Men smell flowers too???

So I was standing at the kitchen sink today, doing the dishes from a youth potluck we had last night, thinking about what I need to do in the next couple days and how tired I'm going to be after the next couple days (and how tired I am now just thinking about it)...and I looked out the window and saw our neighbour across the street. Our neighbour is a tall man, middle-aged, and, as far as I know, single. I don't know his name. He's nice though. Whenever he sees us outside, he smiles and waves and says hi. That's nice of him. I don't know what he does for a living either...Patti, our friend who used to live in this house, once told me that he's an artist or something. That would make sense. Anyway, out my window I often see him do this very exact same thing, but today it just hit me differently. He walked out of his house, almost as if he was bored, or lonely, or waiting for someone to arrive any minute. He stood just outside his door on his driveway and looked around, not in a creepy or crazy sort of way...just as if he had all the time in the world. Then, he casually walked over the the nearest flowerpot and looked at the flowers and touched them and bent down and smelled them (and maybe even talked to them...I wasn't close enough to tell). It's like he really enjoys his flowers! Then he walked around the side of his house and eventually came around the other side. Then, he went back inside. I thought for a while how strange and random this seemed...this action was so unlike what anyone under 60 years of age would do in our world today! Then it hit me. I often focus so much on how busy I am and how tired I am that I forget to appreciate the wonderful things that God has put in my life...things like salvation, and grace, and Nathan, and our house, and summer, and even just the fact that our grass is growing and not dead!!! He probably doesn't take those things for granted! Our neighbour is a good neighbour. He's a reminder, just outside my window, to stop and smell the flowers...just as if I have nothing better to do.

Welcome to Second Street!

When I first heard of the concept of blogging, from LT in Spriritual Disciplines, I thought it sounded like fun...who wouldn't want to live out their dream of publishing their journal, even if it is just online? I pushed the idea aside, thinking "I don't want to be a nerd...and only nerds have blogs." So I continued on with my merry life (and marry, I did...) and next thing I know everyone I know has a blog! I decided that I couldn't just follow the trend and get a blog because everyone else did...But today I changed my mind. Who
am I kidding? I want a blog, so here it is. My thoughts from Second street.

As most of you probably know, Nathan and I recently moved into our first house. (It happens to be on Second street, which is why my thoughts are from Second street.) I know that many of you have been awaiting my promise of pictures, so here is a little mini-tour of our humble abode. The first picture is our house from the outside. It's a nice mix between mint and glow-in-the-dark green. One comment I got was, "It suits you guys." Never thought glow-in-the-dark mint would suit me...you learn something new everyday! The outside/yard is where most of the work needs to be done.


The next picture is our kitchen/dining room. This picture was taken right before Trevor and Rebekah came over for supper...we finally had the house cleaned...we had to take pictures of it! jj













Next is the living room. We're enjoying having our new furniture finally fit where we have it. It was fairly squished into our apartment.



Our bedroom is much smaller than our last one (our last one was wheelchair accessable or something). But it's red, not white, and that makes up for every square foot we lost.



Our second bedroom is storage/computer room/scrapbooking room/library. It's dark blue.







Downstairs we have a large rec room (aka. Nathan's work out room - "man-space"). We also have a third bedroom (caramel coloured), second bathroom (blue-ish teal) and laundry room downstairs too.


Overall this is a wonderful place to start out. It's a good size for two but is able to easily hold company and youth and, someday, kids. It is very much home, and my dream is that it becomes a home to everyone who steps foot inside.

So that is our place on second street...the place where I think and ponder and write from. Enjoy!