Smiles

The excitement of a friend who is buying a house made me smile today. The complete excitement of the first time you buy a house is unrivaled in my life so far. Listen to her today, going to Lowes to pick out paint and just listening to her excitement reminded me of how excited I was when we bought our new house. The memory made me smile, remembering the feeling that I had when I walked into this house for the first time after looking at over 40 houses in a month. Remembering how I walked in and instantly felt at home. Imagining the paint colors, the wallpaper stripped, the curtains, the furniture, the lighting fixtures...just it being all ours. Being able to do anything that we wanted to to the house and change it if we didn't like it. I know that we overlooked several things in the house- like the lack of light switches, the plaster that's been in the house since it was built eighty some odd years ago, the plastic wall board that's in more than one room of the house. Didn't see any of that when I first walked into the house. I saw the potential that the house offers. Three years later, we haven't reached that potential yet with the house. It is a work in progress and will be for a little while longer, but for the first time in a while I walked in the house today and didn't see all the work to be done but the dreams that have come true in the past three years and the dreams that we are still striving to achieve.