feeling home with Persil Proclean and Target.

Jeans. Sneakers. Similar Top.

Can I tell you something that happened to me shortly after we moved to Connecticut?  It was late one night, all the kids and Craig were asleep, we were in a hotel and it hit me.  A big fat rush of homesickness.  The initial excitement of moving had dulled a little, we were one week into a several weeks hotel stay before we were going to move into our house.  Every time I ventured out, I felt completely disoriented, everything felt foreign and different, I didn’t know a soul in this time zone except for my husband and our realtor.  And suddenly I missed Seattle and those gray skies, and evergreen trees, and all my friends and all those familiar crazy foresty roads so bad I could hardly breathe.  I cried.  And then I cried some more.  For like two hours I cried into my pillow and thought, what have I done?  Uprooting us like this, leaving everything familiar, everything that feels like home.

But we have moved before, I am no stranger to it, and I have these little tricks for getting past it, for feeling normal again and at home.

One of them is doing something normal, in the new place.  Something I would have done at home.

Since we had been in the hotel for a week at this point it meant that the laundry had really started to pile up, so it was a good time to get in the car, grab some detergent from the store and find a laundromat.   I punched the location into my GPS and before I knew it, there it was, that sign with those big beautiful red circles.  At last. I swear, I feel home as soon as I find Target.

I’ve always been a sensory person, smells and sounds really soothe me, so when I miss my family, if I smell my mom’s favorite perfume or light a candle one of my sister loves, or listen to a song we used to sing to in high school I feel better.  It’s the same way when we move.  Doing something I normally do, like making a quick run to Target, or doing the laundry (even from a laundromat) makes me feel normal again.  And that includes the smell of my favorite laundry detergent, Persil ProClean (intense fresh is my favorite) which is now carried at Target stores nationwide.  Which means that even though I was on the other side of the country and out of my element, doing laundry at the laundromat for 5 weeks, I could still run into Target, grab my favorite detergent and our clothes smelled like home again.   Suddenly, life felt normal, and I felt at home.

Now that we’ve moved into our house and I’m washing from my own laundry room, I’m happy to have our clothes and linens now filling our house with that familiar scent.  It smells like home.

I still think it’s crazy that something so small as my favorite store, or the smell of my favorite laundry detergent can make me go from feeling completely homesick to totally at home, but the truth is,that’s how it works for me, and it’s how it works for my kids.

Yesterday afternoon, Ethan and I were folding linens right out of the dryer and he picked up one of those fluffy warm towels, took a big whiff and said, “Ah, smells like home.”

Yes, buddy.  Yes it does.

BTW, my friends and sisters ask me all the time if I really use Persil and if it really is my favorite, and the answer is yes, I really do, and yes it really is.  It gets our clothes cleaner, while also (somehow magically) being so much gentler on them.  Our whites are whiter and the colors are brighter.  Plus the smell (as I’ve said over and over again) is so good.  Seriously, go try the intense fresh.  I used to drive 10 extra minutes when we lived in Seattle because they only carried it at the Target that was further from my house.  It’s that good.  So glad they have in all the Target stores now.

If you have any questions about Persil, or what else I do to make family life feel normal while we’re moving feel free to ask in the comments section.

*this post was created in partnership with Persil Proclean, all opinions are my own.