There's No Place Like Home

Home. What is home? To Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz "there's no place like home" and she gets there by repeating that line and clicking the heals of her sparkly red shoes. To some "Home is where the Heart is." At the RV parks in Arizona that Neil and I went to "Home is where you Hookup!" The Websters Dictionary defines Home as 1, the house, where one resides, one's native land. 2, the burrow or retreat of an animal. 3, the region in which something is common or native. 4, in games, the goal or principal base. What is home to you?

To Neil, Home is the piano and the painting hanging above it that has been there since he was a kid. It was a momentous day, a few years ago, for Neil when his mom gave us the very painting that had been over her piano since he was little, which was originally over Grandma's piano, and Grandma had given Neil's mom the same painting that had been over her piano. That's home for Neil.

To me, boy, I can't put my finger on something specific but I can say how excited I was to put my fridge magnets and pictures up. I like a busy fridge with my favorite people smiling back at me. I didn't know the difference it made to me once our fridge was covered. Opening my boxes of dishes was like Christmas for me - maybe because I hadn't seen them in a month or maybe it's just the familiarity. The other thing that made me excited was to cover the walls with pictures and the things I love. This house is so big that I have to use pretty much every decoration item I have otherwise it's bare; needless to say I am using some things I never have used but have had forever (I'm still not done with it all). Having our own quilt on the bed. It's the little things that make it home for me.

What about you? What do you visualize when you think the words "there's no place like home?"