My parents used to love walking through model homes. I think they still do, but they don’t do it as much as I remember from my childhood.

Housing tracts, condo complexes, town homes — everything new was fair game to look at and walk through. I’m not sure if the goal was ever to move, or if it was just to dream, simply kill time or get some ideas for decorating.

One complex was fairly close by — Greenbriar something or other, I believe. I held onto the brochure for years because of its beautiful cover. The complex had been photographed at dusk, and the final image showcased the sky in every shade of blue imaginable. It was more pale at the horizon, while darker and yielding to a crescent moon towards the top of the cover. The complex itself was dotted with amber-colored lighting, and wispy palm tree tops were silhouetted against the evening light.

The photo captured my favorite time of day. Then again, perhaps it’s my favorite time of day because I found that cover so beautiful as a child. Not sure what’s driving what in this case, but I do know that every time we have a clear, warm evening when the light is just right and the sky looks like the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, I think of that complex, I remember the brochure and I’m reminded of the impact that beauty has had on me over the years.

Beautiful music has the power to bring me to tears, beautiful scenery inspires me to travel and to find my own peaceful, quiet and calming corner of the world, and beautiful design in the smallest of things has shaped the home I’ve created for myself, and will continue to shape my next one when I move again.

Tonight I am thankful for my mental collection of beautiful things, for the tangible ones, too, and for the long-lasting effect they’ve had — and will continue to have — on me. I don’t believe the goal of that brochure was anything other than to have people buy a condo, but it just goes to show the far reaching impact everything, or everyone, can have on us.