I took it slow today.

I scheduled some reels, moved a few things around on the content calendar, and then I remembered I had not stepped outside once. So I grabbed some water, washed down the patio, and sat under the gazebo.

Just sat there.

There is something about sitting in a space you have built, maintained, and called yours that hits differently when you let yourself feel it. And sitting there today, I had a thought that stopped me: all of this could go away in a split second. So I better be grateful for it right now, including the to-do list that never seems to shrink.

Because here is the thing about homeownership that nobody really talks about: the overwhelm is a privilege.

I grew up in Nicaragua. My first home had no flooring when we moved in. For the first few weeks, maybe months, it was all dirt. I remember watching my father and uncles install the tile. Then came the outhouse. I was bathed in a cement sink, the same one used for food preparation and later for washing clo...

While we complain about our first-world problems, others look at us in the developed world wishing to have our problems. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about a story I recently read. It was about the experience that Soad, a grandmother from Iraq and her son, Haider had when they were brought to Georgia so that her granddaughter, Noor could get medical attention. You can read more about baby Noor here. 

While Soad and Haider were in the U.S. they saw many things in a very different light than most of us Americans do.

For example, Soad was astonished at how clean our produce is in American supermarkets. She was amazed that misters would spray the produce every so often to keep it fresh. And she noticed that produce was not swarmed with flies the way it was in markets in her country. 

The Eye-Opener

Soad and her son viewed the American medical system that we so much complain about in a whole different way:

“Their idea of medical care was limited to an Abu Ghraib clinic with dirty terrazz...