Today is the first day that I'm sitting outside on the back deck after dinner, reading through email, and browsing through a knitting book. It's made me realize one of the things that I really miss about my house - being outside. Sometimes I would eat dinner out in the backyard with the late sun lingering, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable. The other thing that I often did in the evenings was sit on my front porch. I had the most awesome porch swing (doubles as a bench in winter) and I used to swing on the porch in the evenings with a glass of wine and a good book. I don't know about other people, but I knew the names of all the neighbors around me and all of the kids. I'll never forget the first week I was in my house and some of the neighbor kids asked if it was okay if they used my driveway as a turnaround point for bike riding and referred to me as "ma'am." Despite the inner-city Cleveland location, my block had a homey feel to it where you'd say hello and greet the neighbor by name who was walking down to the corner store for a newspaper. I kinda miss that.