Home Sweet Home!!

Posted On May 26, 2011

I admit it.  I’m a homebody.  I like being at home.  Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not a hermit, but I enjoy spending time at home and feel very relaxed and comforted when I return to it.  And of course, I like a good vacation as much as the next person, but it most definitely always feels wonderful to get back to my own bed. I also enjoy having people share my home.  Today I was pondering some of the things that I really love about my home, and what really makes it a home in the first place, and what things I could change if I could.

• Most importantly, I guess it would have to be that a home is a home because of the people that are in it.  If you haven’t guessed by now, I am very much a family person.  I am very attached to my immediate family and understand intimately what the saying “Home is Where the Heart Is” is trying to convey.
• I love to sit on my front porch on my rocker.  As weird as it sounds, being in the front of my house is very serene.  We live in a culde sac and it is not often that someone walks by, and it’s just pleasant.  I can remember many an afternoon when my son Timmy had his wild hour around 4:30 in the afternoon and the only thing that would calm him down was to rock on the porch with his mom.  Thank god for those quiet times or  I may not have survived motherhood.
• I also love the back of my house, too.  (I guess I like being outside of my house as much as I like being in it!)  A few years back, we invested in a concrete patio that spans most of the length of our house, and then purchased one of those screened in cabana things to rest on top of it.  I love it out there.  It’s almost like having another room when the weather is cooperative.  We usually use it for dining outside, and it’s great to have a friend or two out there to enjoy it with you.  With some twinkle lights above your head, and a glass of red in your hand, how could you go wrong?
• I love my kitchen.  We were fortunate enough to have remodeled our kitchen a couple of years ago, and I love it much more now because it reflects our own taste.  When we first purchased our home 12 some odd years ago, it was like moving into a palace, kitchen included.  It was by far bigger than anything that we have ever had, both being city kids who grew up in row homes.  Our whole home also had a country motif, that we kept because it was in decent shape, but also because I got pregnant the month after we moved in and life just took over.  We never really liked it all that much, but didn’t hate it enough to find the time to change it, either. When we finally got around to renovating, we also knocked a wall down too.  We basically eliminated the formal dining room and created one huge kitchen with a table at one end.  Love it.  It makes for such an open and inviting space, I can’t imagine it being any other way.  I also love it because it has blue in it, and blue is by far my favorite color.  It just plain puts me in a good mood.  Add some food to eat or cooking while in it, even better.
• I wish I was more motivated to clean, however.  I hate cleaning.  I could probably find just about any excuse not to do so. Need a buddy to do something spontaneously?  I am your man, especially if it helps me to avoid cleaning something. I am secretly jealous of those people out there that actually feel rejuvenated when cleaning, or *gasp* actually like it.  I know I could hire someone to do it, but as a stay at home mom, I find that hard to justify.  I don’t have the dirtiest house in the world, but oh, by far it is certainly not the cleanest.  I’m one of those people that notices, ew, god that’s dirty, I guess I should clean that.  My mom used to have a cleaning schedule, and still does for that matter, that ran with military precision:  Mondays- laundry, Tuesdays-strip and launder sheets, Wednesdays-clean upstairs, Thursdays-clean downstairs, Fridays-clean kitchen, Saturdays-back to laundry again, and Sundays- OFF!! For as much as I hated it as a teenager, I really appreciated this schedule because we all at least learned how to clean, including my brother, and you didn’t have to think about it too much.  You just did it.  As much as it was good in a lot of ways, I can’t bring myself to duplicate it.  I do laundry when the basket/s are full.  I clean when I can no longer stand looking whatever seems dirty/cluttered any more. And, I definitely clean before company–which is also one of the reasons I love company because I know that after I have company I also have a clean house!
• If I had an extra 10 grand in fun money, what would I do with it?  I’d probably hire a landscaper to make the front of my house more inviting.  My front is ok, but it just is kind of boring.  I wish I had more of a creative vision to figure out what would make it look better, but I don’t.  If we were really living the dream, I’d LOVE to be on HGTV’s Curb Appeal show and have them make over the front of my house.  I’d totally love to hear what an expert would do to make it POP!
• If I were really, really living in a dream world, and I could have a house anywhere, where would it be?  It would most definitely be by the ocean.  I love the beach, and it calms me and soothes me like no other place in the world.  I love the smell of the ocean air.  I love the lapping sounds of the waves.  I love to see all of the wildlife–except of course for those damn biting green head flies that hurt like hell when they bit you–skittering about.  Being there for a vacation is awesome, but could I imagine living there?  Oh yeah, I definitely could.  I’d be in such la la land I’d be in euphoria.  Maybe some day.

So what do you like about your home?  If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?