My parents sold the house I grew up in and moved several years ago. My mom was heartbroken — this was the house she’d raised her children in. I was sad to see my parents leave, of course, but I’d said goodbye to the house long before that. Seeing it turned over to another family wasn’t an overly emotional event for me at the time.
However… it has been brought to my attention that this house is once again on the market, and through the magic of the Internets (a.k.a. a series of tubes), I found the realty company’s photos.
Now, I fully realize it’s not my house anymore, I haven’t lived there since 1990 (well, and that brief period in 1994 after college). And I fully realize that all homeowners do things to houses to suit their own tastes, to make them uniquely theirs.
But this is just making me sad. Look what they’ve done! The Disturbingly Ornate Antique Jampacked Christmas Fairy threw up all over the house!! And aren’t you supposed to, you know, put away most of your decor and things, and go kind of minimalist, if you’re trying to sell your house? I guess these people never heard that little tidbit of advice.
Oh yes… this one was MY room. Now it’s junky floral — and it is a pretty damn small room for all the crap that’s apparently in it. Under that yellow paint are layers of pink (the original, when I was very small), light blue, black with Jackson Pollock white drops (when my parents went out of town for a week; boy did I get in trouble for that), and also paintings that both I and my youngest brother painted directly on the walls.
My parents’ bedroom. Boy, that bed almost doesn’t fit, does it? And what’s with the “JUS CUZ” on the wall? That’s just weird.
The living room. I’m not sure if they could fit any more furniture in here. And what’s going on in that back corner? Are those bows?
I’m not certain, but I think that this used to be my dad’s study.
And I think this was our lovely covered patio room – big windows, tile floor, very light outdoorsy feel. Ha!
Standing in the kitchen, looking at the breakfast area.
And standing in the breakfast area, looking into the kitchen. Are those easter eggs hanging from the ceiling? Or is it fruit? And they obviously don’t do any actual cooking — there’s an Oriental rug in the kitchen! That makes me really sad — this is the kitchen where my mom taught me everything I know about cooking. This was a kitchen filled with love and knowledge and a lot of spilled flour. Now it’s just decorative.
I bought a bunch of seeds and planted our garden (some directly in the container pots, some in what passes for “ground” here, and some in a seedling starter tray). With luck, we’ll have 
We acquired a new refrigerator (new to us, anyway) which we had to pick up from South Dallas, and then we transported our old fridge to Rich’s house on the complete other side of town. It took MUCH MUCH longer to move them than I anticipated. Plus, the fun part is that our door is too small to fit a fridge through. So we had to take the handles and doors off the old fridge to get it out of our house, and the new one to get it in.
Our tree is gone. :( The courtyard looks so empty without him. A lovely 30-foot tall Chinese Elm, he served us well in the two short years that we lived under his graceful branches. Sadly, he was ill towards the end, losing all his leaves in early summer, and those that remained hanging on were lacy and eaten through by insects feasting on the weak. His roots had spread far and wide — perhaps too wide, as he had only twelve feet to grow before he hit house foundations on either side. He was beautiful but ill, tall and honorable but a danger to himself and to those for whom he provided meager shade. And so we reached the sad realization that his time had come to an end.
We got new dishes, 40% off at Pier One. They’re oh-so-gorgeous! They’re magically delicious! This picture doesn’t do them justice. They are really more of a deep rich maroon color with flecks of black and some green, and the white in the picture is actually more of a deep cream color with dark crackle lines. They are thick, and golden stoneware. Now what I want to do is get some takeout Chinese food from Tam’s or PeiWei and sit out on the back porch with our new dishes and some hot saké! This sounds appealing also partially because the weather is finally taking a turn for the better. Today was pretty blazingly hot but we’re supposed to have two cool fronts come through in the next several days, dropping temperatures into the 70s for highs on my birthday.
