Missouri minute

Nearly a century ago, my paternal grandfather migrated from southwest Missouri to Illinois to marry my grandmother.

As a youngster, I visited his home state a time or two, and liked its rolling hills, streams, limestone cliffs and timber land.

Twenty years ago, burdened with the worries and physical exhaustion that come from working in retail management, I found myself vacationing on a Missouri lakefront. I awoke the first morning, realizing I’d slept eight hours straight – no insomnia, no tossing and turning, no middle of the night phone calls. I hadn’t done that for years.

By the end of that week, it was obvious the “Show Me State” would have a place in our future. Since then, we’ve owned three homes in Missouri. We moved to Missouri full-time in the summer of 2012.

There’s just something about writing of an early morn with steam rising on the lake, midday with squirrels and chipmunks frolicking outside the screen porch and in the evening as the smell of burning firewood wafts through the air that makes the creative juices flow.

I love capturing the essence of Missouri.

The pace is a little slower there, so a minute can seem as if it's lingering a little longer. When you're savoring life, that's kind of nice sometimes.

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© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012

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