One of the greatest things about home is that it’s, well, home. It’s got all of my stuff here. Even the stuff I no longer need. It has my two sweet kitties – my older, sweet “I run this house” girl and my little, playful “I’m not sure how to be a cat” boy. And now, again, it has my husband. Straight off of a two-week stint in New Orleans helping out his parents, we are back to this little homestead and this little plot of land.
When I decided to leave the regular confines of an office and work from home, this was one of the things that most appealed: home. It’s quiet here – I’m the loudest thing here with maybe the sometimes exception of a cat. It’s calm here, again with the exception of me and the cats. And it is so comforting here.
Very deliberately, I’ve steeped my life in traditions. I’ve carried over some of the traditions we had growing up, added in some of the traditions of my husband and we’ve made our own traditions. It’s part of what wraps home up in so much comfort. For example, we always watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” because it’s my absolute favorite Christmas show. My husband makes turkey gumbo every Thanksgiving. And our newest holiday tradition? Well, that would be cat decorating. It’s our own special holiday when we make homemade margaritas and put elf ears on Meadow and this year a Santa hat and beard on Twister. We take pictures, laugh and then spend the next few days apologizing to our cats.
But last night, I stumbled upon one of those rarities. An old tradition that both of our families had that can become a new tradition for us. You see, growing up we both had nut bowls that were fashioned from a tree limb with the bark on the outside. In the middle, there was the peg that held the nutcracker and the picks. Darryl’s family had pecans in theirs; we had walnuts in ours. My mom always broke out the nut bowl around Halloween/Thanksgiving and it stayed pretty much full until after Christmas. Now, being the slightly crunchy and healthy-diet focused people we are, an old-fashioned nut bowl seems like a good idea. And so today, as I go through my work-from-home typical day, I’ve got another fun task on my “to do” list: Go find a nostalgic nut bowl.
It seems the older I get and the more modern my life becomes, these throwbacks to how I used to live become so much more valuable to me. The reconnect me and ground me to who I am and from where I came. In this very fast-paced world, it is so darned easy to lose that focus. Even as I have slowed my life down and started to focus more on the truly important things in life, I still find myself struggling to stay connected to the things that bring me joy and comfort. A nut bowl, as silly as it seems, is a physical reminder of what is important. It’s that gentle little nudge I sometimes need to remind me that life isn’t about work or grinding out a task as hard as I can, it’s about the simple moments in this simple house and in living this simple lifestyle.
So, after I find my night bowl today, I’m also going to plan a calm and relaxing evening with my husband. Some Greek chicken salads for dinner, a fire in the fireplace, a glass of wine and kitty intro time. Nothing fancy and certainly nothing that many would find all that entertaining. But it’s home. It’s comfortable. And in the end? It’s all I ever need.
The Yuppie Homesteader 