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"Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines..."

That might be the most famous line from my home state of Indiana. It begins the Indianapolis 500 every year.

Or maybe it is "Elnora Comstock, have you lost your senses?" from Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter

or

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

from the poem by James Whitcomb Riley.

What is your state known for? Does that thing in some way define or shape your story?

I grew up in the middle of no-where on a mostly-dirt road in middle Indiana. There is nothing particularly striking about my childhood home, except that it was HOME. All of my life has in one way or another been built upon this beginning of being safe and loved. So many of my friends did not have that same feeling of home from which to grow. I have come to realize that the depth of love within our immediate and extended family gave me confidence to be and do things.

Home life was not perfect, but it was pretty close for the time. Yes, there were days when my older brother and I probably drove our mom crazy, and a few times where Dad came home to find one or both of us in trouble...but there was a deep sense of peace that surrounded the land and the house of my home.

I hope and pray that somehow I have given my own children a safe place to call home. A refuge from the craziness of the world, and a place, that while not perfect, can start them well into adult life.

Before the house on the dirt road, we lived in another house, but I was so little, and have so few memories, that it is not what my heart thinks of when I think of my childhood home.

Today, this house where we live is not where our girls began their childhoods, but it is attached to most of their memories of home. For all of us, home should be where the heart is, where peace and love cover a multitude of sins, and where everyone is cherished. If your house is not a home, start again, dig deep, and work to tie those heart-strings with your own children that will give then a peaceful sense of home.