As a hopeful public school teacher, raising a family with her husband and three daughters I wanted to share with you a dream we have - A Dream to Have People Over.  Unashamed.  You see, we've been reluctant.  We've been hesitant to share our home, save with a very exceptional few.  Only the least jugdgy.  Only the Brave.  So, if you've been, consider yourself worthy.  (You've earned it.)  But if you haven't, we'd like to have you, too.  It's just.  We'd like to get to know you before exposing the hard things we've faced.  You see, we've both grown up broke, and this kitchen we have, it's already A Dream Come True.  You just might not see it the same way, and we get that.

Here's the paradox:  We have a dream to raise our family with a Hopeful Dream Peace Kitchen, where the asbestos does not peek at you through the orange and yellow 70's linoleum.  Where the brooms do not rest in the gap created when you exchanged the home's broken double-wide oven for a standard-sized one.  Where the empty space left from not having a vent hood above your oven does not reveal a plastic sack.  Where you don't have to worry about tape coming up that was supposed to be covering said asbestos holes and you don't have to worry if someone drops something for fear of creating another asbestos hole.

But we lived in such kitchens growing up.  We know that such things shaped our determination, our resilience, our perseverance.  Were there never a dripping faucet or a floor-seam to catch your foot on, would we have turned out to be the same people we are today?  And here we are raising these girls in a different time, with similar hopes and dreams.  They have fantastic character.  Much determination.  And so many dreams.

This house has beautiful bones, it's sturdy.  It's the diamond in the rough.  But, so are we.  Beautiful.  Bones.  Sturdy.  Character.  We will embrace this Hopeful Dream Peace Kitchen, with all it's character, for now.  (And we'll invite you Brave Souls for dinner.)  And we'll keep this Dream alive.  Having others over to keep their dreams alive, too.