Ever since we have been married, we have always tried to live an “Open Heart, Open Home” mentality. We have been blessed many times over for it.

We like to share our home, our family, with others who are seeking a little taste of “large (rather raucous) family life”. We play games, listen to music, eat popcorn, dance and just enjoy one another.

The house is not always clean. My cupboards need help. If I waited to invite people over when the house is perfect….well, you know the end of that story. So I try not to sweat the small stuff and have learned to humbly admit I haven’t got it all together in every aspect of my housecleaning abilities. Nobody seems to mind. They keep coming back! 🙂

My mom has reminded me through the years that people are more important than things. It’s a good lesson to learn.

It is a beautiful thing to be able to take part in the recreation and the friends that our kids like to have around. It is family-friendly activities and we, as parents, watch over and take part in the fun!

I just mentioned to my daughter, Rosie, who is still at home, that it is quite amazing that my newly married daughter and son-in-law’s favorite pastime is to come over to Mom and Dad’s and play board games! It makes me smile. 🙂

From Emilie Barnes:Simple Secrets to a Beautiful Home: Creating a Place You and Your Family Will Love

The Meaning of Home

Why is a “welcome home” lifestyle so important?

I truly believe we all need a spiritual center, a place where we belong. A place where we can go to unwind and regroup and get in touch with who we truly are… and then reach out to share with others.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a physical location.

Home is as much a state of the heart and spirit as it is a specific place.

Many a person living on the road has learned to “make herself at home” in hotel rooms, other people’s houses, or wherever she finds herself.

And yet… just as our spirits require physical bodies to do God’s work here on earth, most of us need a physical place we can call home.

And we have the privilege of making the place where we live into a welcoming refuge for ourselves and others-a place where simplicity and beauty can find a foothold in our lives. This kind of home doesn’t take a lot of money or even a lot of time. (I’ve seen it done by stay-at-home moms and high-placed executives and even a just-graduated bachelor or two.)

It doesn’t require a professional’s touch in decorating or cooking or home maintenance.

It can certainly be clone without a maid.

What a welcoming home does require is a caring and willing spirit-a determination to think beyond bare-bones necessities and to make room in our lives and schedules and budgets for what pleases the senses and enriches the soul.

Most of all, it requires an “I can” attitude, a confidence that we have something to share and the ability to share it.

Besides, a refuge is not a hole where you disappear to eat and sleep and then emerge to go about the business of life.

A welcoming home is where real life happens.

It’s where personalities are nurtured, where growth is stimulated, where people feel free not only to be themselves but also to develop their best selves.

That caring, nurturing quality-not the absence of noise or strife-is what makes a home a refuge.

Like Finer Femininity on Facebook