No Place Like Home - The Real One

I love home. It's a pain to get me outta there on weekends. People think I'm weird because I can spend Friday nights, Saturdays AND Sundays at home and not want to go out. Naturally, people wonder what on earth I am doing there and why I like it so much.

This is unusual for a 23 year old, but I find a lot of satisfaction in household chores. And as long as I don't have to do them everyday, I actually enjoy laundry, ironing, cooking and cleaning. Since done quite sporadically, those chores take up a hefty chunk of time on my weekends. Other times I'll spend hours on the computer organizing and editing pictures. Mostly though I'll just be outside tanning and reading a good book. (Current read: Jane Eyre. Never read it in English..)

Confession time: I still live with my parents. (I guess this only makes the fact that I love staying home more shocking...) I've lived with them all the way through college to save on room and board, since the campus was only 5 minutes away. And I've chosen to live with them after I was done to pay off my college loans. (Success! I'm a year out from finishing college and have no student debt!)

Confession time: I've chosen to live with my parents because I like it. I've been blessed with parents who are easy to get along with and wonderful to talk to. Especially now, that I only come home to sleep during the week (if even), and don't get to spend as much time with them as before. Quality time during morning coffee out on the porch is the reason I haven't given up my addiction yet. And evening tea conversations have been known to last for hours into the night.

The word that many have used to describe our house is "cozy." Cozy comes naturally to my mom. I have always rebelled against her herding and mismatched style by decorating my rooms with simple, elegant, preferably black and white minimalism. But to tell you the truth, I've never spent much time in my rooms. I tend to gravitate towards my mom's rose garden and plush lawn in our backyard (perfect for tanning!)Or to the family room downstairs which is filled with everything our family identifies with: walls of shelves filled with books, a piano, stashes of cd's, and myriads of photographs with panoramic views of Riga (the city where my family is from.)

Home is the place where I reboot. It's a place where I find unconditional love and support. It's a place to slow down and just... be. Even if it's only for a day or two. I hope that when I get my own place this fall I will be able to create the same atmosphere of home that I have right now, but somehow I think it's not about the decorations and the things. It's about the people and the relationships. So I guess weekends will still be spent... home.