My joy comes with the morning

ok, so my joy usually doesn't come until late morning. This morning it came at about 11:50...right after I realized it was officially the weekend. I am feeling so much better than I did yesterday. It was just one of those days.

Do you remember this magazine? Korey bought it for me as a Valentine's gift. Well, I thought maybe I would share a few of the pages I tore out of it before I filed them away. It really helped me to feel better to look through it. Just because you can't sleep, it doesn't mean you can't dream.

I wish I had a faucet like this. First of all, how pretty is that!? Second of all, I would be able to fill pots with water even if my sink was full of dishes...not that my sink would ever be full of dishes...

I love this table.

Oh my gosh! There are so many things I love in this picture! I can't even begin to tell you how much I love love love this stove/oven. I love that it's blue and brassy and antique looking. I love that there is a faucet above the stove and that it almost looks like a fireplace (Although I would probably have it in stone or brick instead of the white.) If you look at the very top of the picture, you can see the rough wooden beams that line the ceiling. I would love to have a ceiling lined with old wooden beams one day. 

ok now I have to tell you something about wooden beams that makes my whole heart smile. Mine and Korey's first Christmas was spent in this little rental house in Gainesville, GA. It had wood paneling in the living room on the walls and on the ceiling in between wooden beams. I went out of town with my dad to a dental meeting one weekend and I had mentioned that I was sad that we didn't have any Christmas lights. It was the first time we had spent a night apart and when I came back Korey had decorated the house as a surprise. It was so unbelievably sweet. There were lights on the roof and lit trees in the yard and lights in the little window, but the best surprise was when I walked inside. I have never seen so many Christmas ornaments in all my life and they were all hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, Korey's grandmother used to decorate the house by tacking her handmade ornaments to the ceiling. It was hands down one of the sweetest things that Korey has ever done for me....and of course I never managed to get a picture of it. Needless to say, this is where I get my soft spot for wooden beams. 

I think this is so cool. This is the butcher block from an old french butcher shop. I am one of those people that has to throw away at least half of anything I cut on a cutting board because it magically ends up on the floor. It drives Korey crazy and I am convinced that it is because my cutting board is much too small. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I would love to one day have a room like this. I know this is supposed to be a kitchen, but I would prefer to use something like this as a mud room/laundry room off the side of the house. Not that we will ever really have a house big enough to warrant having a mud room, but I would love to have a big laundry room.

Let me just say that I love to dream about these things, but I understand that they are only things. I don't want to be misunderstood. I am very content with where we are right now and feel very blessed to have all that we have been given, even if we don't have a mud room/laundry room. In fact, right now our laundry room is a screened in back porch and our dryer sounds like we threw a garden gnome in it before turning it on. These are all just things and things do not bring joy, relationships do. For me, my relationship with Jesus Christ brings me more joy than anything in this world, but that doesn't mean I don't want things, and it doesn't mean I don't like designing my dream kitchen. I don't think Jesus would mind it if I had a big mud room/laundry room, and a beautiful kitchen, and if He does, I will gladly give those dreams up. Until then I will sit and tear pages out of magazines and then thank the Lord for my crappy washer and dryer before I lay my head down at night. 

So tell me, if anyone is reading this, what do you want in your dream home? I would love to know.