No matter where I travel or just how far I dream there’s just no other place quite as nice as home.
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“Mom! Hurry!” I ran from the kitchen to where the call was coming from. I opened the bathroom door to see Eva holding Tyson on the toilet. “What happened in here?!” The bathroom was wreaked of poo. It was everywhere, all over the toilet and covering Tyson. “I tried to show him how to go potty in the toilet, and when I did, he pooped everywhere,” Eva exclaimed! Running down the hallway, holding Tyson out in front of me, I hollered, “Eva, you can’t potty train an eleven-month-old!
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Sitting around the table for our first Thanksgiving together, I saw familiar faces all around. Yet, two new faces seemed out of place. My sister’s husband, Kyle, sat there, and next to me, Charles, my husband, sat. My sister and I married one year apart. This was the first Thanksgiving we all sat around the table together. It left a weird feeling in my stomach. It’s funny how change for the better still makes us feel that way.
I can imagine the Pilgrims must have felt the sting of change as they rode in the “tween deck,” heading to a new land they had only heard about and never envisioned their hardships. Yet, God had a sunrise in their future. What a bitter crossing they encountered. They fell on their knees to thank God and felt solid ground between their feet. The trip across the Atlantic Ocean cost many their lives; sickness, dysentery, and terrible accidents led many to a water grave.
Many accounts I have read tell that feces and puke would slide with the ship’s rocking from one side to the other of the “tween deck,” a small space “in-between” the main decks where the pilgrims had to remain for most of the voyage.
An Indian named Squanto became a saving grace to the pilgrims, teaching them how to plant, hunt, and eat off the land. Squanto himself would not have been alive had God not spared him. He was kidnapped and taken to Spain for slave trading but escaped to England, where he was helped and returned to America. When he returned, his village was no longer there. There was a deadly disease that wiped out everyone except for him. God has His finger on the events of our lives.
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
“Whatever you do, don’t let Maximus off his boundary collar,” Chuck demanded before heading off to work that morning. Penny was in heat, and he did not want to deal with Golden Shepherds again. Yet, I was in a pickle. Charlotte was using the potty, Tyson was crawling around in my direction, and yelling was coming through the walls from the outside. “Mom! I need you!” Eva yelled from down the drive. Oh, dear Lord, I thought to myself. Maximus had gotten free, and Penny was his target. I needn’t tell you the rest. “Oh, Daddy will be so happy!” Eva stated pleasantly. “Eva, do not repeat ANY of this to your father. Do not even open your mouth when he gets home! Just put Maximus back in his kennel and leave him there!”
On my way back through the garage, I found trash strode all over from our new additions, Hansel and Cutie. Both are new additions from Lola’s last litter. Cutie was a shew-in, and Chuck wanted one resembling Maximus. Cutie learned to shimmy the corner of their wooden crate box and put herself back in so that anything she did would be hard to pinpoint. We figured it out. I thought this day was at its peak when I grabbed my bike and found it wedged in the freezer door. The door was just cracked enough to thaw out everything in the fridge. I closed my eyes and the freezer.
Eva kept eyeing me while I was cooking supper as Chuck went through the mail. He seemed proud that his plan for the boundary collar kept Maximus at bay. I glared at Eva. She read it intently and knew she was to remain quiet. I couldn’t understand why she kept giving me weird glances. She knew she was to remain silent. I turned around to stir the beans, thinking ignoring her might be the best objective. The next thing I noticed was Eva coming to stand beside me next to the stove. She slides her workbook in front of my hot pan. I see the words written at the top, “Daddy put Maximus back outside.” I rolled my eyes, sighing.
Knowing that I had no other options, I turned around and asked Chuck to follow me so I could talk to him privately. I shut the door behind us. The rest of the house didn’t need to hear his reaction.
In one breath, I exhaled, “The puppies tore open several bags of trash, which I cleaned up and deposited into the trash cans. The freezer cracked open, and everything in the freezer was unthawed, and finally, Maximus got off his boundary and bred Penny.” I patted him gently and readied to walk out. “What!” He responded with his hands on his head. “Where were you?! How could you let this happen?!” I grinned slightly and stated, “Twice.” I exited and headed back to stir the beans.
At supper that evening, my shoulders slumped a little from the day until I took a look around. I watched Charlotte put sour cream in her water, stir it, and drink it. I listened to Eva tell her daddy about her adventures in the creek that afternoon and watched Tyson slam his strawberries into the table. The strangeness of our first Thanksgiving eleven years ago found its fullness in an “Anne Shirley” kind of day. Children’s voices, a supper table full of fellowship and messes, nothing in the freezer ruined, and tomorrow would be fresh with no mistakes in it.
I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness. It’s right in front of me if I am paying attention and practicing gratitude.
Brene Brown
During WWII, when America was imprisoning Japanese families in camps, a reporter stepped up to a little Japanese American girl waiting at a train platform. How does it feel to be without a home, the reporter asked. Oh, replied the little girl. We have a home; we just don’t have a house to put it in.
A house is just a house. It’s the occupants that make it what it is.
Mr. McKeever – It Happened on Fifth Avenue
Days that seem like nothing can go right come to us all, but in our gratitude, we find many wonderful blessings and perhaps a giggle that make it all worthwhile. Abraham Lincoln said, “A person is as happy as they make up their mind to be.” Find a reason to smile.
I have a house to put my home in. What a wonderful place to be.
Be thankful and say so! Psalm 100:4
