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Home Sweet Home

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

I love to travel. That probably goes without saying, right? But you know what else I love?

Coming home.

I love my house. I don't own it, but it's definitely mine - at least for a little while. Military spouses generally fall into 2 camps: the first are just moving through. They don't really decorate or move in and get comfortable in their community. Maybe they don't even build good friendships. That's sad to me, but I've been there, too. Sometimes it just hurts too much to say goodbye and start over again. The second camp knows that home is what we make of it; home is where we are at the moment. We might be here only a year or two, but for now we can make this a home. We don't just live in this house - WE.LIVE.IN.THIS.HOUSE.

We yell and fight here.
We love and hug and kiss here.
We laugh here. A lot.

This past weekend we went to Amsterdam and of course I came home with treasures. The town we stayed in was having a community yard sale for Koningsdag 2014 (King's Day for you non-dutch speakers) so I'm really not to blame for my lovely new ... vases? Sure, we'll call them vases even though they will never hold flowers. I'm just lucky Mike's just lucky I got out of there with only a couple of things. It helps that we were rolling in a convertible and it had less than zero trunk space!

Vases-1

Now for the past three four five days (yes, it took me 2 extra days just to take a picture of them and finish this post- I'm the worst) I've been trying to find them a home in my home. We're working on our issues and I haven't found their sweet spot just yet. I have noticed, though, how very different my house is from where we started out.

When Mike and I got married, I had all the plans. All of them, I tell you. I bought real furniture (vs. temporary furniture that doesn't make it past a move or two) with goals in mind. I knew I couldn't afford the dream home in my head, but I bought pieces I thought would give me time to build that dream. For the record, that dream was all clean cut lines and warm woods and slightly over-sized pieces. I was all about a Tuscan color scheme - all of those rich earthy colors that make every room so warm and cozy. Then it morphed into what I lovingly call "coffee shop couture." Somewhere along the way- in Texas or Florida, I think- I moved more towards blues and browns and bronzes. Still earthy'ish but different from where I had been. Everything matched. It all flowed from room to room with a nice cohesiveness that perhaps I needed then. I upgraded some of our wall art and accessories and I thought it was really coming together. I almost felt like a grown up.

If you had told newlywed me (or even 30 year old me) that one day I would live in an eclectic German cottage with random pieces from yard sales mixed with Ikea furniture and curtains I painted myself (and did a really poor job with, if I'm being honest) and some of that original furniture (it really has held up well) and the world's most comfortable leather chair that we picked up beside a dumpster, I would have laughed you under the table. I read all of the home decorating magazines and perused all of the best websites and I was a girl with plans.

Stoner Dave-1

But you know what? I'm happy with my home. I like being here. It's a comfortable space and it has good energy. It's welcoming and warm and full of colors I never expected. I have an orange-red ceramic picture frame I love that I would never have bought 10 years ago. And Stoner Dave, our buddha from the Target clearance aisle - he's pretty awesome. I just don't want to pigeon hole my space right now. Maybe this is another phase for me, but right now I have no plans for our decor. I'm just letting it morph into whatever it wants to be. I'm letting go of that control and it feels so good.

Perfection really is overrated. Or misunderstood, I'm not sure which.