"Home"

What does the word "Home" mean to you?  Is home a destination...or is it a sentiment?  I used to think that home was the place where I hung my coat.  I have since broadened my view.  

I have lived in seven homes during my lifetime.  I have left each and every one with little regret because for me home was wherever my loved ones were, and as long as the connection to family was kept, I felt at home at every reunion.

Many share the same sentiment...

"Where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Homesick in Heaven

"Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room."  ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

Fredrick Robertson best expresses how I feel about "home."...or the kind of home we all would love to experience.

"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other.  It is the place of confidence.  It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts.  It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."  ~Frederick W. Rob

The home...the family...that I would like to claim as my own is the one that welcomes me with tenderness, and without reserve....where kindness, compassion, understanding and forgiveness abide without exception... and when I leave that safe haven I will know that nothing is said in malice after my departure...and that home,  I will yearn to return to.

I have, at times,  used the word "home" to describe more than the place where loved ones gather.  Over the past several years, I have felt a "pull" in a certain direction.  I have become interested in Herbology, in Art, and in Sustainable living.  For the first time in my life, I feel as if I have "come home" to who I am as a person.  These subjects have become my passion.  I feel more at Peace than I have ever felt, when I have paintbrush in hand.  Do you understand what I mean?  Some may.  Some might not. Van Gogh did.

“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.” Vincent van Gogh 

Do you offer a feeling of "home" to your loved ones?

Have you found your passion?  

What does the word "Home" mean to you?

 

 

Fresh-baked bread!

Bread...Homemade...fresh from the oven! I have used several recipes lately, but the one I have had the most success with is the one from the Five Roses cookbook. I try to bake a loaf or two every week or so, and the house smells wonderful as the bread bakes! I have recently been gifted with wheat berries, and hope to grind them and use them in this recipe. Bread making can be a long process, but I prefer to make my own. Not only do i save money and gas but I also am assured of a quality product.

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Just a reminder...

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Happy?

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
  
Pleasure is spread through the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.
~William Wordsworth, 1806



We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.  ~Frederick Keonig

Every now and then,
when the world sits just right,
a gentle breath of heaven
fills my soul with delight...
~Hazelmarie ‘Mattie’ Elliott, A Breath of Heaven

If the day and night be such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more immortal - that is your success.  All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
 

A New and Better Recipe for Toothpaste

I found this recipe at a site called "Pioneer Thinking."  It has a more pleasant taste than the previous recipe I used!  I actually look forward to brushing my teeth!  I believe that the baking soda has whitened my teeth over the past week.  Here it is for all you brave souls who want to give up the more familiar chemical paste that we have become used to using...




Ingredients:

• 6 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons glycerin
• 15 drops peppermint or wintergreen extract

Directions: Mix thoroughly. Should be a tooth paste consistency. Store in a container. You'll be surprised with how fresh your mouth feels.

 

I have also been trying another experiment after reading several blogs about this.. (Unfortunately I cannot remember who these bloggers are!)  I have, over the past week, been washing my face with honey!  I know it sounds strange, but honey has a moisturizing effect and antibacterial properties.  My skin looks lovely!  I have had no break-outs and I believe I have a glow.  (No...  I am NOT pregnant!!)

 

I still have not nailed down a good consistency for the lip balm but I am going to try again this evening.  Will share my recipe when I do! 

Back to The drawing Board!

Last evening, I decided to try and make a herbal balm.  I chose a recipe for Chocolate Lip balm, and everything went smoothly...or so I thought.  The mixture filled 6 tubes and seemed to solidify nicely HOWEVER, tucked in my pocket at work, it softened, and leaked.  It could not resist the heat from my body (few can) and it was reduced to its original form.  All is not lost.  I have a day off soon and I will add beeswax to the mixture and hope that this will help it remain solid.  It did taste yummy and I will share the recipe when I nail it down.

Since I was in such a creative mood (and did not know the first endeavor was a failure) I decided to try to make toothpaste.  Hydrogen Peroxide, salt, baking soda and vanilla was mixed and bottled.  It did not taste as good as the sweet chemicals that I am used to, however, I will persevere until I find a recipe that both hubby and I like.  It was disconcerting when the top of the container blew off in the night, but that is beside the point.  I am trying to find a solution that is cleaner, healthier and less expensive.

Have you any recipes to share?  Dad mentioned that he used to brush his teeth with charcoal when he was little.  I think I will leave THAT one for when I run out of options!  Thanks, anyway, dad!

"Cleanse"

Instead of making New Year's resolutions this year, I have chosen one word as a point of focus.  Hopefully the word "cleanse" will remind me of the chore ahead...and help to keep me on track.

We moved into this tiny home last summer, but have not entirely dealt with our "things."  Some are still at the old house, many have been given away, and there is much more that will be sold in a yard sale this summer.  How on earth did I ever acquire so much???  Why did I acquire so much, and why did I keep what I did acquire?

Perhaps that I felt that I could keep loved ones close by touching what was once theirs.  Perhaps I felt that I could keep my children little by keeping their toys.  Now those once loved items have become burdens.

I want my only focus to be working on my garden...or painting my next picture.  I don't want to bother with STUFF anymore.  I want to cleanse my home...declutter and simplify.

Wayne Dyer speaks of the "autumn of our lives" and how what was once important in our youth...(the spring of our life)...would no longer pertain as we enter into "Autumn."  He speaks about opening ourselves to our Source and allowing ourselves to be directed...submitting to the will of All Wise, All Knowing, and All Loving source that has many names.  How true it is that those things that were once so important in our youth, lose their value and importance as we age.

Maybe the word I have chosen should be part of a longer phrase.... "Focus and Cleanse and Allow." 

I  hope that 2011 will be as exciting for you as it seems to promise it will be...for me.