Choosing Home

We are smack dab in the middle those sticky, hot July days where I just give up on fixing my hair and drink iced tea like it's going out of style. My plants are looking kinda sad (who am I kidding... there was no hope for them this year) and I constantly smell of chlorine. I tend to think that summer will be slower and simpler than the other seasons, but I'm realizing that as my kids get older, summer fills up in a jiffy. We've traveled and hosted and play-dated and partied, not to mention the rotation of swim lessons and camps and VBS. Our family has been enjoying summer's fun full steam ahead for about six weeks now, and I'm beginning to feel the ache for routine.

While the girls enjoy one more week of summer at our church's VBS, I will be planning and organizing for our second year of home schooling. This year I am more excited and (a little) less nervous. Kindergarten was educational, mostly for me, and I'm excited to build on what I've learned; this year will hold it's own set of challenges, however, as Charlie no longer takes a morning nap and we add our precious number 4 to the mix. I plan on writing a more detailed post on how I'm hoping to manage those transitions.

As I've prayed and thought about this fall, mostly while waiting for swim lessons or on the drive to KC, I have been drawn to a simple calling - to choose home. This past season of motherhood has been defined by a lot of going. We've explored our new city, we've escaped the chaos of living in the midst of a renovation, we've developed friendships, and we've gotten involved in our church and community. By going - physically leaving the house. But the Lord is doing something new in my heart, and I want to fully embrace it. I'm excited to settle in a bit; to build routines and habits that we simply haven't made time for recently. This will impact our lives in many ways, and even as I'm writing about it, the Lord is revealing new things. I have a strong desire to record it, partially to keep myself accountable, but also because writing things out always helps me go a little deeper and live a little richer. Soon, I hope to write out some more detailed goals, but here's the vision. May the Lord bless and enrich our plans to obediently "choose home."

+ Stay home: this sounds so simple, but we've just gotten in the habit of going. One of the girls' first questions of the day is often, "where are we going today?" This doesn't mean we won't ever leave the house, but I need to be more intentional about when and how often we go.

+ Organize home: this encompasses a lot - organizing our spaces and stuff, but also in terms of organizing our routines (although we'll all need to be flexible as we add another little person to our mix, but I think a general routine may actually help us in that transition). This will also include how we start our mornings, home school, keep a clean home, and tackle laundry.

+ Create home: I have not invested much time or energy into making our house a cozy, homy, refuge for our family. Mostly because I've been waiting for the dust to settle... literally... from our renovation. I think it's time. We're going to hang things on the walls in the girls' rooms.
I have plans to sew pillow covers and keep my eyes our for that elusive rug that I both love and can afford. And I want to involve the girls in this too, probably by doing seasonal crafts with them and including their artwork in our decor.

+ Enjoy home: I'm not sure if this is a combination of all three of the first goals our a product of them, but either way, I want us to choose to take time to savor being home. Play more board games after dinner. Read more books cuddled up on the couch. Decorate our driveway with sidewalk chalk more often. Take more pictures, which may seem counterintuitive, but it helps me to savor and appreciate the details of our life.