Pinball-Machine-Life and Home

So far, my life has been like a game of pinball.  You know the game...a little metal ball, starts out in the chute on the side, you pull back on the button, release it and it goes hurtling out into the table.  There, it bounces and *pings* back and forth between the different obstacles...rolling down small hills, hitting a post then zooming off in a totally different direction...each bounce either gives you more energy to stay on the top of the table...or you lose momentum and fall down through the flippers at the bottom and you have to start at the chute again.

My life as felt that way.  My growing up years were like the waiting in the chute...with maybe a few false starts where I immediately fell down through the flippers, and my Heavenly Father lovingly placed me back in the chute to try again.

But since leaving home...I've spent a lot of time on the table...and a few more trips through the flippers and back into the chute...but most of the time...I feel like I have been *pinging* back and forth, up and down...never knowing just exactly where the next twist in life will take us. 

I certainly never expected that I would marry a farmer
*ping*
...or that he would eventually become a professor after spending several years in graduate school and after moving 5 times in 8 years
*ping ping*
....or that we would be living here in The Village in The South
*ping ping ping*
...with our three small children, one of whom has special needs.
*ping ping ping ping ping ping ping* 

Who saw that coming?!?

It has been a crazy, exhilarating ride, but recently, I've felt that it's time to move on from the pinball-style life and live in one of the more plant-based life analogies...you know, dig in roots, bloom where we're planted and all that.

Not that I think that the unexpected won't happen to us anymore...but I don't want to live always waiting for the next *ping* to happen before we push deeper into the life we are having at the moment.

And it starts with letting The South and The Village become Home.  We have lived here for over a year, and yet I still think of The Village as "the place where we live" as opposed to Home.  To give an example...we've lived in our house now for almost six months and I have yet to hang up any pictures.  I think I've just been waiting to see if this really will be Home, or if there is another *ping* around the corner that would send us hurtling off to who-knows-where to try out a new adventure.

Maybe it's because it's Christmastime in our first house and I'm eager to create a gazillion memories of Home for my children...or it's because you can never plan for all the *pings* in life so I might as well settle into the lull that we are currently living in and love it.  I don't know.

Either way, it's time to hang up the pictures, plant some roots, work to feel like I belong in The Village, and let it's culture and traditions and nuances become part of my identity, just like all of our other stops have.  It's time to let it become Home.