The picture in the banner header above is of my folks house in Richmond Virginia and I put it there initially just to make the point of the blog when we came back from vacation. As I look at it though many thoughts come to my mind and I want to add those to the “takeaways” from our vacation.

-It’s the house my sister and I grew up in.

-We have the unique luxury of still being able to visit my Mom and Stepdad and stay in it.

-The double window near the end is where my bedroom was. 

-When we visit my daughter stays in that room. She loves it. It’s safe, and quiet. I used to feel that way about it too. We take things safe and quiet for granted.

-I ALWAYS forget till I visit how creaky the floors in the hallway are. They are real old fashioned hardwood, floors like those would cost a mint to put down these days. But the creaky floors are as individual as a fingerprint to me, if I hear that sound I’ll know it immediately.

-Where the big bay window is in the front is the living room. When we were kids we weren’t allowed in the living room much, it was for entertaining and had the “good furniture” in it. No there were not plastic slip covers on it. When we visit now we can do whatever we want in there, in fact my mom says “hey take some of this old furniture back to Florida with you”.

-Looking at that picture reminds me of a place I like to be. Still.

-Looking at it reminds me that sometime soon it will be up for sale because it’s getting to be too much house and yard for them to keep up with.

-They have almost an acre of land on a corner in an established upscale neighborhood. When I was a kid we never thought of ourselves as established or upscale.

There’s a ton of other thoughts that picture reminds me of and I really like it. Think I’ll keep it up there a while and share more stuff later.

Billy