Home

Home is where the heart is. We've all heard that many times. But how do you define home?
Is it simply where you live?
Is it where you feel home?
How tangible is the word home?
For me, home is all of the above. A house, an apartment, a car, a park bench may be where a person resides permanently or temporarily, though that may not truly constitute a home. Home is also a feeling. I currently live in a house, though I long for the feeling of my own home again.

For several months now, my family has been (gratefully) living with family as we build a new home. There are challenges and blessings that accompany this decision and some days are harder than others. Because this is the home I married from, it is in a sense my home too, though I feel very foreign here at times. There is something to be said of having a family home for your individual family. I know there are situations where people make joint-family living a long term choice. But for the most part here in America, I would say that families generally live in individual units. It is a nice arrangement. For several reasons, I personally feel this is the ideal.

• parents form the "head" of the household and are joint partners in making overall decisions for the home and family
• fathers, though generally employed and absent much of the time, form the solid fortress of protection of the home, patriarchs and providers and the "hero" who returns each day
• mothers reign in their own realm as hostess and matriarch of the family, content in a domain where their tastes, expertise and personal behaviors create a place of safety, comfort and stability for the entire family
• children have a known place in the home and are comfortable residents within their own spaces where routines, rules, activities and social status create a security found no where else on earth

I could add many things to this list. Home is a complex and beautiful social structure that is not easily summed up in words. But for our purposes here, it is in basic terms a physical location and symbol that represents our place of belonging in this world.

We are expecting our third child (a girl!) in just a few short weeks and were recently informed that our house is to be completed almost a month after her arrival. We are so excited to bring home this new baby, though not to our own home as we had hoped. Because of this, I am trying desperately to carve out a home-within-a-home where we will still have a separate space to call our own in the coming months. For us, that means a single bedroom, a maybe 12 foot by 12 foot space where the four, almost five of us sleep. As the rest of the house is shared by everyone, it has become increasingly important to me to make our space work for our needs. Still, this bedroom is mainly for sleeping and I have found it very helpful to take small trips with the kids and get "out of the house" occasionally for our family time and to give my family the space they need. I am looking so forward to having our home again and giving both families a much-needed return to normal home life.

With this, I return to the definition as to what constitutes a home. As far as what feels like home, I have begun to notice an interesting phenomenon. Our home that is being built already feels like home though it is in reality studs and concrete, some nails  and beams. Each time I am near our home I am pulled in by some magnetic force and I have to drive past it, look at it, feel it, and more often than not, stop and walk through it, touch it, bond with it. Yes, I have already bonded with it. Even in its partially-built state, even though we have no ownership other than the money we have put down on it, even though we don't live there yet, it is our home in every sense possible. Home is a beautiful feeling and it is becoming something I crave each day, often many times throughout the day. It has become habit to drive over each morning to see the building progress and take pictures only to return a few hours later for another update, more pictures, another glimpse at the house that will become our own and a desire to linger....as long as possible....and never leave...

Home is so precious. I am so grateful to our God for giving us the blessing of families and homes on this earth. I am grateful that this follows a heavenly pattern of our families and homes on High. I know that we came to earth from a previous home and that everyone will someday "return home" and what a comfort that is. I know that our Father in Heaven smiles down on families as they do the hard work each day of creating a home that is like His. He is grateful to his sons who work hard to make this possible for their families, providing, protecting and presiding in the home. And he is grateful to his daughters, women young and old, who nurture and love and do the hard work of turning a house into a home.

Because no matter where the world tries to pull us in these modern and confusing times, this is where our calling is, we are women choosing home.

Working with the Current

Life goes on. Whether we are gliding along with it or not, life stops for no one. The clock has never once paused for me to catch up, get something done, or (I wish!) get a little ahead. On the contrary, it sometimes seems to flash me a sinister grin, ticking ever-so-slightly faster as it revels in my struggles to gain ground. The laundry piles up. The sink fills with dishes. And the sun rises and sets in the same pattern regardless of my to-do list and how much is left unchecked. Life goes on.

