Not a house, but a home

When JP and I first started thinking about living somewhere other than Charlottesville, I was scared.  We had prayed that God would provide for me to be able to stay at home with Eli, but my *real* prayer was "let me stay home, here, in Charlottesville, around my friends and family, in our townhouse".  God was faithful - he provided JP with paid tuition and a small stipend, the house sold in 17 days, and the money that we had saved thinking we'd have to pay for school was available for living expenses.  God, had answered our prayer - but not in the way I had secretly hoped.  I was going to get to stay home, but not in the home we had come to know and love.  We would have to move.

Once we found out we were moving to Charlotte, we began looking for housing options in the area around JP's school.  Initially, we had hoped to be able to rent a house.  We knew it'd have to be a smallish one, but hoped for detached walls and a place that could be "our own".  However, we soon realized that we wouldn't have that option.  On our graduate student/stay-at-home mom budget, a small apartment was all we could afford.  So we signed a lease.

Up until we moved, and for a short time after, I was really grouchy about it.  I didn't say much to JP, or to anyone else, but inside I was down.  It seemed like while everyone else was making the transition from apartment, to starter home, to dream house, we were going in the opposite direction.  We had owned our own place, a townhouse that we loved, and now we were renting an apartment - that we didn't love - in a place we didn't even *really* want to be.

We settled in quickly with the help of family and friends, and my husband, in his usual fashion, had every picture hung on the day after he moved in.  Though the walls couldn't be painted, they were adorned with the same pictures, canvases and shelves that had graced our place at 1948 Tudor Ct.  When I did our first grocery run in the new place, my dad bought me fresh flowers, which I put in a vase on our dining room table.  We worked hard at making the little apartment a home.

And now, five months later, it truly HAS become a home.  In fact, I sometimes feel like this is more of a home than any place we have ever lived in.  It is as spacious and well decorated as our townhouse?  No.  Is it in a place we love as much as the one we moved from?  Certainly not.

But, in this home, my son and I spend most of our days.  In this place, I am less tired and weary from putting 100% of my time and energy into my job and coming home barely running on empty.  In this apartment, I am much more focused on my husband and my son, giving them as much of myself as I can give.  I am able to spend the time and effort on them that I simply wasn't able to do before, and I love it.  Even though in many ways it has been hard, I know that I wouldn't go back if I could.  Not for a second.

There are still days I get on Pinterest and see pins under "our home" where people have selected colors of flooring, paint for the walls and furniture for rooms.  Sometimes, I am tempted to become jealous and long for those things myself.  I do hope, one day, for a little house of our own where we can (hopefully) put down some roots.  However, for now, I will enjoy this little apartment, and the time I spend with my family inside it's walls.  It may not be a house, but it is our home.  And I am grateful for it.