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by Tracee Sioux on December 17th, 2007

All I wanted for Christmas was my dream home. And I got it. We moved into our first home last Saturday and it’s 1,000 times better than I dreamed possible.

Picture this with a big, giant red bow . . .

Yes, that’s a ski lodge sized fireplace. Yes, the entire wall to the right is built in 1950s book shelves, drawers and cabinets. Yes, there are original parquet wood floors. Absolutely, there is lighted vaulted ceiling. See that lovely Christmas tree? It’s an 8.5 foot tree. The ceiling fan has a remote control. I’m totally serious.

To understand exactly how much I appreciate our first home, let me tell you about my last living room. For starters it had no central heat or air conditioning. Yes, in freaking 2007, we had no heat or air - my grandma got central heat and air in the 1970s, but I digress. Instead, it had a Dearborn Heater. Maybe you don’t know what that is - well, it is this little gas heater without an exhaust vent and no one does maintenance on them anymore. They are illegal and the gas company will confiscate them. Everything I owned was covered in soot. There is a serious risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Our previous living room was so small we had to remove the coffee table so the baby would have a place to learn to walk. We could only fit one couch.

Zack and I have terrible allergies. The window air conditioning unit would blow all the pollen right into the house. Not to mention the indoor mold problem that made it hard for Zack to breath. I could put up with it, until the baby got sick. Then it was way too much to ask.

It would get so hot in the house that it truly and literally melted the oil on my paintings. I s#$& you not. The heat warped six hours of video biography I did of my elderly grandmother.

We lived in that house for four long, not fun, very unpleasant, contentious years. Why? Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University, which while you’re living the hard years feel more like Pergatory than Peace. Now. . . well, okay, now it’s about the Peace. I mean, just look at that living room that we can afford.

I realize that millions of people own homes already and probably at least half of them have a bigger, better, newer home than mine. But, when you juxtapose our previous living conditions to our current ones you understand and agree no one could appreciate their home as much as we appreciate this.

We went back to our old house on Saturday to scrub the 4 years of grime off. Every day we lived there I thanked God for that roof over our head. I realized there are many, many people who have it much, much worse. But, I am so profoundly thankful that we don’t have to live there any more. When I start waxing poetic about how much simpler life was back when we lived in that tiny little house -feel free to tell me I’m totally full of crap!

That chapter of our lives, of our marriage is closed. And not a minute too soon. This chapter, the one where we have 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a spacious kitchen with new appliances, an office with French doors in a tree-lined neighborhood and new paint, is going to be infinitely better. I just know it.

Merry Christmas!

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POSTED IN: Fabulous Spiritual Moment, Fabulously Cheap