Home Sweet Home

Thank God it's Friday the 13th and the close to a very pivotal week here in Brazil.

After full terminals, missing paperwork, bad translations, and even a truckers strike, we are finally getting our shipment on Monday. We were told from the beginning it would take a 2-4 months and Monday will be close to 5. The waiting has been more difficult lately, only because we were given false hope around Easter that our delivery would happen within the week. Every week since has been agony.

Needless to say, this weekend will drag by and the echo of the empty apartment will be deafening. To say it will be like Christmas is an understatement, as we have mostly forgot what we own and what it looks like. Every unwrapped item will be a little surprise and one step closer to making this place feel like home.

In all its' emptiness, I've come to appreciate this place more than any other I've lived in. I know every blemish on it's granite floors, every scratch in the wood and every nick on the bare white walls. We've been very happy here in the emptiness. I imagine we'll love it filled with our things. More importantly, we'll love it filled with our friends. It's been a little hard to entertain with 3 plates and a love seat. My first priority is hosting Happy Hour. Then our "house" will really feel like home.

Which brings me to our next big news. After a month long negotiation, long distance I might add, we secured a deal on a cottage in White Lake, MI, very near to where I grew up. Yes, we can now say we have a vacation home. Not only did we buy a house, we bought a house we have never seen other than in pictures. We fought to buy the house from the owners, who seemed to discourage us at every turn, but we really wanted the house. This is why.

When you move around like we do, you divide your memories amongst many different addresses. Family traditions have to change, Christmases are sometimes spent in hotel rooms, vacations are a series of different beds every few nights and memories get scattered on the map. I don't want that for our kids. I want traditions to stay the same, the reassurance that Santa knows where they are (and there's a chimney he can get down) and a comfortable room that feels familiar when home is far away.

When we realized we could do this for our family, we set out to find that perfect place to call our "home away from home". We never expected to buy a place sight unseen, but something told us we couldn't let this place go.

When the kids and I arrive in June, we will see it for the first time. A couple of days later, we'll hang our hats in our new place. It too will be empty for a while and I'll probably have time to appreciate it's flaws before they're buried in things. I can't wait to spend the summer making memories, traditions that'll be repeated every summer, and planning where we'll put the Christmas tree come December.

It will be the place we always come back to, our permanent "Home Sweet Home".

Oh and it's yellow (bright yellow inside and out), built in 1952, and it has a view, a lake view! I can't wait to put my feet in!