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First real morning in the new house.

I reached for a bowl – and it was there. I didn’t have to dig for the cereal. I knew we had milk (and I didn’t have to move boxes to open the fridge).

After the kids left for school, I made myself a scrambled egg on my new gas stove. (It's the first thing I've cooked in a week.) I smiled as I watched the burner click-click-click and then whoosh. Blue flame, hot and true. I've waited eight years to cook on a gas stove again. ("Now you're cooking with gas," my brain said to itself. My brain makes me laugh.)

I sat down at the kitchen table. pushed aside the glittery remains of Valentine stickers, and handed Kieran chunks of banana while I ate my eggs and drank my OJ. (I must have OJ with eggs. Nothing else will do.) Teyla slipped down from the table, and I turned on the TV next to the kitchen fireplace and I nibbled on a cinnamon roll while the happy and innocent refrains of Dora filled the room. I haven't been able to eat and watch TV with my kids in four years.

And now I’m sitting at my new desk in my new bedroom watching the sunshine light the trees in my backyard. Bare tree limbs next to sturdy firs. The light is golden, the promise of spring to come.

Everything is new -- yet it's all familiar, somehow.

Hello Monday. Welcome home.