Love my house. I love almost everything that is in my house. I'm glad that I have a bed to sleep in, a hot shower to take on cold days, and a refrigerator that keeps my food cold. I've recently realized, however, the my table is one of the best and most underappreciated things in my house. When is the last time you reflected on all the ways something as simple as a table helped your life?

There are many reasons I love my table. The biggest reason I have grown to love my table is because it has become the gathering place for friends and family and the setting for some of the best conversations I have ever had. There is nothing that beats sitting down with the people you love at a table and sharing a great meal, a pot of tea and a good talk about anything and everything. My table has been the place for every shared birthday cake and every late night glass of wine for many years. I absolutely love spending time with the people I've been blessed with, and it seems like more often than not we share some of our best time around my table. I guess I love my table so much because it represents the gathering of loved ones to me.

I love my table for less profound reasons as well. Take last Tuesday for example. I was busy preparing a portfolio of all of my photographs from the last few months to share with a potential employer. I needed somewhere hard and flat to lay out each photo until I organized them into the portfolio. Where did I work? At my table, of course. There is no better place to spread out all of your work and keep it safe while you work to organize it back together again.

My table has also become host to Wednesday night game nights with my friends. We gather each week and sit around the table to play the latest, greatest, and sometimes not so fun games. Card games, board games, or puzzles, it doesn't matter. We rotate bringing the games and the snacks each week. The only thing that doesn't rotate is my table. Every Wednesday night we gather there without fail. I'm so grateful for my table at times like those. It may sound simple or strange to be so grateful for your table, and I guess in some ways it might be. But I, for one, would not want to live without my table. Would you?