Home Is Wherever We Are if There's Love There Too

Like pretty much everyone else, we spent a LOT of time at home over the past year and a half.

And we’ve been thinking in earnest about what home means to us and what we’d like out home to be.

Our home is the place where we’ve hosted great dinners.

Jeera rice, mutter paneer, tandoori cauliflower, garlic-chili chutney, garlic naan, aloo bhujia, cilantro chutney and aloo tikki. If I cook for you, you’re probably gonna eat well.

It’s the place where we’ve raised Roxy and Indiana and learned that dogs truly do make a house a home….and straight up cover it in hair.

It’s the place where we’ve celebrated holidays and come to find comfort at the end of a long day.

It’s the place we first fell in love.

It’s the first place Will ever called home.

Since we’ve been together, we’ve made some minor changes.
We bought a king sized bed because two people, a 100lbs dog and a cat gets a little snug on a queen-sized bed.
We redid the hallway bathroom because the tile literally fell off the wall.
We built bookshelves and a truly excellent bar.

But we’ve never really done anything major.

Until now.

John and I started working from home during the second week of March 2020. We figured it would just be for a couple of weeks and then, things would be back to normal.

A year and a half later, we have an infant son, we are still working from home and the uptick in COVID numbers means we might be spending even more time at home.

We realized we were outgrowing our small home and considered moving but finding a home east of 95 with a pool and storage in our price range proved to be impossible as Palm Beach County housing prices are insane.

We love our neighborhood and figured if we’re going to be here for a while, our home should be exactly what we want it to be.

So, we’re building a new master suite, extending our living room, adding a little more storage to our kitchen and getting a pool.

The excavator crew came out yesterday and now, there is a giant pit in our backyard.

Indiana is utterly perplexed by this. “Uh, remember when you guys yelled at me for digging in the yard? The fuck is this, Mom and Dad?!”

But, I cannot wait to see his face when he realizes that we have a pool and that he can go “swim-swim” anytime he wants.

We have a lot of work to do and right now, our house is a sandy disaster but one day soon - our home will be the place we want it to be - a backyard with mangoes, coconuts and spicy Serrano peppers. A pool shimmering in the heat while a wet dog suns himself on the deck. A kitchen bubbling with the scent of buttery onions and cardamom. Bossa Nova, Bruce and Biggie on the stereo, bourbon and gin cocktails clinking with ice.

A place where our heart is. A place that truly feels like home.