Familiar

       I remember, a few weeks ago, on a Saturday or Sunday night after I came home from work early, everyone was gone to Grandma's house, or church, or something, and I was home alone.  So I went around the kitchen and fixed me a small dinner, then I sat down at our kitchen table and started to eat it.  I reached into the napkin basket in the center of the table and pulled out a Taco Bell napkin.  It just made me smile.  Those kinds of things make me smile because it's what makes a house, a home.  Different fast food napkins in the napkin basket, or the lawn chair that is sitting, out of place, right inside the back porch door.  The different pieces of furniture that Grandpa made special for my mom...  all the dozens of coasters sitting on all the wooden furniture so there is no way we can get any marks on them by sitting drinks right on the tables... (which we accidentally do sometimes anyway, but Mom is quick to point us to the nearest coaster available)  The little creaks in the wood floors here and there that remind me when Grandpa, my uncle's Steve and Larry struggled to get the boards to go together in that one spot, and all the funny faces they were making...  

         The whole reason for our existence... Life.  We come, and create a home.  We get comfortable in it, but worry so much about perfecting it that we forget to be thankful for everything... What about the millions of families everywhere in the world that don't have to worry about getting water stains on their wood furniture, or worry about whether the lawn furniture is inside the house, or hear the creakiness of their wood floors... because they don't have any of that? They can't afford any of it, they don't have room for any of it.  

         So... stop and think.  Look around your house or where ever you are sitting, and appreciate the little things you see that make your house yours.  Tell me about them! I wanna know what your house feels like, what it looks like.  No one cares about the dirt. You don't have to live on dirt floors.  No one cares that there is McDonald's bags on the counter... Some don't know what a McDonald's is...  I want to know the stuff that makes your home, YOURS. :)