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A friend once compared me to a coyote. She said, "You can spin around three times, plop down in the grass and call any place home." After moving 13 times in my first ten years of marriage, I have to admit she's not exaggerating all that much.

Making camp in so many different places over the years has taught me a lot about what constitutes a home. We've lived in slum student apartments, a new house that was too big to clean and everything in between. I'm thankful for those experiences—the good, the bad and the ugly—because I've learned some valuable lessons.

For one, I've learned the size or condition of the house doesn't really matter. While our total square footage has changed over the years, we're still the same family despite our living conditions. I've also learned not to make judgments based on appearances. Good neighbors and good friends can be found even in the most unlikely places.

I've found that creating a home is not all about a manicured lawn and perfect furniture. In fact, some of my favorite moments with my children involved making camps out of old sofa cushions (before my couch cost enough to say, Don't jump on the furniture). We also picked fresh dandelion leaves from our "weedy" rental property. The kids enjoyed making those salads as much as picking fresh produce from our well-tended gardens.

Maybe that's why after years of climbing the corporate ladder, we decided it was time to slow down and plant our roots deeply into the rich southern soil of our ancestors. And recently we reached an important family milestone. We celebrated our three-year anniversary of living not only in the same state, but also in the same town, the same neighborhood and even the same home!

On our three-year mark, I kept it low-key and stuck to my daily routine of passing out popsicles to the masses of kids who prefer our stomping grounds to their own. As I sat in the backyard, I noticed all the things that make our house a home. It wasn't the number of bedrooms, bathrooms or ceramic tiles. It wasn't the size of the yard, the quality of the air conditioner or the value of the antique furnishings.

Instead, I noticed that to me, home is the sound of grade-schoolers giggling during an afternoon round of freeze tag, or preschoolers laughing as they practice their various superpowers.

Home is frequent calls for "Mama!" and requests for Band-Aids, towels and lemonade. It's the smell of fresh-cut grass, blooming hydrangeas and the sound of our trickling underwater spring that peaks out for an occasional hello in our humble patch of trees.

Home is the warm, moist breath of our loyal border collie and the hushed purr of our coon-tailed cat. It's the sound of the door creaking and keys jingling when my husband comes home from work each evening. Home is the smell of dinner cooking—if not burning—on the stove. It's the noise of phones, doorbells and musical instruments ringing in my ears.

Home is chaotic at times—a respite in others. A quiet sanctuary or a fun-filled zone of laughter—sometimes matching my needs but often stretching me to embrace its many moods.

Home is a place where my friends and family can kick off their shoes and run barefoot. Pull up a chair and share a piece of pie. Light the grill and throw on a kabob. It's a place to make mud pies, draw sidewalk sketches and toss water balloons without fear of a mess. It's a place to play, to talk, to listen, to learn, to share and to care.

After all these years and all our travels, I know my dear friend was right. No matter where I plop down in the grass, as long as my family is with me, I'll always have a place to call home. Home, to me, is all about love.

Julie P. Cantrell, mother of two, is the Just for Fun editor for MOMSense. She lives in Mississippi and works from home as a freelance writer and editor. She's also a certified Speech-Language Pathologist and the author of a soon-to-be released series of children's picture books.

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