A Simple Place Called Home
Home should be simple not hectic. “Home is eye contact, hand-holding, hugs, tears and hearts bursting with love and connection. Home is compassion and patience. It’s laughter and trust and unconditional support. Home has very little to do with the physical spaces we create.”
An excerpt from Courtney Carver’s blog HERE. She is one of my favorite bloggers about minimalism and so much more. I didn’t understand minimalism and, in fact, would probably have told you you were crazy if you had approached me with the idea a couple of years ago. Dane embraced a more minimalist lifestyle years ago and being with me must have driven him nearly insane. Thankfully, the guy likes me despite our differences in how we’ve lived together. Now that I’m fully on board, he has the patience of a saint and dials me back when I’m ready to burn the house down. This journey started when we looked at the “little house on wheels” and it’s been eye-opening for me. Retrospectively there are many ways I’ve been in tune to scaling down for years.
- One of my favorite time periods in my entire life was when Brianna (who is now 23 years old) was 3 months to almost 3 years old. I was a single Mom and we traveled the country. I had friends who had a room to rent in Vermont, Louisiana, Arizona, and Idaho. For about two solid years we had our car packed with a box of her clothes, a box of my clothes, a small box of toys, a 10-gallon fish-tank with our pet rat Patito, a jogging stroller, and healthy snacks. I would choose where to go, move in and I would make money as a nanny and cleaning houses. We had very little in the way of material possessions, but my love of travel and love of spending time with my daughter and friends, even though we were living on next to nothing, was one of the happiest times of my life.
- I’ve always had 3–4 kids in a bedroom. Bedroom space is never where I want to put square footage. We sleep there but not much else. Sometimes in a large family, the kids like to escape to their bedrooms, but for the most part, we spend time in the same area together. Sharing space is more of a minimalist mindset. Putting space that’s a higher priority and reducing it where it’s not. It felt good to realize I had some minimalism mindsets
- I was stressed about our home. It was cluttered, seemed like it always needed to be cleaned, and drove me crazy every. single. day. I didn’t want to be there because it didn’t feel like home anymore. Time to do more than organize — time to unload.
- It seemed ridiculous to get a bigger place to store all of the stuff we weren’t using. I just didn’t know how else to do things at the time. Paying for a storage unit seemed equally awful. And I was tired of buying Rubbermaid…… I had a three-car garage stuffed and a house with too much in it, but no room to move things to the garage.
I’ve always told the kids that no matter where we live, it’s home because of who we are, our attitudes and because we’re a family. The location doesn’t change education, who you are, your values and beliefs, the couch you sit on, the TV shows you choose, etc… It’s where you park yourself for a period of time. Home is our family.
Originally published at https://www.momof18.com.
Jenn is Mom of 18, Transformational Coach for Christian women, host of At A Crossroads with The Naked Podcaster, Author, Runner, Minimalist, & Healthy Lifestyle Advocate
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