Welcome Home.

I started with this idea. The kind you can't get rid of. It followed me around for weeks, maybe even years. I was not unfamiliar with it...it had been an unnamed force in my life for years, influencing every place I've made and called home. But over the past few years this nebulous idea started taking on a distinct shape, so I started writing down the convictions and values behind it.

The idea centers around our homes, apartments, condos, RV's...wherever we dwell. We spend a lot of time in them. At their best, our dwellings are the places where we find rest, comfort, and peace. At their worst, they are chaotic places where we feel stress and defeat. For most of us, we find ourselves somewhere in the somewhat messy middle.

If our homes are center stage of so much of our lives, why do they so easily feel off center? And in turn, make

us feel off-center? Why do we allow our home to become overrun with stuff? Why is it so hard to feel settled in an environment that should bring us the most "settledness?"

And so my idea is simple...if we mind the place where we dwell, if we bring a few practices to our homes...we can reclaim it as a place of centering. It can move from being a place of stress and mess to a place of calm and rest.

I have a few practices in mind...10 in fact. They are rules, guidelines, values, intentions...pick your word. I chose the word practice because of the reminder it is never final or perfect. But the more we make time for these practices, the more centered our homes will feel. My hope is through these practices your home would become a place of centering.

So here they are...10 practices for a Centered Home:

1. Symbolize the Sacred

2. Two Words: Sight. Lines.

3. Wall Art is a reflection of you (with or without mirrors).

4. If you don't know why...bye bye.

5. No budget? No problem.

6. Give yourself a free zone.

7. Stop the side eye.

8. Maintain easy access to your 'giving up pants.'

9. Embrace weird Scandinavian words like "hygge" and "fika."

10. Get the family involved.