House to Home

There's a difference between a house and a home.

A house is simply the place you go at the end of the work day.

A home is where you live.

For me, several things change bricks, mortar, drywall, insulation, and wiring from a mere house into the comfort of a home.

The presence of my family, for instance...both the two-legged and four-legged.  When the cats moved over here first before the rest of us did, our old house became less home and more house without them there.  Our belongings.  My pillow (home is always where my pillow is).  Our decorations.  My books.

Our pictures on the walls.

Slowly, we're making this place ours.  It's not a weirdly empty shell, like it was before we moved in.  It's not Previous Owner's.  It's ours, and it's starting to look like it.  It feels like home.

The biggest signal that this is home has been getting the pictures on the walls.  As I unpacked the boxes of carefully wrapped framed pictures, my heart warmed as I remembered the moments these shots captured.

The Fries at the annual Ice Fest in our old town, sitting on a huge throne carved intricately out of massive blocks of ice.

Large Fry, caught in motion with my two-foot-tall Pooh Bear as she twirled and "skated" around the living room, mimicking the pairs figure skating on TV.

All three Fries at the living room window, in the first week they lived with us, looking outside.  It's still one of my favorite shots.

Pictures from last Easter.  Pictures from the two Easters before.  Pictures from the park.

Most of the pictures are in nice, cherry-stained frames.

But I have several pictures framed in sharp-looking metal frames, one with two openings and a ceramic inlay of baby booties.  That one holds pictures of all three Fries as newborns.  Long before they moved in with us, I wanted to have baby pictures of the Fries.  They're the early pictures of the Fries: all three when the twins were born, Large Fry in a sack-sleeper my mom made, Hubby with a four-month-old Large Fry, the first time we met her.

Hubby and Large Fry (4 months), Nov. 2005

These were still sitting out on the ottoman and the shelves, since most of them have velour backs and I didn't have a way to hang them up on the walls yet.

Large Fry bounced into the living room one afternoon while Hubby was in there and found them.

The next afternoon, she came up to me in the den, holding the framed picture of herself and Hubby.  "Mommy," she said, "Daddy said I have to ask you.  Can I have one of this picture for my room?"

I smiled at her and stroked her hair.  The photo didn't have a place on a wall yet.  "You can have that one to put that up in your room."

Her eyes lit up.  "Daddy!" she shouted as she scampered up the stairs.  "Mommy said I could have this one for my room!"

Tonight, as I tucked Large Fry into bed, I saw that picture, in its place of honor on top of her dresser, right next to her framed picture of herself with Poppa Nick (her buddy from our old church).  It's right where she can see it from her bed.

And I remembered.