Today I could sit and gaze at this photo for a long time.
Found here at Room Envy… oh the irony! (I googled. I did not go on Pinterest to find this image. 🙂 )
I want to be there, sitting by the fire with my tea and a good book. I want to forget that it is March and it is snowing outside again. I want to forget that I have free lanced my housekeeping all week while we concentrated on school and laundry and cooking vast amounts of food that we ate so that here we are, at Friday, with an empty fridge and this:
This photo was taken yesterday. We clean up every day, I tell you, but this seems to recur on a 25-bits-of-rubble per hour basis. Today, I cannot sit and gaze with longing at what I do not have. Today, I will gird up my loins and clean out the junk behind the couch. I will be grateful that we have real people living in this house. I will praise God that I get to serve these people and I get to teach them how to keep chaos at bay with the daily rituals of order and cleanliness that we strive to attain. Today I will keep things in perspective, because only an “accident of birth” keeps me from living in this:
Found here at Rising From the Rubble. (I did not go on Pinterest to find this image either.)
I don’t remember where I read this quote, but it has profoundly changed how I look at the negatives in life.
My problems would be someone else’s dream.
wocket in my pocket 
some how the contrast of the two top pics sent me into giggles:) The last quote is so true. I have friends who would love to be in my shoes but instead have a quiet, neat empty house this morning…Thank you God for little people! They are so dear!
like usual, I can identify deeply with your post!
I agree, the first photo is lovely to look at, but if I were a kid, I would definitely choose to live in the second picture. As a mom, I would too. It just looks so much like Home!
You are truly building for eternity and I applaud you today!
i really enjoy reading your blog. everytime you post something it is such an encouragement. thank you.
Hi Shannon! It is good to hear from you. Thanks for your encouraging words!
My living room matches yours. There is exactly two ways my couch can go, our furniture lines the walls too. I bet the owner of that gorgeous GORGEOUS white living room does not have a Rita, or fat little babies, or studious 10 yr olds. I want to come visit you. Your living room looks so homey! No, its not white shabby rugs, but its the kind of couch that one would drink coffee on.
Oh yes, one drinks coffee there, and fat little babies eat crackers or popcorn there, and leave traces behind. Do consider a visit up North. It would not be so very far out of your way to wherever else you were going… Rach could come too.