Thankful...for this home

Today is Thanksgiving, and in honor of that most treasured of holidays (at least in our family), I’ve added all sorts of new things to my list of blessings. I think my goal is to eventually have 1000 things on that list, so I certainly have a lot of joys yet to experience!

In the meantime, here are some other things I’m thankful for, house-wise.

1. It’s warm. Our heater works well. Our water heater works well. Our windows and doors don’t pour in cold air like the ones in our apartment did, and we have 2 fireplaces should we ever get inspired to get the inspected and then light a cozy, warm fire.

2. It’s quiet. Our apartment was so close to the interstate that we heard sirens and semis all the time. I hated it. And now, we’re much farther away so the road noise is gone. We’re still sort of close to a fire station, and we hear those sirens every now and then if we’re being really, really quiet, but overall, I barely ever notice it. All in all, our neighborhood, and especially our corner of it, is so peaceful and quiet. Almost like being at “home” in the country.

3. We can make it our own. I fell in love with the potential this house had for us. It was big enough to grow into. It was new enough to not have structure issues, and it was just boring and dated enough to get me inspired to get to work. Ah! How I love a project!

4. We have a two-car garage. We looked at close to 300 houses (online or in person) before settling on this one. About half of them (or more) only had room for one car in the garage. Yes, that would have been fine–we’d never had a garage at our apartment, but something about it felt like we’d be settling. And of course, there’s the argument that if two is good, three is better. Which is a good point, but three garage spaces, in general, meant about $50,000 more in average. And that was more than we thought we should try to pay each month.

5. The things inside. Yes, it’s just stuff. Yes, it’s mostly replaceable, and yes, I do realize “you can’t take it with you.” But, for the most part, everything in our house has a story. The couches were the first thing Hubs and I bought together, even before we were married. The bookcase was made by my brother-in-law. The antique sifter on the shelf in my kitchen is from my Grandma’s basement. The washer and dryer were a gift from Hubs’ parents. The clock on the wall is one I gave Hubs as a Christmas gift while we were dating. The quilt was made by his mom as a wedding gift just for us. The dried bouquet on the mantle is the one I carried down the aisle… it’s as if these things are little memories of everywhere we’ve been so far in this life. And I can’t wait to see what other treasures we find along the way!

6.. I share it with Hubs. And I’ll eventually share it with our kiddos. That’s what I’m most thankful for, after all, no matter how much I love all this other stuff!