We’re beginning to enter our new normal.

I think.

We’re buckling down to school this week and our Meadowlark Collective begins this week and there is not a single unpacked box inside of our home.

Woah now.  Hold on.  Keep the admiration to a minimum.  It’s semantics here, folks.  That’s all I’m using.  True.  There is not currently one single unpacked box inside of our house.  And for that – all the rejoicing.  It feels more regular.  Not chaotic.  But there are gobs and piles of furniture and unpacked boxes inside our barn here.  (Barn? Shed? Garage?  I’ve debated all the names.  I think our friends called it a shed when they lived here.  Some of the kids have been calling it a garage.  But barn is a word I like and it sort of suits there too.  So, whatever.  I’ll call it a barn today.)  Anyway – that’s where all the extra stuff is precariously stacked high currently.

And I am grateful for that.  So. Very. Thankful for the barn/shed/garage.  I’ll unpack a box or so each day as I can handle it now and that’s a wonderful chance to slowly purge again and to see what actually fits.

Friday night I was alone in my own house for the first time for a few hours.

It was peaceful and quiet and tidy.  A comfort, really.  And one that I deeply needed.

I thought about the two YEARS I spent trying to find a house for my family.  Visiting so many other homes.  Putting an offer on at least three of those homes.  And not having my offer accepted on any of those houses.  I thought about how I dragged my feet on this particular home.  How I basically said to God, “No, thanks.  I have other plans.”  How I legitimately really felt like I would have actual other plans.

And how this plan kept working out.

Tiny bit by tiny bit.

Fast forward to last Friday night, and me literally running the short length of my own house, arms in the air, skipping as I ran (this part is for real accurate) and saying out loud to myself all alone in my own home, “I love this house.  I love MY house.”

Because I do.

I love the clean gray walls.  (Dorian Gray because how can a literary nerd resist that color shade?)  I love the openness from room to room.  I love my bright sunshiny bedroom with a real headboard and a foot board and I love my own bathroom.  I love my neighbors and the basketball goal in our driveway.  I love that the air conditioning does its task in every single room of the house and nothing here smells like Old.  I love that my world map covers up my TV just like I had hoped it would and that two different people in my life were gracious enough to hang both map and TV for me since my skill set does not include attaching items securely to walls.

I’m grateful that God knew what was good for me and my kids.  That a path He wanted for us was being laid out more than two years ago.  That He provides even small joys and sustains us in gigantic ways as well.

The Saturday when loads of friends were here helping us finish details – building bunk beds for the girls, tearing down brick walls for future renovations, carting loads of stuff from the old house, wiping down walls and floors in the former place and unpacking boxes – I pulled my Yukon up the barn and we unloaded a pile of stuff.  I set my phone on the back of the car – on that high bumper.  Then a friend offered to go get another load from the house in my car.  I tossed him my keys and said thank you.

About eight minutes later I remembered, “Oh.  My phone.  It’s on the bumper of my car.  That Travis just drove on curvy backroads.  That’s unfortunate.”

But guess what?  Like a miracle that just fell in line with so many other Saturday miracles, when Travis and his friends returned with a load of belongings, my phone was in his hand, unscathed despite its potentially fatal excursion.  “Look what we found on the bumper,” he said.  He also said it was a testament to his seventeen year old driving skills.  Of course, we all know it’s a testament to something even more impressive than that.  (Although props to T-Dawg, because those skills served me well.)

The point is, it is a miracle that my family was moved with all of our possessions from one location to another.  A miracle to have so many friends help us carry all the heavy stuff of our lives – yes, I mean both figuratively and literally.  A miracle that God arranged this house in this timing for my family.  A miracle that I am in love with a brick ranch after a lifetime of farmhouse dreaming.  A miracle that every one in our house is also in love with our new home.

Which, has a name, by the way.

(Of course it has a name.  Don’t you know us at all?)

It was not my idea, this new name for our new house.

It came from the kids, London in particular on this one.

From a quote in a Harry Potter book.

Harry comes to visit Ron at Ron’s home.  Harry has lived a life where he is neglected, abused and completely overlooked.  His home life is dismal and there is no love for him in it.  Ron lives in a small home that’s had rooms added here and there.  It’s perhaps a little . . . . lived in . . . but it’s bright and warm and inviting and full of comfort and welcome.

When Harry arrives there for the first time, Ron says to him, “It’s not much, but it’s home.”  And Harry responds, “I think it’s brilliant.”

And London felt that quote was perfect.  And so do I.

When London suggested we name our new happy home after the Weasley family’s happy home, how I could resist?  A literary reference?  A praise of cozy and inviting?

Yes.

The Burrow it is for us too then.

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