Turning My Heart Toward Home

It's Fall Nesting Week at The Inspired Room. I've been thinking alot about decorating and feeling a bit stressed about getting it done so that I could share my photos and ideas and be part of it all. This week at work, they laid a few people off in a cost saving measure. It really took it's toll on the morale of the office. I work for a very small company that grew smaller. I'm confident we will bounce back but it hurt just the same. It made me want to go home.

Isn't that what nests are? Home? I am an avid bird watcher. I don't know their names or even their practices but I am keenly aware of them. The nest is a place of security. After a day of searching for food (work) birds return back to their place in the trees, or under the brush, or where ever the nest happens to be. Babies are hatched and reared in the nest until they take their first tentative flights and finally, at last, they fly away.

Nesting to me isn't so much about decorating as it is about having a haven. A place to land; a sanctuary in the storm. Nesting is about creating an atmosphere of peace. Oh, I have some little vignettes lined up to make things pretty. Mostly I want to make some spice cupcakes, vacuum, and wait for my husband to return home from work. We'll have dinner and discuss our day.

I grew up with a tumultuous home life. Divorce and near-poverty kept us moving, eventually away from my mother. Mom has a big picture of "The Gathering of the Clans" framed in oak. She rescued it from the trash when she was eight years old. Wherever that big picture hung, no matter how frightful, that was home. The Gathering of the Clans was a touchstone for what we held dear--being together.

My fall decorating will get done as time and energy permits. But nesting? Nesting is my dearest goal. At the end of a busy day, when I am tired and ready to find a place of rest, my heart turns toward home.