The Best Place on Earth: 100-Word Challenge

Bora Bora

This particular game goes, “If money were no object, where would you go?” It’s pipe dreams, that’s all.

A stilted hut on Bora Bora. An apartment in Florence. Diving the Great Barrier Reef. Sensation overload in Marrakesh. Sailing the Greek Islands. Patagonia!

On our well worn couch with a fire freshly stoked, I feel his breath on my neck as he whispers. Desiring.

I wear him like his softest tee shirt. Safe, cozy, loved. It can’t be bottled. No amount of money in the world can buy it. 

This home. This peace. This feeling.

We’re the best place on earth.

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Squeezing in a 100-word challenge right under the wire! Check out the writers at Thin Spiral Notebook where this week's word is "Money". I firmly believe I have to practice often for writing to come naturally again. I'm trying!

Comfy Like My Favorite Sweats

List 5 things that bring you comfort courtesy of Mama Kat's Writing Challenge. I am presenting these comfy things to you in reverse order but they all do the trick.

5.  Believe it or not (but do), I find comfort in traveling. I settle into an environment extremely well. I eat at local spots all but shunning the “must dine” 5-star restaurants or “you just have to” places. That’s not me. I like to talk to the people who live where I’m visiting and ask them what I should do. So often my husband or friends have had to drag me on to the plane, out of a country or off an island as I tearfully say, “But I could live here!” They're used to it. My husband thinks I could live anywhere and I probably could. Home is inside of ME.

4.  So I may be one of the only ones who feels this way but I find comfort in exercise. Or maybe it’s discomfort. I don’t know. I get confused sometimes. And it has more to do with how exercise makes me feel more than anything. It makes me feel fantastic, more relaxed, mellowed out, fatigued, happy (though not always while doing so), and peaceful for the rest of my day. I find comfort in that feeling so I apply liberally.

3.  Reading a good book while sitting on my couch in my favorite fleece pants and sweater sipping tea on a snowy afternoon or a glass of wine on a peaceful evening with logs on the fire equals comfort to me. Actually, just being on couch or a chair anywhere reading is a comfort to me. Blissful.

2.  What I lack in quantity, I make up for in quality as far as friends. A call, letter or visit from one of my friends always warms my heart. It means they were thinking of me. I love a chat because I can hear their voice and picture them speaking their words to me. I love a letter because I can envision their hands moving over the paper with a pen and I can re-read it as many times as I want, which I do. I love a visit because I can hold their hand, touch their arm, and see their lips moving and face smiling.

1.  I tend to be a homebody. That’s not to say I don’t like going out, doing things, being around people. I do. I’d just rather have people over to my house for pizza, cook for them, or stay home with a fire and roast marshmallows and be with my family. To me, it’s the most comfortable place in the world but it’s not really about the four beautiful walls. It’s the feelings of safety, warmth, love and all things cozy that home gives me (And sweatpants always help perpetuate those feeling).

To top it off...the kids come home tomorrow for nine days. Woo Hoo! Can't wait!

They Always Come Home

H-O-M-E. 

The sweetest four letter word in the world. Right?

And “home” means just about as many different things as there are people in this world.

For our family, it’s this red brick two-story place that holds all of our prized possessions.

Our memories.

Our photos.

Our holidays and birthday parties.

Where we’ve played games and cards, assembled puzzles, shared iPod playlists, and colored with crayons.

Snuggled watching movies, a stoked fire in the hearth.

Homework completed at the kitchen counter late at night; grumps waking for school the next day.

Bickering. To. No. End.

“Home” always has its arms open wide like a giant hug, doesn’t it?

And the definition changes when the kids go away to college.

Home then means:

“Is it okay that I brought my laundry with me?”

I say, “No problem! I’d love to wash five loads of filthy, stinky clothes for you and, hopefully, your sister brought home ten more! Because I LOVE LAUNDRY!”

And the can of worms is opened wide…

“Will there be leftovers for me to take back home?”

I say, “Of course there will be because I’m planning to cook all your favorite foods in abundance before your arrival. Actually, I’ve been preparing for days!”

“Thanks for dinner, Mom. What’s our plans for breakfast?”

AND “Can I have my friends over for a few hours, ‘cause I haven’t seen them in a long time? We’ll be quiet.”

“Can we go shopping? But if you don’t have time, I could just take the credit card.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you wanted to see me. I made plans. How ‘bout lunch tomorrow but after noon ‘cause I’ll need to sleep in…if that’s okay.”

When the weekend is over, squeezing them and nuzzling their necks, I think, “You smell sooooooo good.”

And your heart breaks when they say, “I have to be ‘home’ by 6:00. Can lunch please be early?”

Home means here.

Where I sit and wait for them.

Or so they think….

Home Is Where Your Peeps Are, Simple As That!

Stream of Consciousness Sunday- Five minutes so lets go! And don't touch a thing.

Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt: What is going home like for you? Do you still live in your same hometown? What kind of memories do you have associated with the place you grew up?

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I feel very differently about what “home” is now. More so than an other time in my life before.

