Five Minute Friday - Home

Home has not always been that safe place for me.  Not always been the place that is made of little girl dreams.   I had one home when I lived with my father that was old and crumbly.  It's corner's dark and dank and in those walls secrets were kept under lock and key with the threats.   The walls were  stained water and the paper was peeling at the corners in almost every room.  This was not the pink ruffled, white canopied bed, house of my dreams.

I moved out of that house that bloomed ugly right out of the ground, moved out and never looked back.   Through a series of circumstances I was rescued from the secrets and given a chance - there but for the grace of God.  

And I learned from a woman, my mother what making a home was all about.  She was a huntress of beauty in the most unlikely places, Goodwill, The Economy Shop sitting right beside the tracks in Strathroy, Ontario.   The things she would find on the side of the road, other peoples castoffs a treasure trove of wonder would take shape right before my eyes and before I knew it I lived in a home.  I would walk through the doors from the bus, 12 years old, a good Dutch meal, Hashee (mashed potatoes and a beef/gravy sauce) would wisp tantalizingly around my nose.  Book cases made out of grape crates and all of it felt like and declared welcome - Home.

I often wondered if I would struggle in making a home.   Would I know how?  But home has a way of settling in your bones and for the past several years I have worked to make a home that is more than a house.  I have painted soothing colours, warm and inviting tones that beckon any guest to sit and feel loved and receive the gift of hospitality.  And this morning I sit in my soft butter office with the light of candles chasing a way the dark of night and I feel the comfort of home.   Right on my desk holding some of my books sits a painted grape grate - a symbol of rescue and a reminder of Home.

Linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker today and the other women who fealessly bear hearts and souls for Five Minute Fridays --->  Come on over!