When you think of the word HOME and what it means to you I am willing to bet that either memories or feelings of some sort are what come to mind first.  Memories of your home where you grew up, memories of the home you and your spouse first lived in, memories of the home you brought your babies home to.  For some of you that home will your home for many, many years.  You’ll raise your children there, cry when they leave the nest, and joyfully welcome grandchildren to play in mom or dad’s old room.  But for military families, that house may only be a home for a short while before you move on, plant shallow roots, and then move on to the next place.  We learn not to get too attached to our surroundings as military families.  We learn to embrace awful wall paper (or murals as in one of our first homes) that you can do nothing about because it’s a rental, learn to love the stark white walls of base housing,  and you do the best with what you have because the Navy said move and you only had 6 weeks to find something decent.  But home isn’t the physical structure where you are.  Home is what you create.  This week’s prompt “what home means to me” made me think of two of my favorite home quotes: “Home is where your mom is” and “Home is where the Navy takes you” (feel free to insert other braches of the military for that one 🙂 ).  When I think of both of those places I think of comfort.  I love being back at my mom’s house.  I love the smell, the feel, the way it’s such a welcoming and relaxed place to be.  And as far as where the Navy takes us, I’ve done my best to make each house our own and to make it feel like a welcoming, comfortable place to be.  I want my my family and friends to feel comfortable here.  Home is where we can make a mess and not immediately clean it up.  Home is where we can stay in our PJ’s until lunch some days.  Home is a place we can be both at our best and our worst and no one judges us.  I chose this picture this week because I felt like it suited this assignment -boys playing, messy floor, and our sleepy dog looking on.  A somewhat typical day on Manassas Run 🙂 What does home mean to you?