On Saturday we left home to travel to Wichita.  We made it to the state line before we received the phone call that everyone who was traveling was turning back to go home due to the white-out/near blizzard conditions on the roads.  We had already seen at least 5 vehicles go off the road and a couple of wrecks. 

We had to take some less-traveled highways back to my mom’s which was closer than our hometown.  By the time we reached mom’s house we had been on the road for three hours and had lost control and gone of the road once ourselves.  We spent the night at my mom’s in the tiny house I grew up in, rather than risk the 50 mile drive back to our house that night.

That night my husband and I slept in a full sized bed.  We have had a king sized bed since we moved into the new house in June.  Before that we had a queen sized bed for the first 7.5 years we were married and we had reached the point where we were fighting over space in the queen sized bed.  The king sized bed has literally saved us dozens upon dozens of fights since we got it–except that here lately Snoring Daddy has been accusing me of taking my half out of the middle when in fact its him doing it and letting the youngest crawl in on his side of the bed.

But that’s neither here nor there.

We didn’t sleep too well in that full sized bed, it was in my old bedroom–now my mom’s–and as I huddled under the covers in that cold cold house (heat comes from a floor furnace in the other room) and we listened to the trains running every few hours throughout the night I had to smile.  This is the home I grew up in.  It’s old, tiny, and a bit run down.  There is no central heat and air and mom only broke down and bought a window unit for air conditioning a few years ago.  But she still doesn’t run it the way she should.  It gets hot in the Summer and Cold in the winter.  When I came in from the cold I went to straddle the floor funace and soak in the waves of heat puffing up from below the floor.

Vigorous movement shakes the house, so no running or jumping or dancing is allowed in mom’s house.  She doesn’t have a shower, only a tub and it was a claw footed one when I was growing up.  I loved that tub.  I don’t take baths anymore because I can’t take a deep bath like I did in that tub.  And you can be heard clearly without raising your voice from any point in the house.  My old room was right next to the living room and I don’t know how Santa was able to leave his goodies every Christmas Eve without my hearing him.  Santa was extemely quiet that is for sure.

That old house I grew up in is so very different from the house I live in today.  It would fit inside this house nearly three times over.  But it’s still home as much as this new one that my husband has provided for us here.  And I’m so glad that my children can experience life in that small house on a regular basis and know that not everyone lives in a big house where you can scream from one end and not necessarily be heard from the other. 

Merry Christmas everyone and if you are traveling please be safe. 

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