These are a few of my favorite things!

The last week I was feeling a little mopey because we are not in "our own home" and I was dissatisfied with having to rent for a while. Buying a new home for our family excited me and then it didn't happen. To try and get myself out of my "woe is me" funk I decided I needed to concentrate on the positive things and make sure to tell Johnny about them so he would know how much I love and appreciate all of his hard work to support our family. I didn't want him to come home to me every day pointing out the things I hated about where we are living (i.e. the butcher knife tip broken off in one of the cabinet doors).

Here it goes. Really this is what is at the top of my list!

1. An actual full size refrigerator, ice maker and all. ICE! We actually have ice at our finger tips! I picked out and bought an excellent but very inexpensive stainless steel refrigerator from a Persian couple off Craig's List. Compared to what I have lived with the last few years our new refrigerator feels absolutely gigantic! I promptly made a trip to Costco to fill it up! I have missed Costco and now I have the storage space to shop in bulk again!

2. A dishwasher! No more stacking our dishes sky high in the little drying rack! No more rock, paper, scissors to see who will have to wash dishes.

3. A water heater larger than 5 gallons! The hot water seems ENDLESS! I can finally take a shower longer than 2 minutes, shave my legs in the shower, and leave the water on while I scrub!

4. Not just one, but two FLUSHING toilets! Now I don't have to make one of my boys pee in the shower while the other one is sitting on the only available toilet! Seriously they all have to go at the same time and now one of my most frustrating problems has been solved. AND, I get to remove draining the tank from my boy's chore list. I bet no other 5 and 6 year olds would even know how to drain the tank on a travel trailer. I guess I'll replace that chore with loading/unloading the dishwasher. Wahahahaha!

5. I have a walk in closet. It would not be considered massive to some, but to me it is easily over 3 time as big as our trailer bathroom was and it is all mine! In the trailer I had one little cabinet and a tiny drawer. After losing so much weight my clothes take up maybe two and a half feet of the closet, but I am sure I can work to fill it over time! Wink, wink! Johnny has his own huge closet too and it is heavenly not to have to share.

6.  I don't have to light a pilot light to cook or check the over for toys! And I don't have to store food under the couch!

7. All of my kitchen gadgets are in cabinets now and I can bake the day away using any pans and bowls I want. In the trailer there was only room for a few things so I would rewash the same bowl or baking dish over and over. Not any more!

8. I have a backyard where my kids can play. They can come in and out without having to ask. I don't worry about them being run over or falling in a pool or being taken by a stranger when they are out there. A private back yard! Who knew it could be so heavenly?!

9. Separate rooms! Seriously?! Need I say more?! With 4 kids (and only a curtain separating them from us in the trailer) I love having a door to close between each room. And not just a door, a door with a lock!

10. A laundry room. No more going to the public or coin laundry. No more loading my kid's red wagon with laundry baskets and trekking over speed bumps to see if the machines are available. We have not bought a new washer and dryer yet, but we will soon. For now I wash clothes at my parent's house a few times a week. Sometimes I just stand in our empty laundry room and imagine having my own again. It will be soon, very soon, and I can't wait.

I think I might go on forever, but you get the point. Living in a house again, any house, is growing on me. I am very blessed. I just needed to recognize my blessings. I have been thinking about some of the women I know who are great friends of mine and who are having a very rough time right now. Some have been having very difficult struggles for years. I have every reason to be happy. I need to be more grateful. My grandmother has a saying "if all our troubles were hung on the line, you'd take yours and I'd take mine." So true!