Disclaimer: this is a pretty personal post and I don't even know why I'm posting it on my blog, because that's generally what I keep a journal for. But I just felt like I needed to post this one. So feel free to just skip along to the next post, unless you want to read about my love affair with Arkansas. Because I really think that's what it's become... that's a bit embarrassing. But only a bit.

For some reason I have been feeling homesick lately for the last few weeks. Homesick for Arkansas. For a while I couldn't figure out why that would be, because I don't usually get homesick too badly and I actually just saw my family about two weeks ago. That definitely doesn't mean I don't like my family, though. I'm just the kind of person who is either there or I'm not. I tend to focus on the people I'm with, more so than the people I'm not with. Which is why I'm terrible at calling, skyping, and generally keeping in touch with people. I should probably be better about that.

 I realized, though, that this is the first time I haven't been in Arkansas for the summer. No wonder I'm feeling like this! I think it also doesn't help that I've been spending my summer doing things that remind me so much of home, but don't quite make up for it. I'm reading a series right now that takes place in South Carolina with the wonderful language only the South can call its own: "yes ma'am", "praise the Lord the almighty Redeemer, hallelujah", and "bless her heart". I've been up in the forest with the family for the past week to go biking and hiking and swimming in lakes. But it's not the Ozarks. Having a bonfire and roasting marshmallows, but with no graham crackers or Hershey's chocolate. Eating watermelon, but without my grandpa sitting across the table from me at the dinner table, slurping his half of the watermelon down. Swimming in a tiny pond, not Beaver Lake (although the poisonous snake did make his appearance all the way over here in the Czech Republic as well). 

And I'm not saying I never appreciated Arkansas and that I'm finally doing so now, because Arkansas has always been my favorite place when people have asked (and I get that question a LOT). But I think I've just started appreciating my home even more. There are so many memories in those forests and rivers and lakes and there can be no substitutes for the place where someone has had such a wonderful childhood.

So I guess this post was just an excuse for me to go find all of the photos of the place I love best and to reminisce for a little while. 

I swear those dead trees in the background have been there since the dawn of time. My cousin Stephen told me once, in typical big brother trying to scare little sister fashion, that people were tied to the trees a long time ago and now their skeletons are still tied at the bottom of the lake to those trunks. I guess it worked though, because I'm still a little spooked to venture over there.

Flying in grandpa's plane and seeing a side of Northwest Arkansas not a whole lot of other people get a chance to see. The lake sure is even prettier from up above. Flying with my grandpa, even the stone quarries around his house look prettier, especially where they've dug so deep that crystal clear springs have created small little aquamarine lakes.

The view out grandma and grandpa's kitchen window. When I was a little girl, I always loved waking up at their house in the morning and watching the sun sparkle off of the surface of the lake down below as I smelled grandma cooking her buttermilk pancakes. There was always a cooking show on the tv in the background, too.

Swinging on the back porch in this swing, looking out at the trees. Listening to them at night as the wind rustled through the leaves in the summer, almost sounding like the ocean waves. Holding hands with boyfriends, talking with my mom, reading a new or old book. Listening to the birds.

And of course Bentonville Square. With our beloved Confederate Soldier and Walton's 5-10. The Farmer's Market every Saturday morning. Christmas lights with friends when I was in high school. Getting kicked out of the Station Cafe because we were younger than 18 and naturally would get up to all sorts of trouble...

My back yard. Green. Forests. Life. Comfort and protection.

And of course, Southern food. I miss pulled pork, funnel cakes, shaved ice from Frozen Tung, fried chicken, barbeque. Anything that could make you gain ten pounds in one sitting and come one step closer to a heart attack. Nothing else like it.

So I guess to add on to all the sap that has been going on here, here is one more:

Arkansas, you will always be home to me.