Nesting, Nesting

I cannot believe it's been over three months since I last posted! I've written often in my mind, but the technology to transfer that directly to a blog has yet to be invented (as far as I know!). I'm on-line mostly one-handed on my iPhone (fun!) these days, usually while nursing. (Sorry if that's tmi!) Today, my baby Joshua is 3 months old.


The three months since he was born have been such a whirlwind, and it's finally dying down, at least for now. (In case you need catching up, after the first month, which is such a blur, we flew to Tucson for the week, where Jonathan candidated at a church. The week he became a 2-month-old cutie pie, we found out we would not be moving to Tucson and moved, instead, into our own apartment here in Madison. We're now moved in, settled, and past the holidays, so we're feeling pretty relaxed, at least for parents of two children under 2!) I have a sneaking suspicion the calm won't last long, so I'm trying to savor every minute. Sometimes savoring includes letting thoughts running around in my head spill out into the world, so here I am again.

Enough about me, on to some big ideas! Here are a few hints: "There's no place like ____," "____ is where you hang your hat," "____ SWEET ____," "____ is where the heart is." I'm sure you've guessed by now.

In the past six months of being in "limbo," not sure where our next residence will be, I have been contemplating that idea of "home." That was easy for me, not a question at all, during my growing-up years: I lived in the same house since I was 5 months old and attended the same church and church-run school from age five through high school graduation. It really "rocked my world" when the church and school changed locations my freshman year of college. When I came "home," the place where I'd spent more time than any other place (other than the house where I grew up) was no longer familiar. Then, the year I graduated college and moved to Michigan, going "home" for the holidays meant going to Wisconsin, not Illinois, for my parents had moved. Thus began my "home displacement" issues (yes, I did just make that up!).


Having grown up in Illinois and attended college in South Carolina before moving to Michigan, I had no idea how many more states would become "home" to me in the years ahead. While in Michigan, I called 5 different places "home," lived with my parents in Wisconsin and sister in Georgia between Michigan and Oregon, where I moved once I got married. From there, we moved to Pennsylvania, where we lived with Jonathan's parents for a few months between ministries. From there, we moved to Gillett, Wisconsin, where we stayed for over 2 1/2 years--a new record for me in adulthood! We really made that place feel like "home," even though we did not own it. It was a parsonage, and the church gave us the liberty to paint and make other updates that really made it feel like "ours."

After living with my parents for my last trimester and first couple months with baby Joshua (ever time we tried to move out, another strong potential would come up for moving out of state!), we moved into a 2-bedroom apartment here in Madison. It does feel like "home" with all our stuff around and all. Crazily, we hope to move sometime in 2011, hopefully to someplace we'll get to call "home" for quite some time.

So what is "home," and why is it so important to us? After 22 years in the same place . . . 11 years, 6 states, and 10 residences later . . . it's a question I've been asking myself. The next few posts will be my meanderings and fumbling answers to those questions, so check back soon!