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My furniture needs a facelift.

When we moved to Texas from Wisconsin, we sold all of our living room furniture at a garage sale as, it had served us well but... it was out of date and well-worn. And so, when we arrived at our new home, we went on a furniture shopping spree and purchased a leather couch and a leather chair. That's it. Two pieces of furniture for our living room. But they were the real deal--real leather, not pleather--and so, they were a tad pricier than anticipated and that was all that we could afford. We'd kept our end tables and we had a wooden rocking chair with a footstool that Roy gave me on our third year anniversary, and as our living room was small, we arranged it in a homey way and voila...we had a new living room to call home.

Fast forward ten years...

...that's still our living room.

Ok--the rocking chair is no longer with us. Its joints got old and broken and Roy glued it back together one too many times and so we traded it in for a glider about three years ago. But other than that? Everything is the same.

The leather on the coach is worn now with faded creases that wind their way around the cushions like a spider web or meandering roads on a map. And when one sits on it? Well, one fears one may hit the South Pole as it's a fast downward free fall.  And the leather chair? It's broken. It no longer rocks and when one sits in it, one is heaved backwards as though in a dentist's chair so that if one is not careful, one is staring up at the ceiling.

That "one" word is getting annoying.

And my end tables? Oh my...where to begin. They definitely show signs of wear as they are about 15 years old and bear spots where fingernail polish remover accidentally worked its magic and there appear to be more scratches than finish from a host of living.

I've done a myriad of things to try to hide the age and worn look of this furniture. I've dressed it up with comfy throws; I've rearranged it, adding floor lamps that bring a homey glow to the room. But there is only so much one can do when furniture has had its day.

I remember one time that Lori, my sister, told me that no matter what you do, no matter how expensive it is, the life of furniture is about seven years. And? I think she's right. My living room is three years past due. For that matter, all of the furniture in my house is past due.

It's funny how everything in the house is cyclical. It's kind of like everything gets old at exactly the same time so that it can be a bit overwhelming. You know...bath towels, washcloths, hand towels in the kitchen, bedsheets, blankets, comforters, mattresses...The truth of it is, my entire house needs a facelift.

And yet...it's home.

I've wondered about that so many times in my life--that home word. It's funny to me how home brings security and comfort and a sigh for one's soul. Even when we've moved, and we have moved more than our share, we do our best to get all of the boxes unpacked and furniture arranged and pictures hung on the walls in the span of two weeks or less so that we can proclaim, This is our new home; we have arrived. The familiar books, the photos on the wall of growing children, the closets filled with mementos from days long gone, and even the worn furniture--all of it comes together to create home.

Just the other day, I sat down on one of our dining room chairs and it shifted underneath me. Uh-oh, I thought. Looks like this chair has had its day too.

I'll tell Roy about it and he'll glue it, throw some clamps on it so that the glue dries and holds it together for another shift in time.

But that's okay. It's home. It's comfortable. It's family...

It's where I belong.