Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The House That Built Me

Everyone has that place they think of when they remember their childhood and growing up. We all picture in our minds the backyards we played in, the places we spent our summers, where Christmas and Thanksgiving was and all the big family things we did. In my mind, when I picture my childhood and growing up I can clearly see a few different places, both of my grandparents house, my mom's house, my dad's house, a few friends houses that we lived in as little girls going back and forth. We all have those places that live in our memory, the one's that are a little fuzzy around the edges because it was so long ago and it seems like a completely different world now.



Well there is one house in my mind that stood out from the rest, it was the house that built me. This house has been in my family for 40 years, my grandparents used to live there and when I was around 12 my mom bought it from them and we moved there. So this house has memories from when I was a little girl playing with my cousins in the backyard at grandma and papa's to my teenage years of creating a giant slip-and-slide in the backyard with a group of friends.

However, this house is leaving my family tree. My mom is selling this home and moving to another smaller house that will be better for just her, which my whole family understands and supports. But, I'm having a few mixed emotions about this so I thought I would take a note from Miranda Lambert and share some things about the house that built me.

1. To the next girl who lives in the front room, the windows are nailed shut from my Papa. (my aunt's used to sneak out) But the windows in the living room are the perfect height to launch your sister through if you get locked out.

2. My favorite horse is buried in the pasture behind the barn, she was so good and loyal to me and I still have memories of riding her bareback in the pasture, take good care of our land please. Many animals that we loved spent their lives there and we owe it to them.

3. That ramp on the front porch is mine, I hope you never have any reason to put it to use. It was put there with love from that sweet town when I was 17 and needed it to come home from the hospital.

4. The cement slab behind the garage, it used to be a chicken coop. Then it was a play house for us as little one's until my Papa tore it down because he thought it wasn't safe.

5. Out in the back of the pasture, you'll find a make shift play house just beyond the fence. There is a tree branch we knocked down to cross the river and you can live like Huck Finn out there for a day.

6. When you venture on the train tracks make sure you can't see one from either way. Don't tell your parents but if you put a penny on the train tracks after a train goes by it will be smashed really neat.

7. If you walk those same tracks far enough north you can sneak into the rodeo arena from the back but you have to go through a lot of brush to get there. But be ware of any hobos on the tracks.

8. The backyard is a great place to have a campfire with friends and spend your summer nights making s'mores and telling stories, that's how I spent every night the summer before my senior year.

9. The backyard is also the perfect place for a giant slip and slide, just make sure to put inflatables at the end or you will hit the barn. P.S. the well water will be COLD but it is a lot of fun.

10. There are secret stories in the walls and floors from years of love, laughter, tears, and heartbreak. I hope that you find yourself in that house like I did, because it is the house that built me.

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I'm linking up at these parties!

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