Home Life - Sponsored by the Mrs.

Mornin' Family,

Oh how sweet it is! Today, I'll lay out my To Wishin' for the nest I'll design for me, my husband and our children. I see it so clearly.

By the way, it was just today, don't you know, that I articulated the effect certain images have on me. They foster the seeing and To Wishin.' When I'm in need of such, I seek images from Urban Home, the Great Outdoors, and websites with homes for sale. Leave a comment letting me know how they affect you.

One image can lead to hours of imagining, which, in turn, lead to hours and hours of writing. Pictures of homes and lovely decorated spaces touch me deeply within my soul. AH HA! That's why I love me some HGTV!! I'm reminded how much I'm entitled to my inheritance as a human child of God.

Fit for a king and his first family, there's a delicately designed dining room table where connection take place. Our living room is quiet and calm, inviting guest to take a load off. All who enter always feel free. My husband is guaranteed respect and adoration, trust and a loyal following.

For the most part, tap dancing on our bamboo hardwood floors is not forbidden, that is, if homework is finished, and it's raining outside.

My toes revel in the family room's plush carpet. My personal favorite is the easy-t0-vacuum Berber carpet in our entertainment room. We spend lots of time here running around barefoot with no agenda. Few rules are allowed since goofing off is mandatory. Shelves nearly overflow with Outburst, Life, Memory and Monopoly. It's a Saturday so my family and in-laws are over. As was in my childhood, we turn over a recycled Rubbermaid© bin and play Caroms. Poor me... I most quickly tire of winning consecutive round after round. Poor my husband... He insists we put it away and watch movies. I bid for the St. Louis Blues and the kids demand endless Disney Pixar flicks. Dad-in-law vacillates between a nap and a shoot-'em-up Western. We'll toss a coin.

Come closer. You're liable to hear Mozart or Verdi during study time, Hip Hop on Saturdays (especially when WE'RE cleaning the house), Gospel on Sundays, and everything in between every other day.

You hungry? Let me make you a snack of organic apple slices dipped in fresh almond butter. Then, for your potable pleasure, I suggest my famous acai banana smoothie.

We'll have two nights per week of guaranteed connections. Yes, your life too, can be proactively designed so that relationships work because built-in, is their nurturing and feeding.

The date night is exclusive time with my husband. Before the kids, we'll eat out, go to the movies, and, well, you know. After the kids, we'll do the same, except enter the sitter fund. We'll work out a deal with close-knit family and friends.

Family night commences once the kids come along. It's one night per week (from 6pm until) that we all stay home; no church, no work, no soccer practice and no visitors. We do it justice by just us.

The date night came to me via an older couple I met on a cruise. Although total strangers, I reckoned them comrades ready to spare me trouble by imparting life lessons. I asked, among other things, how long they'd been married. The secret to their 35-year matrimony was a commitment to regular time alone. They didn't discuss kids, nor the plumbing. Their focus was each other. "Rain or shine, or even if arguing like cats and dogs," the wife confessed, "we'll still fellowship every Friday night."

The best part about all of this is that I'm single...Excited to date the man who'll be my partner in procreation, progress, and the propagation of purpose. It's not about my Tacori size 6 blinding platinum ring in princess cut. Oh no! It's much deeper than that. It's about deliberate healing for the past 2 years. It's about discovering who I am and what I have to offer. Now, from my man, I receive all that's in him to complement me.