What puts the heart in HOME?

What makes you just absolutely love your home? Maybe, what makes you absolutely not love your home? And I can’t tell you what it is, no matter how many real estate, listing specialist, continuing education courses I sit through. There are market trends, but your home is and should be just as personal as you are. It’s kind of like the genie in Aladdin…”I can’t make anybody fall in love!”

Once upon a time, the magic word was curb appeal. The way the home looked from the street was what sellers spent money fixing up in order to get top dollar for their home. But what if you plant holly bushes by your door and the seller is allergic to them? That money was not well spent. An absolute must that you can’t argue your way out of is that it MUST be clean and polished. The grass is cut, the bushes trimmed, the trash removed, and the house looks clean. Even if that means you should hire a professional service to do those tasks. It will not sell for top dollar if it is dirty!

Interior choices are equally up to your opinion. Do you need to paint over the orange dining room? Not necessarily! If you can do it inexpensively, then by all means, get that nasty color off the wall! But if it’s not in your budget or your mental capacity, for that matter, then it will be okay. Do you need to take down all your family photos? That depends on if they all look neat and tastefully set out. I like to discuss showing on a case-by-case basis. It’s much more about being neat and tidy than it is about being blank and generic.

As far as what really makes you love your home…

For some it may be location. Being close to where you work lowers your stressful commute. Being close to family regardless of where you work can increase your happiness. Being close to your favorite place to visit, walk, eat, etc. can also increase your happiness. Maybe it is the things in your home that make you love it. Spending valuable, intentional time choosing the furniture surrounding you can increase your comfort, even if a floor plan is not exactly what you had hoped. Hiring a designer, like my hubby, to create the environment you desire can increase your happiness, whether through color, comfort, or lay out.

Or could it be the people/things in it? Living in a home with people or animals (or even plants) can really increase your ability to feel comfort. Sometimes, as with my own kids, it momentarily increases your stress! But over the course of time and adjustment, the act of understanding that people, even little ones, have their own space, deserve the respect of that space, and contribute to the energy in that space can significantly increase that amount of joy and positive energy contained in the space. Even animals and plants create an energy that can be positive or positively draining. The energy in your home is controlled by you. Creating a positive energy may require some work, but there is always a way!

Home is where your heart is! That might mean your family or it might mean your plant or it might mean your prized possession.What I am entranced with is how it means something different for every family. I truly value that individual ness of every persons definition of home. As humans, we are so different from the next, and yet so very much the same. We all search for comfort and happiness. It is the definition of those that truly change on a person to person basis. Whether it is the outside, the inside, the people, the animals, the objects or the simple existence, something about HOME should bring you JOY.

Heart Breaks

You learn how to deal with heart breaks. Sometimes it’s when hours of training seems to have evaporated into thin air in two seconds. But always it is when we outlive the ones we love the most.

Consider your life span. My goal is to be as cool as my Grandma who lived to be 93. If so, that’s enough time to outlive an average of 8-10 pets, assuming I only have one at a time, and very few people are capable of that. There are some that become part of our souls, whether because they are around so long or exist at a time that’s so important. And some we don’t even realize we will miss until we do. I wonder if it’s worth it often. Do I really want to live through that heart break over again in a few years? Is it worth my tears to have spent all of that time and energy and emotion  and power and money on them? Do they really value it? Do I really need it? Does it make any difference for them or me?

The answer is yes! To all of them…yes!

This is a story about Kate…

Kate is not a sweet little girl to most. She came to the rescue at about 1 year old, maybe 2.  I was in the middle of a terrible divorce and ugly custody battle. I had nothing to my name. I barely had a job, barely could pay rent, barely could feed myself and my kids. My best friend, who knows me better than anyone, called one day and said, “you should foster this cat.” She’s crazy, literally. My best friend and this cat! I wasn’t a very sweet girl then either.

I pick her up at a storage facility, where the rescue gives me everything I will need, litter box, food bowls, etc, because I am too poor to buy any of it. We are fine. She meets the kids. She is fine. My 6 year old carries her around like a football. She is fine. On a Saturday, I put her in a carrier and take her to an adoption event. She is fine. Person number 1 walks over to pet her and she turns into a she-devil that will tear you to shreds and eat you from the inside out. We try every Saturday, at great sacrifice to many because of work schedules, school schedules, custody days, and crazy ex-husbands. She literally bites at least two people a day. They have to put a sign on her kennel that says CAUTION! At home, my six year old still carries her around like a football and she couldn’t care less. Finally the rescue calls and says, “would you like to make Kate a part of your family?”

“Oh, no! I can’t afford the adoption fees!”

“Oh! We’ll waive those. Please just don’t bring her back to an adoption event.”

What?! Seriously?! I don’t want a cat! I can’t even feed myself every day of the week!

Five years later she is the matriarch of this crazy farm life we lead. She is  the OG, seriously, Original Gangster! She will allow you to pet her, purr sweetly while you do, then attack your ankle viciously while you walk away. When her bowl is empty at night she gets on the headboard and throws whatever item she can find on your head to wake you up. She has taught 1 crazy, stray hound dog how to live with a cat, and 1 cute, baby kitten how to survive a tough sisterhood. She explained to an outdoor OG the difference between life on the inside and life on the outside. She relished her peace and quiet when we were all away on vacation. She hid in a few pocketbooks, boxes, and drawers. She sometimes made a break for it out the door, but soon realized how stupid that idea was. And always let mommy love her, even if she completely disagreed. Because for some reason Mommy was always different.

And then today she is diagnosed with a non-curable, non-diagnosable, non-treatable condition called FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitis. The fluid around her lungs can be removed, but it will come back. The fluid in her abdomen can be tapped, but it will come back. The mass in her intestines is likely not cancerous but can’t be fixed. She is dehydrated and will need IV fluids. Her breathing is labored so an oxygen kennel will be needed. So IV fluids, oxygen tank kennel thingy, syringes of fluid from her chest and abdomen for this original OG, ‘I’d rather bite you than look at you’, precious little girl who may or may not have kept me alive through the roughest part of my life…  Only to extend her days on this Earth for maybe a week? No thanks, she said. I’m good. I got you through when you needed it. Now you can get me through this. We straight.

And just like that, heart broken.

If you know anything about trauma, you know that healing from it is a very long process. You don’t look at how far you’ve come in 10 years and say that’s that. I, at least, remember every day of those horrible years. Time doesn’t fly when you are being abused and scared. Some counselors have called it PTSD, and I get that. But now, when I remember them I am hurting for what they were and for the little ball of kitty fur that walked me through it. I will miss my little gangster. And I would keep her over and over, even knowing today how much it hurts. Maybe, we are the ones worth it, those of us that save them. We deserve the love and care they give us. Maybe it is their job in this universe to remind us that we deserve love and snuggles and little sandpaper kisses. And maybe we needed to know that. I needed to know that I was worth it.