What's in a house?

What do you think about when you clean your house? If walls could talk, I wonder what they would say? Would they speak of the laughter and joyous times together. Would they tell secrets of a lifetime? Would they simply hold the space and allow by gones to by gones? Who knows. 

Our lives are such an organic process. Every morning I am faced with a million forks in the road. I am not alone in my path. I have my family. My husband, my anchor. My children, my joy. My guiding light, my spirit. Oh the many things I get to face each day. It's often hard to remember that I am on my steady path. As steady as any path can be - I find my way. Each and every moment is a purposeful moment. The moments that I chose to live. 

Last night I was blessed to have beautiful conversations with women that were fascinating and so different from myself. I absolutely and completely love diversity. It simply fills my cup with happiness to learn about others. While listening to others talk about there lives, I began to wonder back to Thursday of this week. 

Like many other days, Damon and I both had to work. That's ok! We chose our schedules within reason and have the blessing of taking our children with us when we work. Thursday we took a drive to the foothills to clean a house. While driving we talked about the properties we'd love to own, the different areas we could live in, what type of homes we liked, all sorts of great conversation like that. 

My mind wondered to the foothills, the homes big and small. The little farmsteads with animals and families, and the grand and elaborate homes of money. The variety of homes is simply amazing to me. I suppose it's no surprise, there should be as many different homes as there are different people right? 

As we approached the beautiful and elaborate 4200 sq ft home I was going to clean Thursday, it occured to me that a house is just a house. As I wondered through the spacious rooms, thought of the layout, the materials used, the function of the house. I found myself analyzing not the house itself, but its value. As I cleaned the windows and looked outside onto that beautiful veiw. The sky screamed glorious wonders of something bigger. Inviting my thoughts to wonder and ponder. I realized, I was envious of this grand and elaborate house. 4200 sq ft of brand new and shiny. 

It was not the brand new or the shiny that called to me. As I wiped and dusted and vacuumed and mopped, I realized that the motions of cleaning a home were the same no matter where you were. This house was no different than a 1905 peice of crap. They are nothing more than wood, glass, carpet, insulation, fixtures. They are nothing until you add your value to it. 

I realized cleaning this grade scale home that it wasn't the shiny that called to me, it was the laughter I could feel in the hall ways. The table I imagined eating dinner around and the beds I could tuck our children into at night. I thought about the back porch and a glass of wine in the sunset. Then it suddenly hit me... 

I had that grand and glorious home. Maybe my house was different, but my home was not. I have the laughter in the hallway and the table my family shares meals at. The beds are the same that my children call their own and a glass of wine on my back porch is beautiful and perfect. 

The window looks good cleaned, but when you see through the new glass, the sky is the same from my back yard as it is this one. Everything is nothing until you value it.

 Life is good.