When Life Hands You Lemons…

I’ve heard this sentence ended two ways.

…make lemonade

…stick ‘em in your bra

Okay, so both technically would apply to me. I know, I’ll probably lose a huge fan base now that I’m letting it out that I could use some padding there. I can hear you all clicking unsubscribe now. But I’ll choose make lemonade for now since, well, I like lemonade, and it’s not in the budget for me to go bra shopping right now.

So…life hands you lemons…make lemonade.

I suppose that looking back over the past couple of years, one could say I’ve been handed a few lemons. A few less than stellar life situations and through plugging on, just doing what needed to be done, I’ve come out with some lemonade.

This house. Let’s face it, we really did make the best of a bad situation at the time that we bought this place. Things were just not going well. We were living in a hotel, there were huge strains in our extended families, we were bleeding money left and right and needed to get ourselves into a house and onto the next step. So we bought this place. Oh what a nightmare when I think about it now. My parents wouldn’t even come visit. And when they did, they’d have that look. You know the “I feel so sorry for you but what the hell were you thinking” look. And now…NOW…they’ve invited themselves over for Christmas this year they like it so much

When we bought this house, our plan was to fix it up quick and easy and sell it. Begin uproarious laughter now. Yes, the housing market tanked. The good news is we could still sell today for well more than we paid for it and have put into it. So that’s nice. And the better news is that our neighborhood is continuing to grow and change which will only help us.

I have spent many nights in the past 18 months thinking about whether or not this house was the right choice. Sure, it’s easy enough to look at the market now and see if we’d waited we could’ve bought something that didn’t need so much work, in a nicer neighborhood. But if money is the motivator for much of what one does in life, our choice has been a good one. Of course, one never knows when they make a decision what is going to happen next week, next month, next year and you just have to hope for the best.

Now here we are, having decided to make this our home rather than to turn it over. Because really, why not? Living simply has proven to be quite fun and fulfilling. Living in a home that is 100% your own and your taste is so valuable. I think back on the projects we’ve done, with kids underfoot, and what wonderful memories those are going to be someday. Showing Bug pictures of her putting tile down in the laundry room, painting our bedroom, helping with whatever she could. That’s home.