I grew up about 5 miles from where we are now and we’ve lived in our village here for 20 years. That’s a really long time! I still go to the same mall, run errands at some of the same places, eat at some of the same restaurants, etc. (it's not as boring as it sounds, really!) It feels cozy to me.

Maybe I’ve gravitated to places that have the same cozy vibe. 

I grew up in a western suburb of Chicago that was set up into blocks and the streets were beautifully tree lined with the top branches arching overhead creating a cool shade for us all summer long as we played in the street. Everyone played outside from the moment the moms opened the screen doors until the bells started ringing for dinner.  when it got dark, the night games started kick the can, ditch and capture the flag. It was a pretty sweet way to grow up. Thinking about that feels like “home” to me.

Where we live now is very much the same, aesthetically for sure. Tree lined streets set up in blocks all feeding to the big park three doors from our house. Kids everywhere biking, playing hoops and messing around. Schools all within walking distance. It’s a cozy little existence tucked into one square mile, anchored by a tiny little town right on the train line to the city. We often call it Mayberry. It was a pretty sweet way to grow up for my kids. It feels like "home" to them.

Now for our dilemma...

Do you stay in the family house forever? The cozy “home” your kids have really only known. Or do you downsize and move towns to save money on the taxes that made this sweet community our home for 20 years?

We decided during date night last night….”Home” is wherever the four of us are. Simple as that.

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P.S. "Home" also includes two large Labs and the newest addition with whom I am currently obsessed. She's Henrietta and so fun to watch!

All Things Fadra

What's Wrong With Dumpster Diving?

Every summer since my kids were born, we’ve live at a lake, in the middle of nowhere from June through September. It’s where they really consider home.

Weekends were filled with family, friends and crazy times. When Sunday evening arrived, everything perfectly stilled and the next five days simply became moms and kids on the lookout for the next great adventure.

We discovered one, as some close friends were moving out of their fancy spread across the lake and, coincidentally, a dumpster appeared in their driveway right about that time. Always subscribing to the theory “One man’s junk is another’s treasure”, it was catnip to us.

At issue was the height of the dumpster… too tall to get a glimpse inside and no ladder in the vicinity. Deciding the best way to know what it contained was for someone to pop inside and take a look.

Assessing our options for scaling the side, we had two 8-year-old girlie cousins and my almost 6-year-old wannabe tough guy who wasn’t the biggest risk taker in the world. Where was my feisty daughter when we needed her? Summer camp?

We huddle up for a plan. “Matt, you’re going in.“ “Ok???” he said with a large dose of hesitation mixed with fright. “Take a look around. Give a shout and we’ll pull you out”.

Who does this to their kid?

After 2-3 minutes, he screams. “A Beeeeeee!!!! IT BIT ME!!!”

Fortunate for us (NOT), the next day we visited the pediatrician for Matt’s yearly check up. Giving him a pep talk before entering the office to ensure we were on the same page about his very swollen, bee bitten fat lip, we discussed the meaning of the word “confidence”. Between you and me, pal, “Got it!”

Dr. Froelich: “Matthew, what on earth happened to your lip?” “My mom and my aunt made me dumpster dive and I got bitten by a bee.”

Where's a good hole to crawl in when you need one?

Trifecta Writing Challenge

 confidence (noun)

3 a: a relation of trust or intimacy <took his friend into hisconfidence>

   b : reliance on another's discretion <their story was told in strictest confidence>

   c : support especially in a legislative body <vote ofconfidence> href="http://wrinkledmommy.com" >

Stream of Consciousness Sunday

How do you feel about where you live?

So Fadra’s Sunday Stream of Consciousness this week offered up a prompt…see above…and I decided to bite. 

I love where I live. I have lived in two homes in my community, each within 6 blocks of the other. It isn’t exactly the community we originally chose. We wanted to live in the town just to our east but 20 years ago, home prices were an issue and we bought a house within the same awesome school district, planning to move in a few years.

Well, 2-3 years turned into 8 years. We realized this is where we belonged and the allure of the "fancier" community no longer made sense...wasn't us. We set down our roots. 


Our first home, lived in a city condo prior, had the most incredible karma…the good vibes. I don’t know if it was because we were broke, made our own fun and began raising our children there. Maybe it was because all the families we met were exactly in the same spot.

We eventually sold this home to a family who still lives there 12 years later. We know them and they love the house. They actually heard, after they moved in and from another family, that our house had good karma. Maybe we told people how we felt, probably so.

My biggest concern when we built our current home 12 years ago, only 6 blocks away, was can we duplicate the same vibes. Will it feel like our home? How do you recreate something special, that feeling? My friends assured me that we would.

I always knew that it was those inside the house, not the house, that made the good vibes. We got it right. We made it home. We will never move again…unless it’s to downsize but who knows. It’s home. It smells like us (not gross), our kids love their beds, we host so many holidays and impromptu dinners here, we hang on our big front porch and neighbors stop by. We aren’t going anywhere, unless the kids move us to a nursing home.

The good vibes are here and so is the Karma!

Phew! A lot in five minutes but the topic was a breeze for me!!!