven't felt grounded, rooted, at home, in almost two and a half years.

I finally do. I finally feel like i have a home, i am home.

And, my god, it feels fantastic.

And, this morning? That bleakness? I figured it out. I want to just be me again. Me - mother, daughter, sister, friend. I want to spend my nights in that bed, curled up with a good book. I want to bake cakes and banana bread for my children. I want them to laugh and love and grow. I want to laugh and love and grow.

I will bake cakes. I will do everything we do in homes. I will sit by the wood stove in the evenings chatting with my children. I will plant a garden and watch it grow. Year after year i will watch those flowers bloom and the apples fall from the tree. I will have roots that are strong and sturdy.

I sit in my room with my oldest daughter, whom i have to constantly remind myself is not even thirteen yet, and i ask her "what should i write about?"

"missing buttons..."

And she giggles and i giggle.

I am getting ready to go out for dinner and to drop them off at their dads. She helps me pick out clothes and chooses her favourite coat of mine. It is missing a button. We decide i will wear it anyway.

We have been missing so many things that suddenly a missing button seems like no big deal.

Over the past few days i found myself in the middle of an Olympics based debate on tipping and automatic gratuities. I was going to write about it, but have decided it may be best to just walk away and bang my head on the wall a few more times.

I will say one thing. I believe that a 10% tip is a bare minimum and should be applied to service that is acceptable at best, if you enjoy your dining experience you should tip 15-20%.

Important things i have been doing include cutting down two ugly, half dead, trees in my yard to let the sun shine in and give me some space to grow some vegetables. Having a veggie garden is very high on my list of things that give me immense joy. The kids and i love growing things and eating them too. I'm fairly certain they get the majority of their green vegetable intake during the summer months. Last summer i grew watermelon! That was awesome. I think we'll go simple this first year. The standard peas and carrots, salad greens and root vegetables. No potatoes because last year we got those worms in them and that was just gross.

Also, my bedroom. It is a huge room and i don't have very much furniture, but what i do have i love. I have a little antique desk and chair that sits under my window and when i sit here i can look out and see the lake (thanks to previously mentioned tree removal) which is magical. I also set up my turntable that i got from santa in here and that is lovely. I fear i may listen a bit too loud when i get home from work and the kids aren't here, but i'll let my neighbours decide on that one. I also have some pretty cute company in my room.

Who? Well his name is Chewie and he's orange and petite and purrs really loud. Our newest addition, a wee orange tabby who's six months old and came home from the SPCA last weekend. Now i have company when i'm all alone.

I should have been on an airplane at this very moment. But all of this is pretty darn good too.

Did i tell you i was going to Baltimore? To visit this lovely lady and her beau?

Yes? No?

Well, i'm not going now. I will go, in april. Just not now.

Things have been all wiggly around here. I mean, i love my home. Love it, capital l, love. But, it has cost me way more than i had anticipated - which is all fine and good - just emptied out the savings and credit cards and all that.

The wiggly part is the kids. They are very happy in this house, but at the same time unsettled. It comes out in anger mostly. Anger directed at me. And, oh, it's tiring and heartbreaking. Parker lashes out at me all the time calling me and "idiot" and other harshities. I try and keep my head about me, remind myself he is only six. Have consistent consequences for bad behaviour. But when he is yelling at me and toby is moping and eliza is being stubborn - all at the same time - i feel like flopping on my bed and crying. Big sloppy tears of frustration and sadness and isolation.

So yes. I can't leave them right now. No matter how i'd like to. How i'd love the escape to snowy baltimore and friends, but as tracey said, i need it to be an escape, a holiday. Not something stressful.

Working valentines day is cruel and unusual punishment. This is the third one in a row i have worked. Last year the attempt to reconcile my marriage was rapidly coming to a close. The final silent moments of a marriage banging around in my head while i served table after table of happy or pretending to be happy couples.

