What makes a house a home?

We are getting ready to sell our house.  We talked with a realtor today, and as we discussed the details of listing our house for sale, I couldn't help but contrast the bare numbers that were talked about with the rich fullness of life that has been lived here.  Not all of it has been good, but much of it has, and all of it has been so much deeper than any MLS listing or sales flyer could show.

Here is the bare-bones description:
2 bedroom, 2 bath home, 1717 square feet, built 1971.

Here are all the things I love about my home that you won't see on its listing:
1.  Lovely big kitchen, spacious enough for everyone who wants to help with dinner to pull a chair up to the counter and work away.

2.  Charming bay window, just the right height for the older kids to build with Legos on without the babies being able to reach them.  (A life-saver.)

3.  Two large bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.  One bedroom is quite comfortable for us plus a baby, the other now holds all five of our children without being crowded.  Really.

4.  Sweet details add character throughout the house: brick entry, brick half-wall with rails separating kitchen from living room, reclaimed brick fireplace with wood mantle.  Little built-in desk in kitchen (I have used it for my sewing machine).  Little things make me happy. :-)

6.  Wood floor perfect for creative works of art.

7.  Back porch just right for building things together.

8.  Firesides in the back yard.

9.  Old-fashioned mustard-yellow bathtub and scalloped sink to wash off the "accidental" by-products of firesides in the back yard.  

10.  Family room with lots of light for countless stories, games, piano practice sessions, forts, family home evenings, and even the births of two darling daughters.  Lots of life going on in this room, always.

11.  A backyard perfect for little boys and girls, complete with lots of just plain dirt.

 12.  A front walkway that now looks like a rainforest because of the love my horticulturist husband has put into it.  Those bird of paradise leaves you see behind my children are now taller than the ceiling.

 13.  A front door perfect for first-day-of-school pictures.  All of our first days of school have been in this house, so far.

14.  Countless other moments and memories that are not captured in photographs but are treasured in my heart.  This house has been perfect for us, and I am so grateful for it.  I hope its next family will love it as much as we have.

Song for a Fifth Child

Song for a Fifth Child

Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peek-a-boo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo,
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Faith like a Pioneer

Janetta Ann McBride Ferrin, my third great-grandmother

My husband recently quit his job to start a business.  It has been about six months now.  He has had some success with that, and a lot more of "what do we need to change to make this work?"  It has been a learning experience for all of us.  For me, it has been a major trial and foundation-rocker.  I have always thought that faith was trusting that as long as I was doing my best, the Lord would help us have enough.  But having to live on our savings, and then our credit card, and not knowing where the money for our bills would come from, has shaken that belief to its core.  I have come to understand that faith is trusting you will be okay, whether you have enough or not.  I have read about my pioneer ancestors who crossed the plains with handcarts and literally starved and froze to death, some of them, without losing their faith.  My faith wasn't like that, and it needed to be.  My faith needed to be shaken so it could be re-established on the truth, which is that our God is with us in our hardships, but He will not take them away from us.  He will help us along, but He will not shelter or protect us from things that will help us grow.  Faith is knowing that even if we fail, even if we die, as some have, there is meaning to what we suffer and it will be for our good and the good of our family, in this life or the next.  I have learned to let go of the idea that being faithful means always having "enough".  It doesn't.  However, if we will look, we will find blessings, even miracles, in even our worst circumstances.  We will know we are not alone.

Here are some miracles we have experienced as we have progressed through this experience:
- I am pregnant, and my baby and I have continued to grow exactly as we should, though I have been living on my food storage, supplemented by the generosity of family members and less-than-regular trips to the grocery store.
- We didn't have health insurance for five months, and my family was healthy and mostly without need of health care for that whole time.  My daughter did perforate her eardrum back in July, but it did not get infected, and when I took her to the doctor yesterday (for an infection in the other ear) he told me her eardr
um that had been perforated was now healed and whole and would not need surgery.
- I have been able to come up with meals, day after day, when the day before I would have no idea what I would fix the next night.  I would get on my knees and pray, and an answer would come, and I would know what to fix.  This has happened over and over.
- Our air conditioner, which in past summers has needed lots of coaxing to keep running, made it through this whole summer without breaking down once.
- Every appliance or vehicle issue we have had, John has been able to fix.  We haven't had anything we needed to replace or take in to get repaired.  Our 12-year-old van has been so reliable.  It has little issues, but it starts and runs whenever we need it to, and that has been such a blessing.
- People have been so generous to us, especially people in our extended family.  I am a very independent person, and consider it our responsibility to provide for ourselves, but as we have been trying to do that and have not been able to, we have learned how to receive help from others, and let them serve us, and that was something I needed to learn.  We are so grateful for their kindness.
- The Lord has provided for our family's needs.  We have always had food to eat, and clothes to wear, and transportation, and a roof over our heads.  He has taken care of us, maybe not always as I would have hoped, but in the ways we needed.

