At Least This Addiction Brings Gratitude ...

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits..."   ...Psalm 103:2

*****

I am so addicted to HGTV.

Hey. There are worse things. :)

As I hinted in my last post, I've been a natural-born home-keeping nest-maker since I was a child and at 11, I used to stare at magazine pages of (expensive) living rooms, then rearrange my bedroom a similar way. In my head they'd resemble each other--in Real Life, uh, not even close.

Anyway, HGTV was created for us lovers-of-all-things-home who can't get enough of houses and decorating and I'm not worried about my addiction (yet) because these shows constantly increase my desire to improve my home and give me gratitude for where I live.

I mean, really. I feel bad for those bright-eyed young couples who pay anywhere from $350, 000 to $1,200,000 for what they could have bought in my (beautiful, kind-peopled, much-loved) area for soooo much less.

For instance, in my town, $124,000 will get you this (and yes, in a safe, pretty area):

... or this all-updated house, below, with water and gorge views, even, and a 2 car garage for just $109,000.

(Oh dear! I'd not seen that listing before. Uh-oh. "I-don't-need-a-different-house-I-don't-need-a-different-house-I-don't---...")

Well, if you, too, are an HGTV Head, you'll certainly understand my sympathy for others and the debt they're forking over for a place to live. Though of course, God can meet all the needs of His kids, anywhere, certainly!

 And true, our taxes are higher here and we do get those long, snowy winters, but oh wow... yearly, we also have hundreds of gorgeous, sunny days (some years sunnier than Orlando, even) with air that turns me back into the dreamy-eyed 14 year-old I once was. Often I wonder just how the atmosphere in Heaven will actually be better.

And my own little house? HGTV makes me ultra-grateful that Hobbit Cottage belongs to us, except for the aforementioned taxes.  And though she's (sometimes frustratingly) tiny, we have views from our windows ...

... that keep us from too seriously searching out fancier, higher-taxed homes. Our taxes are only a fraction of what we paid at our other suburb house because things are viewed differently in our area. And since

The Man hasn't yet caught up with all our improvements (he doesn't even know we have a river view--shhh!--), we're hardly paying anything, relatively, in this high-tax-base state.

And HGTV,daily, reminds me to count all those blessings. Twice.

*****

"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! " ...Psalm 118:1

“After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” 
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.” 
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz