The Reasons Why

In 8 days, it will have been 14 years since I first laid eyes on my house. We decided on a Monday that we were ready to buy a house, and took that Wednesday off work to go searching for it. We looked at about a dozen houses, then we found this one.

I never wanted to live in this city. In fact, I was really strongly opposed to living here. I was only barely talked into including our city in the area of homes we would search in that morning by Lance and the real estate lady, "just to check it out." I only acquiesced because I knew that when it came down to it, we weren’t going to buy a house that we both didn’t agree on, and I knew I would never agree to one here.

We pulled up to this ugly yellow and white wood siding house with crazy things growing in the yard. We went inside, and it looked as if it had been decorated 24 years earlier (when the house was built) by Miss Piggy. It smelled like a few dogs, a few cats, and possibly even a goat was living there, and looked like a pack of mischievous monkeys had been taking care of the place. It was on a busy street, it had a small lot that was half filled with cement, and from the yard you could see the high school that I had gone to but wasn’t particularly fond of just a block and a half away.

So why was it that we both felt so strongly that this was our house the moment we first saw it? The place we knew we would soon be living? Well, I’m sure there are several reasons. I’ll name some of the really big ones (in alphabetical order):

1. Cecilia
2. Ella
3. Erin
4. Judy
5. Kristine
6. Tammy
7. Kellie

These are some of the most kind, thoughtful, fun loving, sweet, encouraging, talented, generous, happy, helpful, interesting, complex, friendly, inclusive, unjudgmental ladies that ever walked the earth. They are such an example to me and to everyone around them. My life is so much more fulfilling, exciting, and enjoyable with them in it! I feel so lucky to be able to count them as my friends.

Yesterday was my birthday. These wonderful ladies brought me a huge bag chuck full of presents! It contained everything I could possibly ever want for scrapbooking / card making, but was too cheap to buy for myself.

Then, they surprised me with my very own blog! I have often thought, "If I had a blog, I would post this on it," full well knowing that I would never go through the work to set up the blog. My sweet friends are also extremely observant, and knew that as well, so they made me this blog! And then to top it off, they all posted the most thoughtful things on it. I’m getting teary eyed just thinking about how sweet that was of them! I really am blessed.

There are so many things I love about each of them! So, here is a tribute to you, my wonderful friends– the top 5 things I love about each of you: