Sunday, August 28, 2011

A House is Made of Walls and Beams

How to Dr...
 A Home is Made of Love and Dreams

In Little House in the Ozarks, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes, "I spent an afternoon a short time ago with a friend in her new home.  The house was beautiful and well-furnished with new furniture, but it seemed bare and empty to me.  I wondered why this was until I remembered my experience with my new house.  I could not make the living room seem homelike.  I would move the chairs here and there and change the pictures on the wall, but something was lacking.  Nothing seemed to change the feeling of coldness and vacancy that displease me whenever I entered the room.

"Then, as I stood in the middle of the room one day wondering what I could possible do to improve it, it came to me that all that was needed was for someone to live in it and furnish it with the everyday, pleasant thoughts of friendship and cheerfulness and hospitality."

A homey atmosphere is not a matter of the right decorations; it emanates from the thoughts and feelings of the people who live there.  Feelings of warmth and welcome can be created only by people who are kind, generous, and even-tempered.  Why not determine to "warm-up" the atmosphere where you live today?

Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.
Proverbs 15:17

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