Not a Catalog House

I live in a Home.  I have to laugh sometimes when I see people put pictures on their blog of what they envision there home to look like.  A home is a home not a house.  I think of a catalog house as something not lived in.  Tell me how it's possible to have a Home like the pictures you see in catalogs. Are those really homes in those pictures?  Where do you find one like that.  If you do find the Catalog Home are there actually people living there?  Really living there?  

I think for too long I might have coveted a catalog home.  Thinking it was a reality.  A place that would stay clean and beautiful.  A place where, if the doorbell rings, there is no mad dash of a cleaning frenzy to pick up the stray bits of whatever was just destroyed or tracked in the home from outside.  A place where the pictures on the wall never need straightening or dusting.

As time has come and gone I've realized something.  My home is beautiful.  Maybe not so clean.  But, it's a Home.  People are living here.  Really living and breathing.  Laughter constantly rings out through the air.

Battles take place and little ones charge to and fro; conquering and destroying all the obstacles in their path.  Leaving a maze of destruction and noise behind them.

Oh yes, the face of a warrior is present and the house isn't a house it's a home.  Complete with sound effects and battle cries!

Complete with little fairy girls knocking there brothers upside the head with plastic bags loaded with nonsense.  Yes, our house is a home.  Certified and true.  If I try to make it perfect than where is the life?   As a friend once said to me, "Where there is a mess, there has been life!" I love that saying and it helps me to remember life abounds and messes are just a part of it.  Can you imagine a picture like the one above, with a plastic bag getting ready to plop the baby in the back of the head in a catalog?  That would be funny, but then I would want the story that goes along with it... and you can only find that in a home.