Home Sweet Home

After Tristan's post about what home is to him, I figured I would write on the same theme. This past weekend we actually got to go to my home and visit my family for the first time in a long time. I love going home but I don't get to do it very often. It can be hard to get consecutive days off and I try to work with Tristan's schedule. Last week, our schedules aligned and it worked out that both of us, and my sister as well, were able to go home to visit my parents for the weekend.

It might sound awful, but when I think of home, one of the first things I think about is food. My mom is an amazing cook and she goes out of her way when anyone is visiting. She always warns us before we eat that "it might not be as good as usual", but it's always delicious. Tristan and I love to cook too, so we all had a part in most of the meals. One that was particularly good was cajun pasta with grilled shrimp. My mom makes the most wonderful honey-lime shrimp. It's a simple recipe including shrimp, a drizzle of honey, fresh lime juice, and Old Bay seasoning.

This is the good stuff.


My mom prepared the shrimp and Tristan and I were in charge of the pasta and sauce. We did a basic parmesan cream sauce with cajun spices and linguini pasta.

This is Tristan's cajun seasoning.


I also prepared a fruit and cheese plate that turned out pretty well. It consisted of an edible honeycomb square from Savannah Bee Company, a parmesan block, sharp white cheddar, dried figs, apple slices, fresh pears, herbed ricotta with rosemary, thyme and mint(all from my mom's garden), my mom's homemade wheat bread and sesame crackers. It was neat getting to try different pairings and discovering how everything tasted together. I would definitely do this again.

The food is great, but the best thing about going home is just getting to spend time with family in the house I grew up in. Walking into my home, with it's familiar smell, the excited barks of our black labs and the memories that live inside those walls, always makes me so happy. Life here in Orlando is busy and hectic, but when I'm home I feel like I can breath easy again.

I love my parents so much and every time I get to go home I'm reminded just how much I've missed them. It makes me sad to imagine living somewhere far away from them. I don't know where we'll end up living, but wherever our travels take us I want them to end close to family. It's in God's hands so what will be will be. I just know I have the most caring and the smartest father who knows everything there is to know about politics, history, art and literally anything in between. And I have the most generous, loving, hardworking, crafty mother who will do anything for anyone and has the skill and talent of Martha Stewart and Bob Vila combined. I didn't make it easy for them, but they stuck with me and loved me when I didn't deserve it. I am so grateful for the sacrifices they've made and for their love.

So I'll wrap this up by saying that to me, home is where your loved ones are. I guess that means I have many different homes. I have a home here in Orlando, with Tristan and my sister. My sister and I have been through a lot. She was my very first best friend and it's good to know that we'll always have each other. Tristan moved here so that we could be close and I love him dearly. I'm grateful to God for giving me someone who is so understanding and patient. I have a home in Kentucky where my extended family lives. I wish I could see my cousins and aunts and uncles more often. And I have my parents' home, the house I grew up in, where I have a puppy named Bear, a sweet old dog named Haley, and the most wonderful mother and father I could hope for. I pray that I never take any of these people for granted and that they know just how special they are to me.


-Laura Leigh

Home

Home. It is a word that can take on many shapes and forms if you ask someone what it means to them. October has been an interesting time for us, me in particular, as in regards to "home".

Let me rewind a bit before I go into what the past few weeks has been like. Home for the first 22 years of my life was Rome, and all the people there. Family, Connect Rome, Berry, WinShape all made it home for me. I am firm believer that home is where the heart is and my heart was undoubtedly in Rome thanks to all the people there. That was until God brought Laura into my life. In July of 2010 my heart landed me in Orlando and, whether I liked Orlando or not, it became my home.

And so here we are, October of 2011. To start this month Laura and I traveled to Rome to spend time with family and friends. It was a great trip. Of course we didn't get to see everyone we would have liked, but all the same we saw a lot of people and had a great time. I love going back to Rome because in so many ways it will always be home to me.

Fast forward a week and I receive an e-mail from a old college professor. She tells me the Rome/Floyd YMCA is looking for a Wellness Director. Now this would be THE job I would have if I was to work a the Rome Y. Of course my mind starts spinning...

"Laura is taking all online classes this semester, maybe she can do that next semester too...we could go ahead and move back to Rome and she could finish her UCF degree there...and so on..."

