Our house has been on the market for a month now and still no offers. But I’m not discouraged in spite of the gloomy headlines such as “U.S. home prices at lowest since 2006 bust” or “County home sales hit a low for April.”

For though we walk through the valley of the shadow of short sales, we’re prepared to hang in there until it sells. Sure, we are underwater but once we are able to sell it and have the burden of it not weighing us down, we feel like we will be able to come up for air and take some deep breaths.

In the meantime, I’m thoroughly enjoying living in our house now that it is so tidy. Every countertop has been cleared of the clutter so it’s ready for an agent to show it to potential buyers at any moment. Steve and I look at each other and comment that we should have always lived this way. It makes us feel calmer to look around and see order.

Now that the house has been stripped of the piles of papers, mail and folders that had found permanent homes on the furniture and kitchen counters, I see more of the house and less of us.

And by seeing the house more objectively, I’m reminded of what I thought about it when I first saw it 17 years ago. When I walk in, I’m struck with the thought that “Wow, this is a nice house. I really like the fact that it’s so open and has so much light coming in.”

Seeing the house as if it were new to me, has made me realize that I have been focusing on features of it that I saw as flaws such as the size of the kitchen and amount of countertop and storage space and not appreciating it for the really nice house that it is.

It’s like when my teenage daughters complain that their hips are too wide hips or their boobs are too small. All they see are their features that they consider to be less than perfect. Sure, they may not match up to some model of perfection that they see in a magazine…then again who does…so I try to give them some perspective. Even with a zit, they are beautiful. In fact, Steve said that to Jennifer just this morning on the way to church.

So if the worn and cat-plucked carpet is the zit on the face of our house and the kitchen looks small and inefficient compared to the ones in House Beautiful, I have faith that potential buyers can overlook these imperfections and see our house for what it has been to us…and could be for them: a wonderful place to raise a family in a safe and stable neighborhood.