The Home

"Our very nature demands home. It is the first essential element of our social being. This cannot be complete without home relations. There would be no proper equilibrium of life and character without the home influence. The heart bereaved and disappointed, naturally turns for refuge to home life. No spot is so attractive to the wary one: it is the heart's moral oasis. There is a mother's watchful love and a father's sustaining influence. There is a husband's protection and a wife's tender sympathy. There is a circle of loving brothers and sisters happy in each other's love. Oh what is life without these!"

The Home -- taken from The Royal Path of Life (1879)

Image credit:  Homestead Blessings

I have been enjoying the Homestead Blessings DVD's for a while now, I didn't have them all as it was not something that I could put into my budget, so I've slowly been building my collection and I just finished it this past weekend.

Even though I had already watched two or three of the DVD's, I couldn't help but go through and re-watch and enjoy the West Ladies all over again.  To say that watching these ladies is a blessing, would be an understatement.

I think in a way these ladies signify and embody all that I want to be and aspire to be when it comes to Homesteading and living off the land.

Simple, sweet, full of life and just adorable to boot, I always feel like I've known them forever when I'm watching their videos and they've taught me SO much, more than I can ever put into practice.  It makes me yearn even more strongly for a home of my own with some acres of land and veggie gardens and pastures and clotheslines in the middle of trees with the days washing flapping in the gentle breeze.

It's also made me stop and think that in this day and age when things are just so fast paced, we are moving towards an era where HOME is not really the epitome of family, of closeness, of safe haven.

"A haven of growth, quiet, and rest. The place where we love and are loved. Sadly, though, this kind of home is beginning to disappear as our busy society turns homes into houses where related people abide, but where there is no 'heart'."

 Why is it that so many of us homemakers have a problem admitting that we work at home, that we are stay at home mothers?  I used to feel that way, when someone asked me what it is I do, I immediately shied away and got nervous because I knew that there was no way of answering that question without some sort of look, of unsaid acknowledgment that what I was doing was not normal, not right.  

Then I realized that I am one of the few, one of a dying species, one of those still trying to hold on to old times and to simple things, to making sure that the home is still that safe haven where the family gathers at the end of a rough day, where you think of chicken soup and warm quilts, of soft candle glow, of homemade goodness, of simple times.  It's quite a realization when it hits you, and when it did for me, it catapulted me into this roller coaster of emotions but most of all it completely knocked me on my tush and made me realize that, hey, I'm not abnormal, I'm not a freak or a weirdo, I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, what I love doing, what I want to do for my husband and for my children and THAT is the best feeling in the world.

 I've often been told that being a homemaker means I'm succumbing to my husband and to the home, that I'm not my own woman, that I'm not independent.....frankly all I can do to that is laugh, and I mean laugh really hard.


I am where I want to be, I am doing what I love the most and yes, I'm independent and I'm my own woman, one thing does not take away from the other.

"A wise woman builds her home, but the foolish woman tears it down with her own hands" - Proverbs 14:1

I could go on and on but I won't, for I think that you all get the idea of what I'm trying to say.  Stop being ruled by what society thinks you should or shouldn't do, follow your heart, follow your instinct and put God and your family above others, live with them and for them and I promise you, you will live in happiness.

I love my home, if you were to walk into it you would see so many handmade items, so many corners that just scream cozy and family.  I don't do my daily chores with heaviness in my heart, I do them with joy in my soul. 

"Thank God, O women, for the quietude of your home, and that you are queen it it. Men come at eventide to the home; but all day long you are there, beautifying it, sanctifying it, adorning it, blessing it. Better be there than wear a queen's coronet. Better be there than carry the purse of a princess. It may be a very humble home. There may be no carpet on the floor. There may be no pictures on the wall. There may be no silks in the wardrobe; but, by your faith in God, and your cheerful demeanor, you may garniture that place with more splendor than the upholsterer's hand ever kindled." ---Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D