No Place Like Home

I heard it on  TV as casual as we've all heard the phrase before "There's no place like home.".  
Where is home?  I've moved around most my life. And just when I thought I found the perfect "home", I lost it.   It's not the walls I'll miss, it's the dream of  raising my  kids and seeing future grandkids sit at  the same barstools just like their moms did.  Listening  about their day as we eat chocolate chip cookies.  This will not be that house.   

The place I thought I'd have family coming to visit, cousins playing in the back yard,  friends coming for lunch and celebrating holiday traditions.  It's not that house either.   So we sold the big shiny house and traded it for a much smaller version.  

There was no time this year to put up Christmas  lights,  we barely had room for a tree and yet here we are...a roof over our heads and food on the table (or at least on a box that's covering the table). But in this new house,  children are still happy, healthy and loved.  In our little oasis of starting over,  we will always be home no matter the GPS location and no matter who else decides to find us.   We are grateful in any circumstance and faith is a powerful thing.

Blessed by the miracle that as we left that big shiny house; family, neighbors, and friends, all came at a moments notice.  Calls of support and offers of kindness from those with already had busy lives came to just to make mine a little bit easier.   Oh how I hate asking for help but I just couldn't do it all.   So they came,  and I watched as my house became empty of things.  And that was just it.  We had a lot of things.  Even after I sold some of the extra stuff that would never fit into a house half the size,  I still have too much.  It is time to SIMPLIFY.    

Two months after we moved I began to notice that we were spending more time as a family.  Even if only because we were forced to, due to our small living space.   I also started to see my girls, and I mean really see them.   Moments in the kitchen listening to them talk to each other about their day, their views on church, politics, friends, school, boys and so much more.  But what made the change?  Maybe the square footage but I had also made a decision to be present.  Stop finding extra things to keep me busy,  and make time for them.  Its ok to say NO to invites and not make every lunch date.  SIMPLIFY.  

Home is where I watch my children grow, be a wife and best friend.  Home is where there is safety, love and happiness.   So I guess the TV shows are right "there is no place like home."  And location has nothing to do with it.