I have been creating and writing my "story of home" all my life. This will be the first Christmas I've ever spent in my own home. Earlier this year I achieved the overarching goal of my life; that was to buy my first home. My parents never owned a home. I grew up in a Children's Home and have paid for my education and everything I've ever had.

In 2003, I wrote and published "Hestia's House," a literary memoir with the overarching theme of "home." And I would have spent my last dollar and my last breath to do that, so important was it to me to say what I had to say. On page 260, I wrote these words:

"Now after all this, I am still searching for my external home, and I know I am very close. I think about it all the time. I can see it, inside and out, very clearly in my mind's eye. I will name my home "Hestia's House" after the Greek goddess of the hearth, and if I write this, it will come."

And now finally at age 58, this day has come to me.