I don't know if I have learned, yet, all the things I need to learn from this experience, and I don't know how much longer it will last, but I know that somehow these experiences will be for our good, and will help our family to be stronger.  I hope I will have the faith to press forward even when things are hard and I can't see how they will possibly get better.  I hope I will have some small portion of the faith my pioneer ancestors had.  I am grateful for their examples and the sacrifices they made for me.

By the Way....

Sarah at Clover Lane published my post about staying home (see it here).  Check it out if you want, and then stay and read her wise words--she is amazing.  Have a great day!

Why (and How) I Stay Home

Why?
Because it is so much easier to run a home when I am, well, home.  Because it makes my family happy.  Because it makes me happy.  Because it feels right, so much more right than anything else I can think of doing.  My degree is in physics teaching, but there are plenty of other physics teachers, most of whom can do the job I would be doing as well or better than I.  As a physics teacher, I am replaceable.  As a mother, I am not.  My children need ME.  There is so much more to mothering than keeping children clothed, fed, and clean.  So much teaching, loving, building.  I am building more than a home...I am building relationships with my children that will anchor them all their lives.  I am building people, who in turn will go out and change the world.  I am changing the world, one little person at a time.

How?
John and I knew before we were married that having me home with our children was a priority for us.  So the choices we made at the beginning were made with that dream in mind.  We planned to live on his income from the start.  We actually worked together in an office at the time, which was lovely--the working together, not the office--so we used my income to pay down debt (our car) and build savings.  We lived in a little, run-down, cottage home in a run-down part of Mesa and paid next-to-nothing for it.  We furnished it with hand-me-downs and thrift store finds.  We bought nothing on credit; we didn't even have a credit card.

When I got pregnant with Adam, we had been married five months.  I didn't get very sick, but I was queasy constantly and so tired I could hardly stand it, especially at work.  Trying to keep my eyes open all day (and trying not to gag because the office air was so stale) wore me out and I would come home and crash.  Every day.  I did this for two months.  I ultimately decided that it would be better to fulfill one of my roles well than both of my roles poorly (wife and employee).  So, we talked it over, and realized we had enough in savings to pay off our car (which had been my "retirement" goal), and I quit my job.  We were debt free, living on one (modest) income.

Money was tight.  It has been tight ever since, honestly.  I don't think it always will be, but so far it has been.  But we have always had enough.  The Lord has provided, often in miraculous ways, and made it possible for John to provide, as we have done all we can to make it possible for me to stay home.  I think one key has been that first decision to live on John's income and stay out of debt as much as possible.  That laid the foundation.  I have had opportunities to supplement our income by working and I have never felt right about them.  I do all I can with what I have, and I trust John to provide financially for our family.  I support him, and he supports me.  To me, that is what marriage is about.  It is a partnership.  John provides our income.  I work hard to stretch our income, make things myself, sew, cook from scratch, shop at thrift stores, keep a garden.  We had one vehicle for years.  We still use secondhand furniture, and my children wear hand-me-downs.  We live simply.  We make it work.  It has been worth every sacrifice.  Would we have more money if I worked outside our home?  Probably.  Would we have more happiness?  I am certain beyond all doubt that the answer to that question is no.  I am grateful every day for the privilege of staying home, of raising my own children.  I know it is God's will for me and that He is the One who really makes it possible.  I know that not everyone has the option or the desire.  But if it is a desire of your heart, don't give up.  Pray about it, talk about it, see if there is a way.  Everyone's paths are different and I understand that.  This has been my experience, and I would not trade it for the world.


Quote for the day:
 "It takes faith--unseeing faith--for young people to proceed immediately with their family responsibilities in the face of financial uncertainties.  It takes faith for the young woman to bear her family instead of accepting employment, especially when schooling for the young husband is to be finished....But know this--that all these are of the planting, while faithful, devout families, spiritual security, peace, and eternal life are the harvest."                                                            --Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, p.11



Notes:
1.  We pay a tithe to our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) before paying our other expenses, and we have seen so many blessings come as a result of this practice. I am convinced it is a major part of our ability to make this work.  (See Malachi 3:10, The Windows of Heaven)
2.  I make lots of mistakes.  I over-economize, I under-economize, and sometimes I fall apart.  But I keep trying, and I know the Lord makes up the difference.