saturday afternoon

slept in today. continuing to organize, organize, and organize - everything from old papers, to bills, to various house things, to the various articles cluttering my room. i am an organizing machine. i'll have to take a nap soon.

we've had several different people stay in the house this month. the bywaters family from virginia (a rowdy bunch, let me tell you), 2 recently graduated-from-college girls from toronto who are considering regent, and a middle-aged couple from boise idaho who are also thinking of attending regent. also some dear friends who just graduated from regent last month came back to visit, which necessitated the barbecue celebration/reunion. tonight, and an old college friend and her husband are also stopping through on the way up to whistler. phew. it's been a full house - seems like we ought to put a revolving door in.

but it's all good. it's great to have people over, makes the house feel more lived in, and welcoming. which was what got me started thinking the other night. i think the word "house" refers mainly to the actual physical structure of the place in which i live. in the house there's the living room, several bedrooms, a bathroom a kitchen and a basement. i sleep there. i make food there. we watch tv. i will live in many different houses in my lifetime. when i first moved in here, and the place was mostly empty, save for some hand-me-down furnishings from friends, the place was just a place, a house.

after a month, after hosting people, after laughing and talking with friends on the deck or in the living room, after finding a free couch and rocking chair on craigslist (and getting a free tv in the deal, also), after discovering what the various mysterious light switches activate (and there are many of those), i am more willing to call this place home. discovering what kind of atmosphere we can create here for friends, for ourselves, how we interact with each other ... this is what goes in to making a house a home, and each home i live in during my life will be unique. i am growing roots here, as i have been for the past two years at regent in vancouver, and will continue to do so until i leave (in a year - yikes!)

i stumbled over an old journal entry the other night, in which i am considering what kind of home i would like to have. it was back in january before i knew i was going to live in a community house/home. funnily enough, the physical characteristics i considered - like a deck, bbq, fireplace (gas, no less) are here. and the intangible things - like welcoming atmosphere, laughter, good cooking smells, nights of good conversations with friends... those are here too. good stuff.