I don't feel bitter this year. I feel happy. I am happy with the place my life is at. There are many things to change and look forward to. There are gardens to grow and children to flourish. There is a home to be filled with love and kindness.

I have finally, i think, come to a place where i have forgiven myself. I have truly forgiven myself for mistakes i made.

It is not easy for me to say that out loud, but there it is. I am happy to have had the marriage i did. I am happy for the love that was there. The children that we had. The years that we shared. Good times and bad, it was a magical ride.

I was totally blown away last night doing parkers' homereading with him. In less than a couple months he has gone from being an emergent reader to a reader.

I know totally boring mom stuff, but the light switch moment of learning to read had been one of my favourite milestones for all my kids.

Very proud of him.

My house is warmed. Today, today, i feel all settled in. I can feel a shift deep inside me. I feel calm. I feel like i am at the starting line of something.

It's not a race. I don't feel a need to go anywhere, do anything. Just to start. To start again. It feels great.

I had a party on saturday night. I had such a lovely time. Sometime around midnight all my friends and co-workers had arrived and i sat for a moment and realized this is it. This is my life. There were only about 15 people there. And that was enough.

Before the party i was feeling anxious as i am want to do.

What if nobody comes? I don't have any friends.

But, there, in my kitchen around midnight i realized that these are my friends and they are more than enough. They are the people i care about. The ones who have stood by me through everything. The ones who don't judge. The ones who have seen me at my best and at my worst.

And i was happy to have them there. To share a little bit of a crazy night with.

I am still getting used to being alone in this house. Moving is hard on your soul. Your body has to adjust to new creaks and moans, different light, strange air.

I have moved six times in two years. I am tired of moving.

This house feels like home. It is home. I know that because we are all so happy to be here.

I got very sad yesterday thinking about a sixteen year old girl that committed suicide in victoria. I got an alert on twitter that she was reported missing and then, through facebook, found out later that day her body was discovered.

It really knocked me for a blunder.

Sixteen. Sixteen.

The first time i tried to kill myself by a lethal combination of prescription medicine from someone else's medicine cabinet i was only fifteen. I've never really talked to many people about that. I was so young. I wish in my adult mind that i had found help way back then. That some adult noticed what i did.

But, i was tricky then. I hid things well.

But, i was tricky then. I hid things well.

Obviously, i still hide things well.

I have noticed since december i have been unfollowed and unfriended by most of my local acquaintances.

I have noticed parents being more protective of their kids around my kids.

Oh god. I'm so sorry. I am an excellent mother and i would never do anything dumb with my kids around. Can't you see my struggle comes when they are not here? I understand.

I keep thinking of that little girl and her parents. Of her walking into that cold pacific ocean and swimming until she drowned. And reaching that point where you are too far in to go back. That terrorizing moment that you know you really did it.

I had that moment in december and there by the grace of god goes i.

My life is getting so much better.

I am feeling the impending arrival of happiness. I can hear it knocking on my door.

I love my house. I love it. I love being here. I want to just sit in it for a whole day. I want to be done with all the business of lawyers and insurance adjusters and the mess of moving.

I want to not feel such huge emotional attachments to events i have no control over or connection to.

Sixteen. Sixteen.

I couldn't, for the life of me, give you a photo that could articulate the happiness i feel.

I am so happy. I am so happy to see my things, to sit at my little antique desk, to have dinner at my table, to sleep in my bed with my sheets and duvet.

This has been the best week. So hard and so rewarding. I moved all by myself. My daughter was there and a huge help, but she is twelve. I did it all by myself.

I had some help from good friends with hanging up mirrors and what-nots, but everything else i lugged and organized and directed, and now we are here. All unpacked. Fire burning in the woodstove, dinner at the table, children snoring softly.

I know i have waxed endlessly about my housefire, but i didn't realize how it had affected all of us until we were here. We were out of sorts and lost for six months. We were not home.

And now we are.

And it is so much better than i could have hoped.

I feel great. I feel like i can move on with my life. I feel deeply, truly happy.