Good morning from Down Under.
I'm so happy to be here, on this journey with the other Moksi Women you will meet, thanks to our wonderfully inspiring, globe trotting host Maureen.
My name is Melissa, and I now live by the beautiful Australian coast with my husband, three world travelled kids, and one madly delightful farm dog.
We've just celebrated another Christmas on the beach, after four wonderful years of snow and scarves living across the world, in a place very different to where both my husband and I were raised, and our children were born.
*Creating A Home Away From Home*...
When my husband and I talked of our future, we also spoke of travel...travel with future children, and travel that allowed us to feel confident enough to *remove our family from a life we knew to one that would push us all, one that would allow us to truly understand life in someone else's world*.
I'm sure we started with very exotic idea's of far flung destinations, but after travelling much of the world on our own and together, we realised that any destination would be a gift to our future family.
Living anywhere outside of *what we all knew* would create open minded, inspired children, whilst allowing our little family to truly rely on one another and to grow as a family.
We did this in 2008- when we moved from our Beach house by the ocean in Sydney, to a big old Country house in the wilds of the northern English countryside.<
Our children were 9, 7 and 2 years old and I began my journey of *Creating a Family Home away from Home*...a journey I will continue to embrace in our day to day life no matter where we live, forever.
After four {especially for young children *formative*} years in England I've discovered that our home life will always embrace both countries...a home away from home, away from home!
Country living to my family was incredibly different to how we had previously lived.
Village living was world's away to our life in a big city.
But we were totally ready to *embrace* it all.
Children are amazing when supported, encouraged and inspired...parents who uproot their families work together using these principals constantly.
As a mother however, I also believe we have another desire, that starts to build and grow as soon as we land with our beloved families on foreign soil.
The desire to create *a home away from home*- a space that is familiar, yet different- a place that mergers both worlds.
We moved to Lancashire, in Northern England, with my husband's work in the Environmental Industry.
It was what we had hoped for- a supported move to an area of the world we'd never been to before that was polar opposites to life as a family so far.
The storybook images of northern winters and log fires in old country houses, for me personally was the icing on the cake.
And so began our life of being the new family from so very far away, in a small English village with one high street!
And so began my journey of creating a *family home away from home*.
Home truly is where the heart is, and home is where your family feels safe, loved and happy.
Safe, loved and happy families can build this in a rental space, a tiny apartment or a rambling country home...it's about how you fill your space, much more so than the space you are filling.
After the adventure of getting to our new home country, we moved into a rental apartment by the Irish Sea, and took our children on the journey of finding a new family home together.
They were young, trusting and tired but embraced this first leg of *creating our home away from home* with such enthusiasm and determination...it was the first moments of understanding for us all that we needed to merge both our worlds to truly feel content, and true to who we were.
At two, our youngest just needed her siblings and her soft toys- but our eldest daughter and middle son, had an understanding that they needed to be settled in a home that loved them and that they loved, to truly embrace the new country, life, village and people they found themselves walking amongst.
We chose *the house* together, and we turned it into *our home* together, little by little from day one.
Anyone who's lived abroad with children will tell you to start at the top of the house and create your little one's happy, safe, familiar yet new spaces of their own first, and then to hot foot it straight to the heart of the home- the kitchen and sitting rooms and to put your own stamp- both the old and the new in all these spaces that you share as a family.
Our collections of special objects came with us from our life on the Coast, and we mixed these with our new-to-us-old-objects we found and discovered together in our new hometown. It settled our hearts and made us feel connected to both lives.
A rental property can be simply a house, or it can love you and you can love it back as a home.
Living abroad is not for everyone, but those who can make a rental a beloved family home are already half way there!
Moksi - Mixed...Mixing the old with the new.
Women tend to nest at the most important of times in their lives- moving your family to another country, to live life in a new, unfamiliar way, is undoubtedly one of those times...
Mixing the old life with a new lifestyle, within your home, feeds the family with support, love and nourishment to embrace the challenges and endless rewards of living abroad.
As a regular writer here with Maureen, this first week I just really wanted to introduce myself and a little of how our family has chosen to live together...
As Maureen's stories unfold, I'd like to share more from our home and our experiences of *Creating a Home away from Home* as a family, as a mother and as an owner of a small home run business.
The focus as always in our home is family and love. It's a trait we share with millions of parents around the globe...and it's the basis for creating a love of adventure, and a tolerance of differences that may encourage and allow you to chase your dream and to live abroad with your family anywhere you chose.
It's how you create this home, that will make your dreams a reality and a success no matter how many boxes you unpack, how many rental houses you learn to embrace, or how many schools you may move your children too.
I hope you embrace the Moski Home lifestyle Maureen is sharing here and I hope you feel the love of home and family, in the experiences of these women's stories...
Melissa x
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{visit Melissa at Miss Sew and So}
*all photo's by: Melissa