I definitely spent some time romanticizing about life back in Rome. But then the thought struck me,

"If I get this job, and we move back there, what happens to all the Switzerland/Kenya plans we have been making?"

Thus we had a dilemma. Pursue this job opportunity back in Rome or forgo it? Our hearts were telling us a lot of different things. Both of us would love being back in Rome and at least being near some of our family. It is comfortable, familiar, quaint and so many other things that we love. On the other hand being overseas is such an exciting prospect. New places, new people, new food, new experiences. Where to go is the big question we have been asking ourselves since we moved here. And now we were saying

"Well God after all these crazy and exciting plans do you want us to just move back to Rome?"

We have no doubt God will lead us exactly where we are supposed to go. And we both know that sometimes He can call an audible and completely change the direction in which we are headed. We were both kind of thinking this may one of those situations. Then Laura figured out that she would be staying in Orlando till the wedding in May. Some of her classes next semester are not online. And poof, thought of going back Rome gone. If Laura could not come with me then I did not want to go.

That is what I thought anyways. Then God decided to remind of a lesson He has taught me once before. A few days later I get a random, completely out of the blue, text message from my landlord asking if my roommate and I can move out of the apartment.

"Now what?"

That is what I was asking myself. I mean I may not have a place to in the near future and there is great opportunity back in Rome. After some thought we decided that maybe God wanted us to move back to Rome and not go overseas. So I decided to call the membership director of the Rome Y and talk to her about the position. Let's just say she dashed my hopes of not having to leave Laura. She told me to send her my resume and said we would have a phone interview soon. The memories of all the goodbyes to Laura came back to mind and to say I got a little sad is an understatement. The last thing I wanted to do was leave her in Orlando for the last 6 months of our engagement. And so we anxiously waited.

To finish this story, I got a text message from my landlord on Wednesday. She told me that we did not have to move out. The following day I got an e-mail from the Rome Y membership director. The current director has decided to stay and not take another job. And here we are back to normal life in Orlando.

Right now I am sitting in Laura's "home" back in Bradenton. As I think about family and hometowns I am reminded that home really is where the heart is, but, God has also reminded me that my heart should be with Him. My actual home should be where ever He wants me to go, even if that means leaving Laura for a little while. Thankfully I do not have to do that right now. Who knows what tomorrow holds though. As much as I love Laura, and love my family, and love Rome and Bradenton, I try and love God more. And that love will take me, and hopefully Laura as well, right where we are supposed to be.

Bonjour & Hello.

Hi there! After much procrastination (and plenty of comments from Tristan) I have decided I should write a post. First of all, welcome to our blog! I'm hoping that friends and family find this to be a simple way to keep up with what we're are doing here in central Florida. I'll just give a brief summary/update in this post.

Living here is okay, but I think that both of us are ready to be done with this big city and move somewhere else. Our wedding will be in May(unless something dramatic happens to change the plans) and I will graduate then as well. After the vows we are free to do just about anything. Tristan has promised that we'll be able to get a puppy after we're married and settled.

Hopefully he's ready for something like this.




I'm not sure where we'll be living after here. Hopefully it will be away from the traffic and dense population we are in the middle of right now. Living anywhere near family would make my heart happy. Kenya is a possibility and Tristan has mentioned both Colorado and Arizona as places with possible job opportunities for him. So we'll see! It's intimidating but exciting too. Between planning the wedding, school, and work, I don't have time to worry about where we'll be this time next year. God will work it out so we'll just keep listening.

As for right now, I am so excited about our wedding! I am going to try to post some of my ideas on here. I want to share all of my DIY plans :) Here is the first of my projects, a brooch bouquet. I found the idea from a wedding blog and I absolutely love it.

This particular bouquet was made with decorative ceramic knobs from Anthropologie.


I've been collecting brooches, pins and knobs for months now and I think I've got just about enough. Now I just have to figure how I'm going to arrange it. Our wedding will be a vintage theme with lots of mason jars, handmade paper flowers and simple, rustic decor. I can't wait to share more on here, but I'll save those for future posts.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you'll find something interesting about our story and our lives on this blog. We hope to hear from family and friends and we want to know what you're up to as well!

-Laura Leigh