A hot market in a small town… what a strange time to own a house! We live in Aberdeen, WA – a small coastal town that has a “hot” real estate market these days with homes selling quickly.
I must admit, there’s that temptation to sell our house and make a pretty nice profit.
But when we bought our house in 2019, we knew it was the one. It was ugly inside and out with yellow interior walls, animal heads hanging in the living room, a dog barking at us as from be- hind the garage door, and the third bedroom was full of junk piled to the ceiling.
I’ll save the whole buying process saga for anoth- er time, but the reason we knew it was the one was that it had all of the potential for creating our own dream oasis.
Big windows with lots of light, potentially with a little hilltop view of the river if we could trim some trees and a great big lawn.
I grew up in Aberdeen too and a good lawn in a rare thing. The backyard at my mom’s house was the size of a parking space so I had always dreamed of being able to jump and twirl across the grass without being two feet away from the neighbors walking their dog.
It has been two years since moving into our house, this May. It feels like an eternity ago! We touched nearly every surface refinishing floors, remodeling the kitchen, new carpets, fresh paint and lots and LOTS of yard work.
To say that I was thankful for this space when the COVID Pandemic hit was an understate- ment. We have never had a moment of boredom between house projects and two toddlers.
The chaos and sadness that has occurred in our world in the past year has only been made easier to bear because we had our home… maybe as a distraction… but also giving us a small sense of security.
It’s our little oasis when it feels like a desert beyond our doors. And so much of what I’ve considered in the last year has been how I can share more of that peace with others. Maybe just through storytelling or maybe through creating gatherings in the future.
