Our House Is A Very Very Very Fine House

It's a new year and with it a new blog chain has begun. Jon kicked things of with a topic that takes us back in time.

Imagine the home(s) where you grew up, and start drawing a floor plan. As you draw, memories will surface. Grab onto one of those memories and tell us a story.

It's funny that Jon started up this topic about homes, because it is a subject that has very much been on my mind lately as my husband and I are - after years and years and years of renting - just now starting the process of looking for a home to buy. It's much different looking to buy rather than rent. It's permanent (and pricey!) so you really have to think about what is important to you in a home. Since leaving my parents home when I left for college, I have been a bit of a nomad. I think the longest I've lived anywhere without changing addresses is about two years. So when I think of home, the place that comes to mind isn't one of my half-remembered past addresses, but the home I grew up in.

It's not difficult for me to remember the house either - I was just there last week. My family moved there when I was five years old. 28 years later my parents are still in that same house. It's funny now seeing my daughter banging on the same piano where I once practiced my scales. 

Me and my daughter, Zoe aka baby Beethoven, at the piano.

 

Or watch them jump of the diving board for the first time - nose pinched close with two fingers and the rest of their limbs flailing - the same way I once had.

Me, Zoe, and my son Jamie poolside at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Or seeing the kitchen table that my sisters and I once sat it, now occupied by my children and their cousins.

Jamie kissing his cousin Eleni.

In the stories I write, I love to use the device of planting something early in a story that will pay-off later. Watching my kids and my nieces and nephew playing in the house where I grew up is one of the greatest pay-offs of all.

Just like those episodes of House Hunters that you can't stop watching - this blog chain also goes on and on. To catch more posts make sure to check out Matt's post from earlier today and tomorrow you can find a fresh new blog entry from Cole.