Cozy @ Home: What makes a HOME Home?

What is home? A place. A feeling. Our hearts.

Contentment, peace.

The smell of a roast in the oven, or of peanut butter cookies baking.


I'm thankful for our humble home, and I realize that our home is something that lives on in my kids' hearts and their memories for the rest of their days. I hope to have given them something precious.

The feeling they had while they were here, the special times spent with their feet under our table for dinners on weeknights and special breakfasts on Saturday morning and a loaded up table on Sunday afternoon.

Here at home is a safe place, to be away from it all....to relax and to refuel for the busy days away from it's welcoming walls.

Home.

It's his boots in the entryway, signaling that one more day of work is something to be thankful for, as well as one more day of safe travel to bring him back to us.

Home means its my boy's basketball bag thrown on the floor full of sweaty clothes to wash....again, and being thankful he is healthy enough to play basketball, and happy that his coach is willing to give up time to teach and train our boys to play this wonderful team sport.

Home means it's my oldest son's shoes slipped off inside the door, another day of work is done, one more day of staying with us before he closes on and goes off to live at his very own house.

Home shows the emblems of the interests of those who live here...a hat tossed here, a sweatshirt hanging from the back of a chair...

Home means the coats hung on a peg...waiting to hug my family to warm the next time they go outside into the winter wind and snow and cold.

Home is my fridge with precious pictures of loved ones and mementos and lists held to it with magnets....the combination of which cannot be found in any other home in the country....just here, only in our kitchen.

Home is the hum of the dryer and the swoosh of the washer as it tosses the clothes and mixes them with soap and water to come magically clean in less than a half hour, all with the touch of a button. What would my great-grandma think of all this?

Home is a treat sitting on the counter for my son to find when he gets home from school....just because he likes cupcakes and butter cream frosting.

Home is the familiar view out the kitchen window, that changes with the seasons...

Home is noticing that my son had a little fun while he made the salad and set the table....fun that puts a smile on all of our faces....

Home is the morning's lure of the smell of toast in the toaster, coffee brewing and the start to another day, the hushed sounds of morning conversations, the chatter of the morning news going in the background, and then the quiet once they're all gone.

Home is the wag of a dog's tail and a friendly bark when the truck pulls back into the driveway right around the same time every evening.

Home is that squeak in the floor so familiar to us as we walk room to room, the way that one step or the one floorboard in the hall sounds at night as we head to our beds...


Home is a beautiful word, a condition of the heart, and a place that can always hold us close, no matter where we might be.


Our home has a soul and it's US: family.