Charlotte

Have you ever taken the time to really watch a spider make it's web?

We had a spider right outside our kitchen window and it was inevitably reconstructing it's web every day.....EVERY day. I don't understand why, at the same time every morning it was busy making a new web, but it was. One morning I was doing the dishes from the night before and realized "she" was hard at work. I literally stopped what I was doing and watched her continue around her web a few times. The web was by no means a small web. It took up the whole side of the window. Around and around she went. Slowly allowing her web to come out of her small body, and then use one of her legs to attach the delicate web exactly where she wanted it. I was astounded. I couldn't stop thinking about how hard she was working and how quickly her work could be destroyed. Not only was she building her home, she was producing the material it was constructed of.

 I can't say I've ever done that myself.

I do know it takes a lot of work to make a place a home and to have everything exactly in it's rightful place. As the years have gone by Nick and I have had to move a few times. During the moving process we have acquired different things and we have also lost some. Though possessions come and go, the feeling of "home" has to be created. When we first arrived in Bremerton, our house did not feel like home at all. It was a shell with all our possessions inside. Nick and I seriously loathed going back to that place when we left for the store or when to visit someone. I am happy to say we've found a house that feels more like home. I say more like home because the house on Belvedere Drive was home. We have had many a conversation about what made it home and we can't quite put our finger on it. Maybe it was that it was our home because we "owned" it, or maybe it was because it was the place where so much of our foundation was established. Whatever it was, we will find it again.

There has been much conversation in our lives now about moving. So much is in the air and it's hard to even start to think about home. We have to make some choices about the places we think we'd like to go and the places we don't think we'd like to go. My heart is calling me back to the east coast, as is Nick's. We just have to roll the dice and see where the journey takes us. We've tossed around the idea of buying a house if we are stationed in Seattle again. It's not like we want to end up here in the end (maybe we do and we don't know it yet) but there is something special about buying a house. There's always the option to buy where we move to, but we may not be as lucky as when we were in Rochester and end up liking the place. At least here we know we don't HATE it.

Charlotte is a topic of discussion for Kailey and I every morning. We haven't seen her in a few days, which makes me sad, but her friend Philip is in the front window now and we watch him all the time (he also has been reconstructing webs now and again). He's really great at catching all the bugs. If only Kailey knew how special these moments are to me and how much she makes my world a home; a warm place filled with laughter and love. I'm glad I get to take her with me when we move!