Happy New Year! I’m excited about the coming year and I don’t think I’ll be looking back with longing on the one that has just passed-by. Glad to have ’09 in the rearview.

It is a new day. A new year. A new decade. Isn’t it just the same as the beginning of a week, just bigger time frames? It’s a great time to make an improvement in what we do, and how we do it. Don’t you think?

Resolute

I’m no wordsmith here, but I assume that this is the root word for resolution, and as I understand it, the word means to be determined, firmly committed, unwilling to waiver… resolute.

So, in the context of remodeling, what do I want to be resolute about in 2010?

Gratitude

All year long I will be posting pictures and going-on about great ideas to make your house (and mine) better, bigger, prettier, more you!

But I want to resolve to be thankful, as I dream of new ideas, for what I already have. If I have a dry and safe place to lay my head, if my wife and sons are safe and nearby, if we have a place at all that we can call home, then we are blessed and I resolve to be thankful.

If I start to complain, I’ll try and remember that millions of people don’t have a home at all to even consider making better, bigger, or safer. The ideas of prettier or better expressing personality are completely foreign.

I’ll click my way back to this post, and take a look at these pictures:

When I look out over a beautiful lake or harbor and think of my view, I’ll try and remember that some views aren’t so nice. (I hate to interject remodeling into the solemn depths of this post, but check out the little lean-to roof, second floor, first porch. That’s an idea with potential.)

If I start to feel cramped for space or my air-conditioning breaks down, I’ll try to be thankful that I even know what air-conditioning is and thrilled that even a tiny house by our standards is a palace compared to many. (I can’t help but notice the cool ideas: I love that blue ladder)

I hope I’m not depressing you! That wasn’t the plan! One more picture:

If I start to feel like things are rough, or my plans aren’t working out. I’ll try and remember to be thankful that I’m surrounded by an amazing family, a beautiful home (still two, actually), work to do, sons to raise who love me and look up to me, an incredible wife whose awesomeness is beyond words (twenty years last night since our first date!), and most importantly…

A loving and caring God who will never leave me nor forsake me, who knows the plans he has for me, plans to give me hope and a future, who provides for my every need, and who forgives my every mistake, as often as I might need.

So, for me, my one-word new years resolution is…

Gratitude