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House and Home
"A house can have integrity,
just like a person."
- Ayn Rand
What makes a house a home? It isn't hard wood floors. It isn't Egyptian cotton sheets. The feeling of being at home comes from the people  we love, the memories we've created, and the extent to which we have made our home our own. A home is many things - some practical, some emotional. At the very least it is a shelter, at best, a sanctuary. And although art, furniture, paint and design are part of what goes into the structure - the outcome is based on us. Have you ever known someone who had a home that looked just like them? You would have known without anyone telling you whose home you were standing in. That's a home with the soul of its occupants, and having one isn't about money or expert designers.
We  have someone on our staff who told us an interesting story about how she knows she's home. She has had to move several times in the last few years, and so has deveoped some habits to make it easier. The first thing she packs is 2 or 3 boxes of things that she absolutely cannot live without. These have nothing to do with money. She packs the quilt she made with her mother, the frying pans handed down from her grandmother, her childhood toys, the dulcimer her brother built, and other irreplaceable momentos. Before she moves anything else in, she decorates the new place with the things from her must-have boxes. "After those things are on the walls and in the drawers, sitting on the stove, or carefully folded in a trunk - I'm fine. If the moving van drove over a cliff, I'd still have a home. I could replace all that other stuff."
Look around. Does your home look like you? What can you do to give it your heart and soul?
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