Saturday, September 17, 2005

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Happy weekend!

This week I have been thinking a lot about homes, home-ownership, and related topics. Since I am the daughter of United Methodist ministers and married a United Methodist minister, I was raised in parsonages and have lived in furnished parsonages all my married life; so I have never lived in my OWN house! We bought a house about 15 years ago in order to have some security at retirement time. Our son and daughter-in-law have been living there for 15 years, but they are almost ready to move out into their own home so that we can begin to make living arrangements for after Jim's retirement sometime within the next two or three years.

Yesterday four good friends who are great handymen went with us to do some general repairs on the house. We got a lot done -- replacing light fixtures, repairing small plumbing problems, etc.; when the house is empty we will do more major spruce-up jobs such as painting, pressure-washing outside, installing some new cabinets in the master bath and bedroom, and some landscaping.

So, we have been looking at our house and trying to imagine actually living there.


Yikes! Choosing for OURSELVES where to live? Foreign concept!
Not used to making decision about living quarters, questions abound:

  • What will it feel like to live in a house that belongs to US?
  • Do we want to live in Rome, GA (where the house is) or somewhere else in the state -- or the nation -- or the world?
  • Should we sell this house and buy one that suits our lifestyle and needs better? Can we afford to do that?
  • How can we pick out and buy furniture for the first time at our ages?

Thankfully we have a little time yet to make those decisions. We have lived in 9 parsonages in our 42 year marriage. We had no choice in those houses -- either the house itself or its furnishings. Isn't it great that NEW experiences come our way no matter our ages?! Freedom to CHOOSE -- a great blessing.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

To our sorrow, you missed one opportunity: the green house sold. The moving vans are one the street now.

Anyway, I vote for Rome. Y'all come!

Carol said...

I lean towards Rome, too, because with as many family members as we have there, we'll see you more often if you're there. It's exciting being able to start over, have your OWN house and able to make your own decisions about it. I love your blog!

Anonymous said...

Joan, I understand the excitement of your "own" home. You will love it. I wish more churches would offer housing allowances so that preachers did not have to wait until near retirement to own a home. I think it would be fun for you to be in Rome where so many of your siblings live. But as you said, you will be free to choose!!!

Anonymous said...

I think you'll be happy in Rome and enjoy it. It's such a friendly city with much to do. Also, being that close to a lot of your family will be a new and rewarding experience for you. For selfish reasons, I can't whole-heartedly vote for you living 2 hours away from me! :-) On the other hand, it's much closer than Mexico or the Carribean! :-)