The homestead

If you squint you can see where I grew up...my yard, driveway, house, storage barn.

The tree on the left with signs on it had a little notch where I was convinced an elf lived in. Behind the tree, a forgotten dog was buried and sometimes I would walk past with sadness.

The wooden fence holds in a steep grass lawn where I would play slip and slide on a steep incline, sometimes plowing into the fence (ouch!) and I would also roll down the hill on summer days. A large oak tree provided a branch for a large slow porch type swing and other branches to climb. Daffodils lined the hard and shielded eggs during an Easter hunt. Two like trees lined the left side of the fence and one held a huge wooden moon, pained white with lights around it.

Between the chain link fence and the winding stairs is the steep dirt driveway which was a blast to sled down and a pain to walk up. The fence wasn't there when I was a child, and a small pine tree stood partway up, the "home" to my imaginary friend, Betty.

Near where I am parked is the spot my mom parked, and sometimes channel 9 news would pull in and film the falling s is for the flatlanders to see on live TV.

The storage barn was my summer home for a summer or two in college, giving me a private place except of course I had to walk outside and inside the main house to use the restroom or get food.

The house is a cabin, a modified a-frame built by a man, Mitch, for his wife. It has gnarled wood and little holes that let in the cold and spiders. An old wagon wheel hangs as a light fixture.

And this my friends is where I grew up. Not the best photo as there is window glare but I did not feel like hiking up for a better shot...I have hiked that hill enough for a lifetime.

I moved nearby and have decided to stay put now that I will have kiddo number two. I want my children to get outside, appreciate nature, use their imagination to look for elves and other types of "pretend". I see so many city and even suburb kids with no appreciation I the outdoors and no imagination. Kids that ask, why would you want to play outside? What do you do outside? I want my kids to have an awesome exploratory childhood just like I did.

borderin' horderin'

borderin' hoarderin'

it is a buggy, you pervs

see, a buggy.

The show Hoarders scares me, but who doesn't it scare? I had friends growing up whose parents were either hoarders or slobs, with paths through a mess three feet high, no joke. I am betting on slob though, because my friend's cabinets, the color of pine tree trunks, were magically a light maple when I went to visit a friend who moved into the house after the pine-cabinet-slob friends moved out. I complimented the pretty new cabinets they had installed, and was told nope, all they did was clean the cabinets. Eww. Double eww.

One of my mom's many mannequins.
I'll admit she is pretty, she has over
1,000 rhinestones, and is only
part of my mom's collection of both
mannequins and jewelry. Her name is
Liz- the mannequin, not my mom.

 Anyways, my mom is not a hoarder like that, or those you see on TV, but, she is obsessed with yard sale "treasures", jewelry, 1930s stuff, and anything artsy.   And she is obsessed with mementos. This sickness was passed onto me, so I had kept every letter passed to me from elementary on ,every toy I had owned, clothes that no longer fit, every piece of homework...you get the point. I purged my junk and my habit when I went to college, except some stuff I forgot about at home and what, almost 15 years later, its still there. I have nightmares, honestly,where I am back at college in the dorms but keeping every little thing, and I have to move or clean or something and haven't any time and theres just too much stuff....then I wake up .

 So my mom brought three boxes over yesterday. I did actually find my kindergarten report card cool, but that's more from a nerdy teacher perspective. I have no use for 25 yr old dusty books from third grade, and I doubt my son will be into "Are you There, God, its me ,Margaret" but my mom thinks otherwise. I don't need a planner, used, from 2006. I don't need an unused notebook from my frosh year in college. I don't need a used giftbag from 1995. I don't need my student of the month award from1st grade or the free ticket to Knott's Berry Farm, 1991, awarded to me. Apparently, my son will want this stuff, because my mom says so. Also he will totally want my teeth. Yes, my teeth,because my mom has every single baby tooth I ever lost plus my letters to the tooth fairy. Since Santa never ate the milk and cookies, obeyed my wish list, or wrote me back, the tooth fairy filled the gap. My mom was all pouty and said fine,she'd keep my teeth and tooth fairy letters because my son will indeed want them. My mom says there is something wrong with me since I do not keep momentos. She said she kept her first boyfriends cigarette butt for over 20 years, yet I am the one with a screw loose. Lose? Loose? Loo-s not loo-z. Anyways. She has kept every single doodle I have EVER done, fro mage 3 on . And lemme tell you, I was a doodle fiend and probably drew at least 5 things a day, no joke ,as I recall at age 4 I had insomnia one night and drew unicorns until midnight. What the hell do I need 100 dusty unicorn scribbles for? Yes. Yes I ended up with, well, not 5 boxes of unicorns but a booklet of awesome 4 year old drawings. I knew at the very least, not only would I end up with 3 boxes of "precious mementos" (I was able to "return" one for my mom to keep because I was banned from tossing it) and some good blogging opportunities.

drugs are bad m'kay? As I see it, the octo-armed person riding the bees is
smoking drugs, he's on the right, and there is a psychadelic
spiderweb monster plant growing in the sunshine on the left.
This is why parents should not smoke.

I see a teddy bear don't you? He has sideways limbs, boxing gloves, and....I dunno
the rest of it.