A Year of Gratitude – August 10, 2024

Today my gratitude was waiting for me at my favorite place: home. This week marks 19 years since we moved into what was an abandoned old farmhouse. I don’t know where the years have gone.

When we moved in, the house was a structure, but it was hollow. It was a house, but it didn’t quite feel like home. But there was something about it that just felt like the place we were meant to be.

Gradually, we made changes to each room.  We painted. We repaired and replaced things that needed attention. We made memories in this house and that’s what turned it into our home.

With each passing year, it became a home filled with the sound of children’s laughter, Penny Lane’s bark, and all the things a family fills the corners of every room with.

So much has changed over the 19 years we have called this house home. It seems like a lifetime has passed while this house was standing still. In many ways, it has.

One thing remains as true today as it was back on that first night we spent here at the farmhouse. There’s no place that I’d rather be. This farmhouse is home because the people I love live here. This old house shelters three generations of my family and feels like the place I was always supposed to be.

Here’s to another year for my family and this old house. Our twentieth anniversary next summer will be here in a blink. I hope that I’ll be right here in this place with the people I love and grateful for each moment I can spend here with them.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.