Our Grateful Life

I’m doing this for the house on the water!

Okay, I know y’all have been waiting with baited breath to find out more about the painting I bought for our bedroom.

Really, I could feel your anxiety growing.

Saturday, Chris worked. I know. Did anyone fall off their chair with that shocking revelation?

Well, here’s another one. I shopped.

Understand, I am desperately seeking the perfect beach sundress. This is not a task for the faint-hearted. I have a picture in my head of an eyelet, Kelly green sheath with cap sleeves that comes mid-knee. I have found some white ones, a red one, a yellow, hot pink and navy one but not a green one. They’ve all been really short too except for the white one and let me just say that white on me is almost as bad a yellow. I still wear it because it’s a necessary staple but I just couldn’t see myself wearing this white sheath. I looked a little like a kid playing ghost only in better shoes.

Of course, I’ve been hitting my usual favorites (not all in one day, I swear). Banana, Ann Taylor, TJ Max, The Loft, Harold’s Outlet, Black House/White Market, Marshall’s and Target.

Nothing.

But as there’s a Home Goods attached to Marshall’s I thought it would be nice to wonder over to that side.

I walked up the aisles scanning for that diamond in the rough. Something I never knew I needed but would immediately upon seeing it. Surprisingly, I saw very little.

And then, as I was walking out, I saw The Painting.

Can you hear the heavens singing?

I’ve been looking for a beach painting for years. Not some cheesy painting of the lone beach chair on a porch or a starfish in the sand. I wanted an actual beach scene. Several years ago, I saw the perfect one of two blond children playing on the beach. It was fabulous. And I didn’t buy it. It was expensive and I figured I could find something better later on.

And here we are 5 years later and I finally did find something. Completely different than that painting.

The painting looks just like the marsh in the summer. I used to drive through the marsh every day and honestly, at first, I thought it was ugly. But over the course of the year I started to notice how the colors would change like the leaves on the trees. I began to look forward to seeing the yellow marsh in the autumn afternoon sun. Or the spring marsh in the morning’s brightness. I loved seeing the tide fill the green marsh with deep blue water. It was truly beautiful. And I sincerely miss it.

So when I saw this painting, I knew this was the “beach” scene I wanted. It reminds me of our first years of marriage. My job at the hotel and all those afternoons watching the sun set over the river waiting for that evening’s event to start. It reminds me of the hours I would spend sitting by the beach and talking with God.

And it also reminds me why I get up and work every day.

So we can retire in a house on the water.