Dreamy Kitchen and Reflections on this Blessing

The house of my dreams would always include a light and bright white kitchen open to the living room, and that's what this one has! I love the colors, the wood laminate floors, the moldings, those kitchen cabinets with glass doors, and the newer stainless steel appliances. Our last two kitchens have been pretty much original from the 1960s and 1970s, so this is quite an exciting change! If this all actually works out I will be pinching myself every time I get to cook in here :)

The breakfast area is one of my few concerns about the house. We are already getting cramped around our 6-person table, so I'm trying to decide how to arrange the breakfast area and the dining room, which I plan to use as the schoolroom. Maybe at some point we could take out that wall to the left of the back door to open the space? I'm sure it will work out fine for now, and it's fun to think about how it might all come together when we put our own furniture in here.  It will definitely lose the "model home" vibe it presents from all these pictures, but it will be our own colorful, messy, kid-friendly space!

Of course there are still drawbacks, as with any house.  We're actually buying a kind of "front-loader" home with the garage in front, which we don't prefer.  We'll have a much longer drive to our ballet school, and I'm not sure how that will affect our evening family time.  The neighborhood isn't our favorite, and there are quite a few homes that aren't well kept with fences falling over and overgrown yards. 

But overall, the location, the yard, and the condition of this house just can't be beat.  I drove by the other day and noticed the school children jogging around the sidewalk that went down the road to the church and back across a bridge near our street.  I can't wait to take walks and hopefully attend some morning daily masses.  And we know we will be hosting many parties and visitors in this house!

This week I have shared all these photos and excitement, and I sincerely hope it doesn't come across as boastful.  Steven has worked so hard, for so many years to get us to this point.  And we have had support from family members and friends as we went through the years of ministry work, going back to school, and the challenges of jobs that weren't ideal for our family.  I am so grateful for that support, and for the humbling experiences that allow us to look at this new home as a total blessing which we don't deserve.

I am also very proud of the hard work and sacrifice we have all undertaken, and am so happy that we have finally found the right job fit for our family.  I just wish it wasn't far away from our extended family and longtime friends.  They are missing out on the weekly dinners, the birthday parties, the ballet recitals, the t-ball games, and the other events that they would very much wish to share with us.  But we do get to visit them for extended times, we can talk on the phone daily, and maybe we'll figure out video conferencing and FaceTime when we move.

For now, we know we are in the place where God has asked us to be.  The place that will allow our family to learn and grow in the ways that God is asking us.  We are truly living in Corpus Christi, "the Body of Christ," who shows us His love and mercy every day, but also through special blessings like this.  Thanks be to God, and thanks to you, our friends and family, who have prayed for us on this journey!