Home

home

  noun, adjective, adverb,verb, homed, hom·ing.

noun

1.

a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.

2.

the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.

3.

an institution for the homeless, sick, etc.: a nursing home.

4.

the dwelling place or retreat of an animal.

5.

the place or region where something is native or most common.

I was born in a small town in Kansas. Most of my extended family still lives in Kansas. My parents went rogue when I was in Elementary school and moved to the "Big City", Wichita, so that my mom could get her college education. While she was in school, we moved around a lot for a lot of different reasons (crazy landlords, crazy neighbors, crazy school bussing birthday laws, etc). A few years later (and several moves), she graduated and went even more rogue by taking a job in Oklahoma. While we lived in one town from middle school through my high school graduation, we didn't live in the same house. I think my parents just enjoyed a challenge and moving pretty much yearly is a constant challenge. Consequently, I've never really had a building that was "home". I have people who are "home", but not a building, structure or even really a town or state. I've always felt like I was just a temporary resident of where ever I happened to be that day. I am strangely attached to my bed, but I'm sure that's some kind of strange psychobabble issue that I need not even try to get into on this...Anywho, I think my childhood moving made Army Life that much easier--while Army was moving us around, my parents were still moving around as well. They've landed in Texas these days and are blissfully happy there (not in the pretty part either...they're so strange...). 

But out here in the real world, people stay in one place. For a while. And honestly, THIS was my biggest concern about getting out of the Army. How would I live in one state and possibly even one town for more than 2 years? In the last 12 years of Army life, the longest we lived at one address was 14 months. We've brought our children home to three different addresses. We've got hundreds of checks with probably 7 different addresses on them. Whitepages.com has at least 9 addresses for us and none of them are the one we're actually living at. Army housing never really felt like "our" house--we put our stuff in it, but essentially every move felt like temporary housing. We bought a house at a duty station and the whole time we lived there it never really felt like "our" house. But now, we were taking a job that didn't require yearly moving, that encouraged you to buy a house and put down roots. Roots? Whoa. What a novel concept. 

When we found out where The Husband would be working, a friend of mine recommended the town we live in--she grew up here and I trusted her judgement. She said "great schools, great people, no crime, and trees!" And so we (and by we, I mean her and I) found a rental house in the area, The Husband looked at it, signed the papers and we made the move. We drove out over Thanksgiving and arrived Friday to the awesomeness that is Southern California traffic. After spending 4 months in a town that had one stoplight, it was a rude welcome. But as soon as we exited freeway and turned into our neighborhood, I just knew. 

There's just a feeling here. There's active people, but not judgementally active (and yes, there's a difference), there's parks that are used-not abused, there's amazing/welcoming schools, there's older people, there's younger people, there's moms, there's executives, there's just average people. There's a ton of diversity here and yet there's a simplicity to it all. And I love it. 

And for the first time ever I understand how people can live in a spot forever and what it means to be "home". 

Plus, Target is right around the corner! :)