i recently had a conversation with a prospective tenant who used to run her own marketing company. she loved our take on property management but she expressed that the word dwell has negative connotations for most people. i was confused until she reminded me of the saying “to dwell on something” which certainly sends most of in a downward spiral as we certainly have much to dwell on in these volatile days…but here’s what we mean by dwell…

if you’ve been around us for any length of time you’ve heard the slogan “don’t just live…dwell.” we say it all the time. the meanings of the word dwell we like to lean in to are:

• to live and make home in: to reside, inhabit, lodge in
• to originate in: to belong, consist, be

i have very positive connotations around the word dwell. when i’m dwelling in my home it means it’s a place of rest, rejuvenation and peace. when i’m dwelling in my relationships it means i belong, am free to be myself and experience harmony. but most of all when i’m dwelling in my life it means i’m enjoying my life as it is right now and i’m choosing to inhabit my life to the fullest possible extent. it means i find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness in the small things and enjoy all these things with a sense of self control, knowing and acknowledging that i’m blessed.

so the question we ask ourselves often is “are we dwelling richly in our lives?” this question is the reason our staff blogs in our “enjoylife” posts.  we are capturing the moments of dwelling richly in our lives. for me, it’s about nature and seeing beauty in the world around us; for camille, it’s being with people and experiencing life together and so on. so we thought we’d open this question up to you and launch a little contest.

here’s how it works. we are asking you to share with us how you are dwelling richly in your life with a picture. we will gather all entries and place the top 10 pictures on our site for a vote. the winner will get a $50 cash prize. what we hope for is a pictorial dissertation on what it means to dwell richly in our lives.

here’s the details:

• send us your pic with less than 50 word explanation. include your contact information.
• email entries to winstuff@dwellmanagement.com
• deadline for entry is june 30, 2009
• the dwell team will pick our 10 favorites and display them online for a vote by july 10, 2009
• winner will be announced july 31, 2009

good luck to all you dwellers out there!

(disclaimer: by sending your photo to us, you are giving us permission to use the photo for the purposes of this contest which would include posting your photo on our website and in our office. photos will not be used for any other purpose.)