Welcome Home

I absolutely adore where I live. I bought my house two and a half years ago and have never once regretted the decision. In fact, every time I drive home, and I hit this certain point in the neighborhood (where the road curves, right next to the playground), I get this overwhelming feeling of "home." It confirms that I'm exactly where I need to be at this exact time in my life.

This feeling means even more to someone, like me, that has suffered from severe homesickness their entire life. I have very vivid memories of me as a child, walking out the front door of our house, passing our next door neighbor's house, getting to the corner, and bursting into tears. I'm not kidding folks. As a teenager I had a really hard time with girls camps and youth conferences. I always wanted to go home. And sleepovers? Forget about 'em. My parents were constantly getting phone calls from me and having to pick me up at all hours of the night. I'm pretty sure they've achieved sainthood by dealing with this issue alone.

So back to my house . . . Even though I love it, it's not perfect. Being a relatively new build, the interior is pretty generic. The lack of storage is a challenge. There is only a one car garage, not two, which proved to be pretty inconvenient when Scott was living here this past summer. I also have this horrible clay dirt that keeps killing my bushes. (It does, however, grow great tomatoes.) In a two year span, I've replanted at least seven bushes. Thank heavens for Lowe's return policy. :)

The rest of the bones of the house are great, but there are a lot of cosmetic things I'd like to do. And I've decided to get going. It's officially time to reallocate some funds from the travel budget and get this place looking like me. Even if I have to start small.

So start I did last weekend. I began by painting all the interior doors black. All ten of them. It took me an entire weekend and a couple of gallons of paint. And to be honest, it was a heck of a lot of work taking them off their hinges, removing the hardware, lugging them out to the garage (half of them were upstairs), and then rehanging them when the paint was dry. All. By. Myself. But I am so incredibly happy with the result; they look fantastic with the white trim. Totally worth the effort.