This is the morning where we are supposed to get an extra hour of sleep. Linda set her iphone and her alarm clock to go off at 7:00. She almost always wakes up a 1/2 hour before the alarm anyway, but just to be sure she didn't oversleep and miss breakfast with Tierney, she set them for the fall back time. Except her body didn't cooperate. Of course she got up at 5:45 a.m, which means we got up that time too. It's OK though since both Chim and I went straight back to bed after our outside time.
Linda loves the early morning hours. Even though our house is peaceful 100% of the time, it's double peaceful when the sun is just coming up and there isn't any noise outside. Every single morning she thanks God for such an amazing home. There might come a day when we need to move, but until then she is enjoying every single second of it. The gratitude she feels has only been in the last 5 years. Before that, it seemed like so many friends were moving up and out of their starter houses into something big and fancy. Linda wanted to move up too and was kind of embarrassed at how old-school the house was. She's been in our house since 1985 and it still has the original bathrooms and kitchen. The new floors and paint made huge difference. But more than that, her heart attitude changed.
Our deck is falling off the house, we need a new roof, the fake counters are finally pulling away from the wall. It's not most peoples idea of beautiful, or even in very good shape, but she sees past the imperfections and in her eyes its so pretty! If she lost her house and all her "stuff" Linda would hope to still be happy because joy doesn't come from circumstances, other peoples actions, where you live, what you drive, how many toys you have... it is totally from Above and the Lord's love and forgiveness.
