When we bought this house, I had a wish list.
I wanted and wished and hoped we'd find a place with a bedroom for each of our girls, a study to work in {and meditate in too}, an open-plan living area, a backyard large enough for a swing set and a kitchen with a five-burner stove top so I could could keep on cooking three variations of the one meal at dinner time {to accommodate for everyone's dietary requirements here}...
I was so grateful when we found a place that ticked all those boxes. In what felt like a very close call, but was actually perfect timing.
But the best part of this house is it feels like home.
We're so happy here. We were happy almost instantly. And so were our girls.
And I love most that we're really living in this house. There's mess and two little girls thumping on the floorboards as they chase each other, play hide and seek, dance like fairy ballerinas and run around roaring like lions and tigers too.
Yesterday we sat outside eating watermelon and grapes and I realised {and learnt} my favorite part of this house isn't those things I wanted in our house at all. It's being here together, and looking at the view.
Each morning I step outside, look out and the first thing I see is the sky. And it amazes me and takes my breath away at times too.
We bought this house on the rainiest, stormy day when the sky was filled with clouds {a day that looks much like today here actually}, and when I stood on the decking all I saw was a haze of grey.
But for the past few months, we've been looking directly out at a glimpse of hills and houses and a big bright blue and wondrous sky.
xx
What do you love most about where you live?
Monday was moving day. We spent the day taping boxes, but mainly lifting them.
The night before we had packed our cars and I made a mental note of all the things that were coming in my car: my journals, camera, my favourite books, photo albums of the girls, my laptop, some jewellery and trinkets I've had forever. Things that felt like a bit of home. Things I didn't want going with the removalist. I felt safer knowing these things were with me.
I wondered if these were my most prized items, what I'd save if I had to pack the car and just leave. And I suppose they are. Each filled with memories, each revealing a part of me.
Along with those items I threw in a few practicalities that I knew would make life easier - the cleaning products, the portable DVD player for the girls and clean sheets so I wouldn't be searching through boxes when bed-making time came.
When Monday night arrived, we found ourselves rather boxed in. A lot less done than we had hoped. The new house given a quick clean, boxes piled up in every room, the beds still to be made, dinner non-existent.
I drove to my parent's house to pick up our girls while the removalists continued box dropping. "Tonight we get to sleep at our new house," I told them a minute into our drive home. Then, glancing in the review mirror, I saw their beautiful eyes closed fast asleep.
I rang my husband to tell him I was five minutes away, and I had our most precious cargo with me.
And that's when it hit me, that all these things I was packing were never going to make this house feel like the home I wanted it to be without these two little girls filling each room with their love and laughter, without the four of us coming together each day.
My husband keeps saying a house is just four {or more} walls. But a home is more, I keep telling him.
Tonight we spoke about how far we've come, those who have helped us so much along the way. And how we're feeling. Like this space we're living in {with all it's unpacked boxes and two beautiful little girls and four people who love each other endlessly} is already home.
I write that with a sigh of relief, a tired body and a beautifully happy heart.
xx
What makes your space home?
In six weeks I will have lived in six houses in eight years.
That's moving house five times.
Packing everything I own five times. {Unpacking five times}.
Getting settled five times. {Unsettling myself five times}.
I've moved 300km from home then 50km closer, then back to where my heart wanted to be, then back and forth close by.
I'm done. I thought I liked all the change. {Exciting and all that!} But I'm just exhausted.
I want to stay still. {To stop and look around without moving}.
I want to put down roots. {And plant memories in the one place}.
I want to make the house we live in our home.
Fill it with photos of the four of us. And images of clouds, and blue skies. And the ocean {yellow sand and white-tipped waves}. And images of the islands that make my heart sing.
I want to fill a house with love and dreams {and then bask in their colours and warmth}.
Six weeks til we move. Six weeks, and {the four of us together} we'll make this new house our home.
Elisa xx
Do you move house often? Do you want to? Are you happier staying still?
{image by me, prettied up via app befunky}
