#making home

✨ Today's highlights ✨

Picked up cabinets we ordered for my room;

Bought paint (pink clay!) for the back wall;

Found a tall wooden mirror at the thrift store;

Summary: A torturously intimate look at how Jon and Martin come together, one long, strange, honest day at a time.

Beauty

is a fresh from the oven pie,

is rising bread soon to be baked,

is a favorite song when your heart is heavy,

is gray, fluffy, dozing doves on naked branches,

is tiny, ordinary sparrows in the feeder,

is a quick, familiar, passing kiss,

is home, is home, is home,

beauty is.

https://alligator-sunglasses.com/post/40203065345/hobbes-winnie

"Even when it makes you feel lost and confused; every good soldier, officer, teacher, or parent dreams of seeing the day they aren't needed anymore." -- SilverRey

Every little bird flies from its nest. -- Elven saying.

Marvin hadn't noticed when Lady Anthe and Wraithvine left. They didn't bid him a farewell. He had just been busy with Steelfoot and improving the lives of the people in Lower Petraine. Marvin realised they were gone when he had finished making a home for himself and Steelfoot and some of the orphans they had both adopted in the process.

His friends weren't there.

They hadn't been there for some time. Months, perhaps. Lady Anthe and Wraithvine had essentially left him to his own devices and left a note in safekeeping for the day he missed them.

I like the signs of my children’s lives adorning the walls and lining the shelves. I like that this is OUR living space, one that honors the phase of life they are in right now.

I like that the legos and blocks and trains and nerf blasters that they love are within reach. I like that their gear sets and chess matches are paused in motion on the living room table. I like that this house is theirs too.

I like that their messes are opportunities to learn. I like that they know how to stow their items away. I like that they are learning to compromise, no one claiming the shared space as a place where the tools of someone else’s life are unwelcome.

And I like that we are all learning this together. I enjoy the smile of pride when my husband remembers the three coffee cups he left out, and brings them to the sink. I like seeing that same smile reflected when the boys beam with pride over picking up their toys before friends come over. As the children grow, the kitchen is becoming communal as well, and I am learning to share space, too.

I understand the importance of having room of one’s own, even just a corner to express one’s autonomy. My husband has his office, the kids have the basement, surprisingly, as I give up the kitchen, I’m finding the bedroom to be my space. As the kids get older, I want to help them carve out a corner that is solely theirs, where siblings may not take liberties.