You may have noticed that we were just counting sefira 1, 2, 3, 4... we are already counting 21, 22, 23, 24. Before you know it, we will be at 41, 42, 43, 44. One at a time, the time goes. We were bar mitzvah bochurim, we are zoche to get a little older, zoche to get married, Zoche to have a family. HKB"H gives us the opportunity that we are zoche to have homes and a few dollars in the bank. The years follow one from the other. Before you know it, you are at the end of the sefiras ha'omer. Oy, what a mussar!
A) We have to realize where we are headed but B) we should realize a hakara, a recognition of what HKB"H has given us. We go day to day and we take things for granted. Even during sefira, you can make a shehecheyanu, however, not during the three weeks. You can make a shehecheyanu as it is a reawakening of the bracha of shehecheyanu which for many of us is something that we don't do.
The Rama in 223:1 says that people don't make shehecheyanu every time they should. The Magen Avraham in s'if kotton aleph says that people don't make this bracha, but they are wrong. You should say it. You see, shehecheyanu depends on simchas halev, on appreciating the things that you have, appreciating the things that HKB"H gives you. If you have more and you can afford more, does that mean that you should appreciate it less?
A piece of furniture that you buy needs a beracha of hatov vehameitiv. A vehicle that you buy needs a beracha as well. Hatov vehameitiv is the plural of a shehecheyanu. A shehecheyanu is for a suit (i.e. something used by one person) and hatov v'hameitiv is the same beracha but made on something like a couch or a car which is something used by many. The point is an appreciation of the things that HKB"H gives us.
