Loving your Nest...

Our home is not the biggest or the nicest or even the cleanest but it is home and I LOVE every square inch of it! When we moved into this house I thought "This is a GREAT first home. We will be out of here in 3-5 years though." Well, that time came and went, we are currently working on year 6. We have officially painted every single wall in this house and convert my lovely dining room into a play room for the kids. We swore we would never fence in our nice open corner lot but for safety reasons and sanity reasons that fence could not go up fast enough 2 summers ago!

Two years ago, right after the birth of our second child, the hubby and I had a serious itch for a bigger house. We felt we had out grown our home, so we put it on the market. 6 months later and after God doing a work in our hearts we were happy to take our house off the market. Now we are not sure if we will ever move.

During the time our house was on the market I met two different ladies who use to live in our neighborhood. The first was at the park and she had two children a couple years older than mine. In our conversation she said "I wish we had never moved out of that neighborhood. There is just something special about the people that live there...so friendly." This resonated with me because some of the people in this neighborhood are family and others might as well be. I know at least one family on every street and that is very comforting.

The other lady came to my door to sale me a vacuum, she actually use to live right across the street in a house smaller than mine. Her family consisted of her, her husband and 5 children and she said "I wish I had never moved out of that house. We moved for more space and now that the kids are older we really don't need the space." I knew God was using these women to speak to me and teach me to be content. It was just a few days later we took our house off the market.

In the two years that pass I have made little changes to our home to reflect our "dream home" because I don't want to hang on to ideas that may never happen. If I want a specific faucet then I plan to save up for it and get it for this house. Since we have made the changes to this house I really do think it will take a crow bar to get me out of this little nest.

My house is 1500 sq feet my girls share a room and the closet in the nursery is also my craft/sewing station. We share a lot of our space...I think the only space that is not shared is the master closet. But, I have come to realize that this is a great thing...because when my kids are teenagers I will know what they are doing and up to for sure!

I recently read a report stating that from 1950 - 2004, the average American home has doubled in size - what was once 983 square feet is now 2,349 square feet. That is a 1,366 square foot addition!!! The Average family in 1950 was 3.67 members and in 2002, the average family size was 2.62. So apparently we need a bigger house for a smaller family. That averages out to be 900 square feet per family member. As a mother I just don't think it is a good thing for my kids to have 900 square ft each...that is a lot of alone time and room to get into trouble!

I also saw that a bigger home meant bigger bills and need for more income. Trust me there are days I would rather go off to work than be at home but, I know that I am laying the ground work for my children by being here at home with them. I am instilling values and morals that I would not trust another to do. I also would hate to miss some of the sweet exchanges between those precious little faces. I am thankful everyday that my hubby goes out and "earns the bacon." He is a hard working man and does a wonderful job of providing for our family.

I just don't want to get caught up in the material things of this world. I don't want to be told that I need a bigger house or newer cars. I really don't want my children to see me chasing after the next hot ticket item. Drowning in a sea of discontentment. I want them to know what it looks like to be content. To allow the Lord to provide for our needs. It seems that when we allow Him to cover our needs, we really don't have any wants.

*Statistics were taken from Organized Simplicity*