Home is where the good smells live

I took this picture last summer, so it doesn't really reflect the way the house looks now. Because now? The grass is dried up and brown and feels crunchy if you walk on it. Also, the potted and hanging plants haven't fared so well this year because of the heat: every vining petunia I have is gasping its last breath and demanding to see its lawyer to that it can jot a few more bequests into the will and all are generally looking very sad and defeated.

Meanwhile, the impatiens -- featured on the east and north sides of the house where we don't get much direct sunlight -- are holding mad, raucous parties and spilling out of their beds and containers like a bunch of lusty sorority girls, all dressed up in their pink, salmon and scarlet cocktail frocks, the little tarts.

We haven't yet set out the pumpkins and hay bales and chrysanthemums and corn shocks yet because we don't do that until October 1. But today happens to be the first welcome, blessed day that is too cold to have the windows open and so I went ALL OUT and put a pot roast with potatoes and carrots and onions in the slow-cooker and the ingredients for a 2-egg brioche in the bread maker and the house smells so luscious, I swear I just want to eat the air.

It's always nice when our house smells delicious because I'm afraid that it often smells of dog. Which I guess could be a good thing. I mean, better the smell of dog than the smell of gunpowder or crystal meth cooking merrily away on a hot plate back in the laundry room. At least the smell of dog could be considered homey and pet-friendly, if not perhaps hygienic. To cover the smell of dog, we buy lots of scented candles from Bath & Body Works and yesterday I was burning one named "Kitchen Spice" and I kept wondering if I'd forgotten something in the oven.

As nice as that candle is, it's still the smell of fake food, which is what makes today's aromas so pleasant. Home-cooked food....home-made bread....I hope the girls will come across these fragrances in later years and, in that evocative way scent works in our minds, will immediately remember that this is what Mom and Dad's house smelled like, way back when.