in these four walls...

Wars.
Sickness.
Recession.
Challenged Economy.
Crazy people with drama all around.

There are plenty of things in the outside world that given the chance would absolutely drive the most sane, well adjusted person up a wall if given the chance. But here we are at the grateful season of Thanksgiving followed quickly by the wonderful heartfelt season of Christmas and love. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes our lives great out here in McGee-ville.

I am grateful on any given day for many things and many people in my life. I have been blessed with an amazing mother, a father who loved me in his own ways crazy as they may be and sisters that I make crazy and vice versa but who stick together when it counts. I am grateful for the huge extended family I grew up with and the memories that time can’t even take away from me. I’m grateful that I have a job. I don’t love it but I am grateful for work! I’m grateful for good friends, good health, a roof over my head, a reliable car, the clothes on my back…there are a great many things that I am grateful for.

But this year…
This year I am most grateful for my own four walls.

I’m not a self proclaimed accomplished homemaker by any stretch. I’m not very good at decorating-I know when it looks good but I’m not sure how to start. I can’t bake bread and I love flowers but I’m not so sure how to arrange them. I cook…a little…I can bake up a storm but that is perhaps as domestic as I get!

But I think I found the secret.

I learned how to create the home our family needed with some help from my man-let’s call him Mr. Man. And it had nothing to do with shabby chic décor or Betty Crocker homemaking-although I wish I had those skills! It was about what we feel when we walk into our four walls.

This past year Mr. Man and I have spent lots of blood, sweat and tears taking the best of our homes growing up and meshing that into our own home. As a result, I am most grateful that regardless of the craziness that is life, the challenge of whatever school or work has brought, that no matter who or what attempts to tear us down at the end of the day we and any combination of our four kids get to come home to a safe, loving, warm, supportive home where we block the rest of the world out and focus on our family.

THAT is a home.
THAT is what I am extremely grateful for.
THAT is why 2009 has been such a blessing.

I have a partner in Mr. Man that picks up where I leave off, that adores me and all four of these kids and that loves to cook the most amazing meals. I have been blessed to fall in love with my very best friend and find-to my delight-that he wants the same four walls that I do. We have four beautiful, strong, smart, loving children who are healthy and happy and who know they are loved. We share what’s in our four walls with good friends and family from time to time who leave little imprints of their hearts as they fill our four walls.

It’s not always blissful, it’s not always clean and much to our kids dismay sometimes I have to cook instead of him.

But what happens in our four walls
will always outweigh what waits outside.

And we are all the better for it.
Because it’s home.

McGee