Sometimes my hardest days are when I am fighting the current. I am fighting with time as I argue with it (pointlessly) to slow down, to wait just a minute for me, to give me some room to breathe. The more behind I get, the more frustrated I feel and that only fuels more behind-ness. The day goes haltingly until, if I'm lucky, I give in and decide to relax a little. To ride that current. To harness some of the power that is pushing against me to allow it to propel me in the direction I want to go. Sometimes it means forfeiting my well-intentioned list. Other times it means approaching it in a different way, like maybe doing what seems least important just for some sense of accomplishment before tackling the bigger-ticket items. And sometimes, life gets in the way of living. So just quitting the whole list thing and just living in the moment often holds a big payback.

Yesterday, it was mud that got me moving. After a difficult day of fighting against a bad mood, low energy and generally not feeling well, I finally gave into it. My daughter kept pleading with me to "be a nice mom," "don't be a mean mom" and reassuring me over and over again "it's ok mom." Oh, the wisdom of a two-year-old. It wasn't that I wasn't trying. It wasn't that I didn't feel horrible for being snappy and edgy. I hated that I was being so cross. But that only added to my misery making me more edgy and cross. So something had to change. For us, that often means going outside. Luckily for me, yesterday couldn't have been more perfect. And the nasty mood started to melt away in the warm sun as we mixed dirt and water to make "mud paint," a technique I learned from a young cousin, dipping our weed paintbrushes into the thick mixture to make art on our driveway, a nice mindless activity that bridged the gap between stressful mom days and carefree childhood. I don't miss those days. I love being a mother, but it is nice to go and visit from time to time and yesterday I enjoyed my mini-vacation immensely.

Mischievously, a smile crept over my lips and I asked Hannah, "do you want to paint on the garage?" We have a dark garage door and the mud dried a light tan which looked awesome on our makeshift canvas. We had more fun then I would have imagined smearing our hands with mud to leave hand prints, finger prints, streaks and "messes" all over the garage door. And it felt so good knowing it would wash off easily with the hose. I still haven't washed it off.

I'm not worried that it taught Hannah anything other than the idea that it's okay to be messy sometimes when you have good boundaries (a garage door), that even cranky moms can turn things around, and that no one ever really grows up if they keep that door to childhood just a little ajar.


I know I'm keeping mine open forever.




xoxoxo

Make the Bed!

Today I am bringing you a simple tip that, if not already done, will quickly bring order to your home.

Today's Tip: MAKE YOUR BED!

When I first got married, my husband commented on the "pointless" process of making the bed. The first few times he mentioned it, I shrugged it off and continued to make our bed. A few years later, however, it had already influenced me to the point that I realized I was rarely even pulling the covers up! Part of this was due to our different schedules, co-sleeping with children and the fact that many times when I woke up, someone was still in bed sleeping. But that is no excuse! Even if it is 6:00 p.m. I have found that I feel better if I hurry and make the bed. Somehow it affects not only my room, which my husband argues no one ever sees (but we do!) More than anything, it seems to affect my mood and sense of well-being. My house can be in utter chaos and overwhelming, but if the beds are made, I feel I have a handle on it. So, give it a try! Whether you're married or single, your house is already in order or it looks like a tornado hit, start by making all the beds and if your children are old enough, teach them to do it themselves. Every day. It DOES make a difference!

Happy homemaking!

Welcome!

We are a group of women who are choosing home and family over careers and other worthwhile pursuits. We recognize that we have many gifts and talents and cherish the opportunity to make use of them where they will do the most good. We realize this is an unpopular and often unsupported choice in 21st-Century America. We have created this blog to help women realize

1. the importance of being home
2. the value of our contributions to our homes and families and 
3. the effect we are having on today's society, whether we choose to be home or not.

Women can, by nature, influence many people for good or ill and need to understand that their decisions are not without consequence.

This blog is a gentle call to women everywhere to place a higher priority on home and family and a place to find support once they do. We welcome you and hope you will stay.


Blessings!


Women Choosing Home