This week I’m house sitting again. As much as I like having a home base and everything all in one spot, I sure do like house sitting. I get to step out of my current situation, no matter what it is or how I feel about it, and step into someone else’s living space. It’s refreshing.

I continue to live my life, I’m not on vacation. But house sitting allows me to live my life from sort of a different perspective. I have a space, usually a house with a yard, to myself. I’m cooking in a real size kitchen, drinking my tea on the patio, walking Ellie around a new neighborhood. It’s a week or so of playing pretend. For this week, this is my house. These are my things. This is my room. This is my bathroom. This is my yard.

I can tell that Ellie misses her dog pal but I certainly enjoy the solitude.

Of course, it’s a bonus that the home owner usually has a pet (or seven) that I adopt for the week. I get to know the personality of all of them and what they add to, or take away from, the experience. Now I know that I will never have five cats. (Even though I kinda knew that already.) But two dogs? I could maybe handle that at some point in the far distant future. Animals are a lot of work. And while I love Ellie and I’m not looking to replace her anytime soon, if I had it to do again I’d probably get a cat. Just being honest.

I get to have a few out-of-life experiences while house sitting, and like those experiences we all have while on vacation, I try to take the best ones back to my regular life and incorporate them a bit more. Like having my morning tea outside in the beautiful morning breeze instead of inside in front on my computer while getting started on my day. Why not take the extra 15 minutes to start my day in a zen-like state every once in a while? It would do me some good.

On of the good parts of house sitting isn’t even about the change of work, sleeping and eating habits. It’s also about exploring the living space. Would I decorate this space this way? How do these colors make me feel? I would have never thought about getting a chocolate brown couch to go with maroon colored chairs until this week. And you know what? It works. They might work together because of the living space, but isn’t that the point?

I think you can tell quite a bit about a person by the way they decorate their home. The knick knacks that are displayed, are the significant for some reason? Or are they pretty things from a box store? Not that any way is wrong, I just find it interesting. It makes me think about the things in my life. Do they mean something to me? Do they serve a purpose for me? I don’t think there is a wrong answer, just something to think about.

I do a lot of thinking when I’m staying in someone else’s house.

At the end of the week, I’m always ready to go home. Back to my bed, back to not thinking about if I packed enough clothes or if I have the right things for my schedule this week. But every time I return home I look at the things I have and think about clearing out. I work to incorporate those moments from house sitting that helped bring me peace and balance. There’s no real good reason I shouldn’t have that balance and peace everyday. If it’s prevalent anywhere, shouldn’t it be within the walls of my own home?