Thursday Themes -- Home

Home. Such a little word, with so much meaning attached to it.

I asked Fabio what 'home' means to him. He said, it's wherever I am.
Same for the kids; it's 'where mum is'.

Because Fabio is head of the home here, but I am the heart. I'm the one who makes our home comfortable. I clean the floors and wash the clothes and fill the pantry and find the remote and sort the toys and scrub the toilets.

And though I'm not a born housekeeper, I do love being a homemaker.

I love baking with an apron on, fluffing the cushions and curtains to get them just so, and arranging the pictures on the walls.
I love Howards' Storage World and paint charts and I have an Ikea catalogue coming in the mail that I will pore over time and again.

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With my husbands' job, we've moved a lot. We've lived in the middle of no-where, in a city, in small country towns.... all in rented houses or supplied accomodation. Some of those places I've been desperately unhappy, all the while trying hard to fit in and get on with it.
I guess the plus side is that I've ruled out a lot of places where I know I definitely don't want to live!

If my husband needed it, I would go anywhere with him. Being his wife is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, and he is the most important thing in my life.
So, in a way, home is wherever he is, or wants me to be.

But in another way, 'home' means 'my own place'. The place where I'm glad to come to, the place I've had a hand in making into a home.
And the ultimate in that would be to own my own home. To have a say in what the laminate in the kitchen looks like, to have the cupboards set up to suit me, to pick my own curtains and paint colours, to plan a garden from scratch, to throw out the carpet and lay down something that doesn't stink from other peoples' dogs....

.... that's my Big Dream.

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My husband is working hard to provide for our future. He had to start all over again after his first marriage ended, and he only has a few years left doing the work he does now, because it's so physically hard.
We have to make sure that when he has to stop, we can survive.
And I get that... sacrifice now, so we can live later. I support him in his choices.

But.

This year I'll be 46. I'm no closer now to owning my own home, than I was when I was 26.
All I can do for now is dream. And when the dreaming gets too painful, I try and convince myself that renting is wonderful, and I can live anywhere

because home really is where Fabio, my heart, is.

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