Ah, the house.

I have a love/dislike relationship with our house. Some days I love it. I walk up the street on my way home from work and I look at the big windows in the sunroom and the flamingos in the garden and I cannot wait to get inside to be inside my house. I walk into the kitchen and I feel comfortable. I feel at home. This house feels right.

I had one of the "I love this house" moments this weekend; actually, several of these moments. Doug and I spent A LOT of time working in the front yard to weed and improve. So much improvement, don't you think? This is what the front of the house looked like before we got to it: And this is what the front of the house looked like after we got to it: Doug took out that big, prickery bush and I had my way with another of the nasty plants up front. And while I was very tempted to cut down the overwhelming rose bush on the side of the house along the driveway, I didn't because it's covered with these rosebuds and it will be a beautiful bush once those buds blossom.

But today I'm having some of those dislike moments about the house, because I finally called the handyman (not Doug for this one) to get our upstairs shower fixed, and while I was baking cookies in my kitchen that's the size of a postage stamp I turned on the faucet in the kitchen to get a glass of water and whoosh! A geyser of water sprayed out the stop of it. The thing is cooked. Broken. Dead. Done. So now we need a new faucet. Which will involve a plumber. All of this just after I put the deposit on the housepainting project that we have coming in August. So yes, I'm having some of those dislike moments about the house.

I remind myself, though, that there are good things. There are good things about my house, and also just good things about life in general. Blue Ribbon for dinner, Doug playing guitar in the basement, going to the beach and enjoying the warm sun on my (well-sunscreened) skin, wonderful and beautiful beach roses, and the fact that our house, the house into which we pour our time, our wallets, and our love, was not destroyed by a freakish tornado. As I go to bed tonight, it's those good things that I'm going to think about. And I'm going to avoid the kitchen faucet for a while.