Day 22

"There is no place like home." -- The Wizard of Oz

I really like my home. Oh sure, part of me would love to upgrade, live more posh, but my home definitely reflects me.

Inside it is roomy, but practical. It is largely undecorated -- ever so slowly it is getting done (last year we finished painting all the walls), but decorating is just not my thing -- I am not good at it and when I go to look at artwork for the walls I want things that I just love, and that is hard to find. My den is now my craft room, my front room is now the den and our formal dining area now houses our new pool table. Again, my practical side -- our formal dining and living area were virtually unused until we made those changes last year. Overall I like it and am certainly more please that we are now using all the areas of the house. The kids room are decorated in fun colors. I love the ladybugs I painted on the walls of the playroom -- it looks so fun and bright and girlie! I have more fun decorating plans for the kids areas, I just need to make the time to implement them!

The outside is great -- it is large and full of fairly mature plants and trees. We have a side yard in which we put in grass and more recently a huge kid-fantastic playground -- which of course they love! We have a BBQ and pool which I am sure we will use more and more as the kids grow up. We also have a few fruit trees (orange and grapefruit). My husband has bird feeders and watering stations all over -- so there are always lots of birds to watch -- hummers, wrens and often more unusual ones (hawks, phoebes and such).

Our neighborhood is the icing on the cake -- our cul-de-sac is fun -- there are lots of kids and we often all just hang out. It is so wonderful to have neighbors that are great friends too -- something we have never been lucky enough to have. We also live in a MasterPlanned community -- that has so many benefits -- there is a small gym for residents as well as classes (dance, music, karate, T-Ball, etc) for the kids. We have a two lovely lakes to walk around, several great playgrounds, and a great pool area for kids & teen in the summer. The community also hosts lots of events for the family -- Holiday Festivals, monthly Farmers & Art Market, Movies on the Lawn, Special Orchestra and Ballet Under the Star nights. So much to do at our fingertips!

I have a hard time imaging a situation, other than a change in job (i.e. location), that would lead us to another home. For now, we are here and we love it!