Dozens of houses - I have lived in dozens of houses.
I have been a REALTOR for several years and I now know what a special few know.... Home is where you hang your heart - home is where other's will hang their heart.
Any shack will do if it is shared with friends or family that share both love and respect. Families come in all shapes and sizes. The American household has changed so much in the last 25-50 years. The definition of family, most definitely, has changed as did the idea and definition of home. Even I ended up with one I didn't give birth to ... an addition to the "home".
I have had a friend or two help out, a broker or receptionist dole out emergency money to a kid because I was out with buyer's looking for their "home" and I couldn't break away. A helpful neighbor, a kind friend - all helped make this home. I couldn't go without THANK YOU to Ron and Kathy the school teachers down the street that were my eyes and ears. They also had a "home". When I wasn't home....they were.
Many people know I am a proud mother of three high sFchool graduates - 2007 Estero High School. I've sprinkled their pictures all over the blogsphere, there was almost no escape. The Three Stooges share a home with me in an average community, of semi-production built homes. This home we live in is nearly the same as a dozen others on this street alone. The COOLEST feature of this home is that it is elevated....it feels like a tree house. I think that what turned this house into a home was heart, union, love, respect and camaraderie - sometimes it was a battle to convince "The Stooges" to be that way to each other.
This is a melting pot household and everyone had to make due with what they had and what I could provide for them.
- Mandatory dinner at least once a week - if you're not hungry, too darn bad. Sit and watch the rest of us eat. Get your butt to the table.
- Mandatory chores - if I forgot to leave a list, I'd fax it! I'm sure there was a lot of tongues sticking out when I turned my back, but the struggle paid off.
The evidence that this is not a house, but a home is left all around this Cottage.
- There are bite marks on my plantation shutters. Who would bite a shutter? Why would they bite a shutter? Why did this person bite shutters in multiple, various rooms of this home? I'm the mother, I know whose pearlies were diggin' in that wood just by looking at the impression.
The front door lock has been used for 11 years dozens of times a day and comes out with the key on occasion. The whole darn thing. I actually found it dangling from my car ignition one day - the whole lock set. - A beautiful new bathroom is upstairs, compliments of The Stooges. I just had that baby gutted! Down to the studs! They flooded that bathroom, broke the soap dish off the wall in the shower, chipped the porcelain in the tub as a result and somehow....somehow, broke the toilet of the floor. It must have been a heck of a wrestling match and a blood ritual that followed because it's been years and nobody has squealed. It comes up at every dinner we're all at and still nobody rats out.
- There's a step in the entry that "adds character" to the wood floor. I'm not sure what happened there either, but every time my parents come over I'm thinking broken pelvis.
- Discolored paint on the lanai (that's a back porch for you northerners) I put the grill on high and forgot it. By the way, you CAN melt cast aluminum and turn peach paint brown at the same time.
- Various other gouges, scratches, scrapes and signatures adorn windows, doors and cabinets. They all have a story. If a home like this could talk...
- The small hole in the screen on that lanai and the wayward bird that just didn't realize he didn't live here. Literally dozens of times someone would shout, "The bird is back!" and we'd shoo him out. It was a him, by vote.
This home welcomes all guests with open arms. Kids and grown ups from all over Lee County (and the country) think nothing of walking in and sitting down to dinner, invited or not. There is no pretense in this home; feet are up on coffee tables, the pantry is open and everyone is welcome.
There are a few bean bag chairs from Target and regularly they are dragged into my room for movie night.
There is a dining room table that looks like it's been used by the US Army - If I had a nickel for every game of cards or Rumicube that was played there. Enjoy a few photos from that very table and a few others of this home.
[This is one of many egg fights that this home put up with.]
Home is where PARTY CRASHERS showed up.
Home is where PINATA'S PERISH!
If you're living in a house, make it a home. Open your heart and make it a home for you, for your family, for your friends, for strangers.
How do you prove that a house is a home? When someone comes home.
This is a photo from my phone, but it's just so lovely.
The picture here is of one of the Stooges that had a long night. He and I had actually put his own dog to sleep the day before and instead of going to school, he just sort of slinked in and copped a squat in my home office. He hadn't slept all night and wanted to feel the love of HOME. My little dog just knew his heart was broken....and sidled up to him.....look hard under the fringe. They slept for hours.
You just can't get that in a house, you get that in a home.
After Ines broke that habit she started on the "Put the seat down!" Campaign.
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