on a sunny morning in mid-june, i woke up with a house full. my sister and her family stayed the night with us on their way down to hilton head island for their summer vacation. i was so excited to have them here - not only was it their first time seeing ross' and my new home, but it was their first time visiting charlotte since we'd moved away from indiana - and i miss them so much.
after a morning of packing up and eating a big breakfast (my favorite meal of the day!) they were ready to hit the road. my sweet nieces were outside playing in our backyard staying out of the way while the rest of us had been packing up. when we went outside to load up the car, i noticed that one of the lights we'd just put in around our deck was broken. i asked the girls if they knew anything about it, they said no and i believed them, but with these sweet little faces, can you blame me??
the fam waved as they pulled out of the driveway headed for the coast. i played with the light for awhile to no avail, all the while thinking about how expensive owning a house becomes. just in the previous two months, we'd put a garage door on our garage (who builds a garage and never finishes it off with a door?), started updates to one of our bathrooms, painted the entire house, and bought just about every lawn tool you can imagine. and as soon as you get something nice in your home, you may as well start the countdown to when it's going to break, chip, or get scratched up. while mulling all this over, my happiness levels were plummeting. "what had we gotten ourselves into?" my over dramatic self began to wonder.
i went in the house to find ross and announced that i was in a bummed mood because of all the expenses that come with home ownership and it was his responsibility to cheer me up. he thought for maybe 30 seconds, picked up his phone and started punching buttons. within another minute, he was walking out the door, keys in hand.
i soon found myself pulling up behind a few other cars in the nicest, most historic neighborhood in charlotte - myers park. as we were getting out of the car, i reminded him that i was still wearing the indiana shirt that i'd slept in the night before, no makeup, with my hair pulled back. he told me to stop being weird.
(one of myers park's beautiful tree lined streets)
right about that moment i looked up to see a gorgeous (and huge) house. with lots of people walking around in the driveway. i realized.......what he'd brought me to was a garage sale. what he'd done was planted a new found love.
fast forward 20 minutes.
we were loading up our car with two baskets, a 6 ft tall fake tree, a big yellow book on decorating (that matches the color scheme in our navy and yellow family room), two cookbooks (one of which i'd been wanting for awhile, but refused to spend the money), and my personal favorite, two tennis raquets with a cover for one of them. so a total of 8 items. can you guess how much we spent? (go ahead, guess a number in your head...........)
$12.00
ross succeeded at his mission.
when we got home, we walked to freedom park to play tennis.
:) I never heard this story before... and i love it.
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