Where ever I lay my hat ....

I've had an epiphany.  It's a joyous, sun-appearing-from-behind-a-cloud kind of realisation.

You may know that we're living in a temporary place while we figure out what the hell we're doing  wait for another home to become available.  This place is teeny tiny, it has one teeny tiny bathroom, an unexpected lodger at the rear of the house, an outdoor laundry, and a lovely fireplace, and it's only 500 metres away from one of the most stunning beaches in Australia.  We are living out of suitcases, my eldest continues to live off the floor (the only difference instead of living in a sunny sloven in our old place, he lives in a small, dark sloven in this house).  The kitchen has a half stove that puts out a half heat, the owner promised me that she cooked Christmas dinner it it, now I know that she probably popped the turkey in the oven on the 23rd, and it's impossible to park at.  But somehow we all love this place, it is roasty toasty, cosy, and just has a lovely homely feel to it.  It seems to have become our family's temporary "happy place".

Which has got me thinking.
Neither The Husband nor I grew up with "much", actually who did back in those days?  If a toy got broken, you either did without or it got fixed badly (I'm thinking of the faux Barbie doll- "Cindy" that the Sister and I had, whose head fell off and got jammed back in for the next 5 years of it's life with a long stick in the neck/ head jamming kind of process which worked Just Fine.)
You didn't know you what you didn't have so you didn't care.  And sometimes you did know what you didn't have, and you still didn't care.  Our first couple of bikes were old ones lovingly and beautifully restored by our grandad.   We didn't care (did we Sister, or did I whinge for a Raleigh 20?, ok I have faint memories of whinging).
It was a time when we were grateful for what we had rather than upset for what we didn't have.  We didn't question it.

All I needed as child was my sister, my mum and dad, a hot water bottle in my bed, my dolls, my imagination...oh and my bike, as Mum didn't drive so that was our primary mode of transport from a young age.
Don't get me wrong, I lust after the most gorgeous of houses full with the most gorgeous and materialistic of possessions. But what I've realised is that I don't actually need it.
I don't need the "stuff", my kids certainly don't need the "stuff".  Because all we seem to need at the moment is a warm house, a hot water bottle in the kids beds at night, a cosy fire, a candle and each other. And that is doing us Just Fine.

We actually don't need much.
But what I did need was to realise this.