Giving Thanks Day 28 ~ Keep Your Dreams Alive

Today I am thankful, and truly grateful for Dreams. Not just the ones that we wake from and remember the details of...but the dreams we have in our hearts. The inspiring dream of something we have always wanted to do or try. Maybe it's a hobby, maybe it's something you enjoy, a trip you want to take, a job you've always wanted, a gift you've been longing for, sometimes forever chasing them, whatever it maybe...your hopes your dreams, never give up on them. We not only have dreams for ourselves, but for our children. The key is to keep our dreams alive. Too often life, crazy, chaotic, stressful life, chips away at our dreams or leaves little to no time for our dreams. Some of us put them on a shelf, pulling them down from time to time, blowing the dust off of them and we hold them for a moment and remember and say "One day" and we place them back up on the shelf. There are some that seem to live a dream, I get this one often about spending our summers and weekends at the beach. It is a dream, and something I am very thankful for and blessed with. It's one of those dreams come true, one of those dreams that sat on a shelf for years. We toyed with the idea of getting a beach crash pad, from time to time we looked with a realtor, sat on beach vacations dreaming at the Homes catalogs and the houses that were for sale. Oh yes, my dream was a big beach house, you know the kind like in Nights of Rodanthe....shabby chic with a bed and breakfast cottage like feel to it. Of course it would have lots of rooms so I could have guests come to stay at any given notice. Then one day we took that dream off the shelf and said "let's do this". No we didn't end up with the Big House on the beach....but a small studio condo on the ocean. We took the chance, at first thinking we'd rent the condo out and get a bigger place in the coming years...we thought of it as an investment. We rented it out a few times (as we were required to because we purchased a rental property and it had already been rented prior to our purchase), then that fall we started going down and spending weekends there. Wow, it is amazing that crossing that bridge on a Friday and spending just two days felt like spending a week there. It was beyond refreshing. The kids had so much fun that by the following summer we decided to see if they would like an entire summer down there. At first we thought it might get "old" or they'd get "bored". Nothing could be further from the truth. We have met wonderful families that come back year after year, and we've had many wonderful memories with them. We've had friends and family who have come to stay or visit at our condo (sometimes we all squish into our condo, and other times they get their own place here). We've built sandcastles with knights, pirates and army men. We've watched countless sunrises and sunsets. We've found thousand of shells, and even started an Auger collection (it is usually a race each year to see who finds the first Auger of the summer). We've enjoyed hours of fun in the sun and surf...boogie boarding, skim boarding, jumping waves, riding rafts, and surfing. We've visited nearby places and small towns, touring the aquarium, reenactments at the Fort, chartering sailboats, seeing wild mustangs. We've enjoyed early morning and late night swims in the pool, had pizza pool parties, and ice cream socials. We've ridden our bikes on the bike trail to the pier, and through neighborhoods spotting deer along the way. We have enjoyed surf fishing and watching fishermen reel in their catches (we have yet to catch anything). We've watched dolphin jumping and playing in the waves. We've spent countless nights under the stars on a blanket at turtle nests.  We've watched loggerhead and green hatchlings boil out of their nest and scamper down to the ocean. After that first summer on the beach, I said "we could have rented out our condo and made money...but I'd rather make memories". That is exactly what we did. It is a dream and one that came with hard work and sacrifice. I never could have imagined that something so small would have such a huge impact on my family's life, it was an investment of a different sort.  No it's not the multi-million dollar dream home we would drool over in the Homes Magazines...but it is worth far more...our condo is tiny, cozy but packed with so many memories, so much joy, happiness, excitement and fun that I could never put a price tag on it. Henry David Thoreau wrote "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler." Anything is possible, if you just believe...Never give up on your dreams, don't wait any longer, take one off the shelf, dust it off and make it come alive ♥