I had a thought the other day…

After a long day of showings I was traveling home through an unfamiliar area. Naturally, I was relying on my GPS for some assistance and just trusting that my final destination would hopefully be my driveway.

I don’t know about you, but for me sometimes my brains autopilot takes over and I’m just along for the ride. This was definitely one of those days, and as I was cruising along listing to my favorite podcast, I suddenly snapped back to reality and realized that I was headed down one of those little country roads that may or may not be an actual road.

It was the kind of road where you're pretty sure the GPS has malfunctioned and has sent you straight to the beginnings of a Stephen King movie..

However, in the midst of my confusion and slight panic about where my car was taking me, I passed the most dreamy farmhouse sitting out in a big open field.

It wasn’t dreamy in your modern traditional sense.

It was dreamy in a mysterious kind of way.

The paint was peeling.

The porch leaned just a little.

It definitely wasn't the kind of house that would end up on the cover of a magazine.

Despite its less than up to date aesthetics, it caught my eye and made me forget that I was completely lost on an unfamiliar road. Almost like I had somehow stumbled into a different dimension that I wasn’t supposed to find.

Before I knew it my thoughts started to take off in a million different directions.

I started wondering who lived there or used to live there.

I wondered if someone planted those old oak trees and how many generations of kids have climbed them.

I started to imagine somebody's grandmother standing in that kitchen making Sunday lunch or hollering from the front porch in her apron for the kids to come back in for dinner.

Maybe it’s a little bit of my ADD or my over active imagination that has stuck with me through adulthood, but I could almost see every season of life that has ever happened in that old lonely farmhouse unfolding before my eyes.

And then it hit me.

We spend so much time looking at homes for what they are today that we forget they're really collections of generations worth of memories.

Most people don’t buy a house thinking about all of the ordinary moments that will happen inside of it.

The mundane things that we often take for granted.. like your teenager coming home after football practice and dropping all of his gear right at the front door before raiding the refrigerator.

Or the time spent in the kitchen making Christmas cookies with a classic on TV.

Or the perfect couch you found for the living room just for the dog to decide that very couch belongs to him now.

Those things just gradually happen over time.

Little by little.

Until one day you realize the house you bought has quietly become a home and a part of your family's history.

Maybe that's why I love being able to be a part of the very beginning of those stories. I get to hand a family the keys to so much more than just their new home.

They're excited because they bought a house, and I'm excited because I know they're about to start building a life inside it.

And that’s what it’s all about..

Not closing day.

Not the pictures holding a giant wooden key that says “Homeowner”.

Not all of the congratulatory Facebook comments from friends.

It's all the ordinary Tuesdays that come after.

Those are the moments that make a house worth remembering.

xoxo, Mary Elizabeth.