Allow Me to Wallow...................

Sometimes I just like to feel sorry for myself. Is that normal?
I'm not sure. 
(But since I HATE the word 'normal' (#5) it doesn't matter anyway.)

                                                          (front door)
Why am I feeling sorry for myself?
Simple.
I miss my old house.

                                   (part of the front porch)
"Old" in this case would be under the definition of "former" and "age".  

                              (The back of the house. One of three-largest-they-have-U-Hauls we used)
It has been two years ago this week that we left the house big, huge old Victorian in Kansas and moved back 'home' to Oklahoma.

The house was 115 years old when we moved into it.  We lived there 17 years (almost to the day). We have been gone 2 years. Now that's old!

I miss my big front porch. I miss the Widow's Walk on the second floor that we loved to decorate for the seasons.
I miss the front door that was so big the doors had to be custom made.

                        (another view, another U-Haul!!)
I miss the old leaded-glass windows.

 I miss the old stain-glass windows.

 
I miss my 35+ windows that were between 52 through 72 inches across and ALL were 72 inches long. 
Until we added air-conditioning about 8 years before we moved, the house had never had any kind of air-conditioning whatsoever. 
You can just imagine the breezes that would blow through those monstrous windows. 
I miss the Southern breezes that cooled down our home on summer nights.

                              (sorry for the dust and dirt, but it was moving day)

 

I miss my hardwood floors. I miss my ORIGINAL TO THE HOUSE, inlaid oak floors that had a different pattern in every single room! (Some rooms had a big diamond, some a small, some the squares, some double squares, some squares turned like diamonds. It was all done by hand 130+ years ago. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!
 I refinished them myself while we lived there. Twice.

I am missing arched doorways and formal dining rooms.
I am missing big mantels to decorate each season.

I am missing transom windows above every.  single.  interior.  door.

I am missing gigantic old woodwork and bullseyes in every corner. I am missing nooks and crannies fitted with shelves and benches.

I miss hallways that run the length of the house and are over 4 feet wide!

I miss weird passage-ways and funny closets.

I miss having a front stairway and a backstair way to decorate.........and use. 

I miss having a board where we charted the children's growth every few months. That board had SO many marks on it. The boys could not wait to see if they had outgrown each other.

I miss bright sunny rooms.

I miss hugely thick walls.
I miss my red walls.

I miss my (custom-ordered-by-me-so-don't-say-anything-rude) kitchen sink.

I miss my white cabinets.

 I miss my super-cool-again-picked-out-by-me-so-don't-you-dare-be-rude-kitchen-cabinet-handles.

I miss my gas oven. I miss my gas oven. I miss my gas oven. I miss my gas oven. I miss my gas oven. I miss my gas oven.

I miss having a huge eat-in bar in my kitchen.
I miss having the biggest-kitchen-known-to-man (24 x 15) where the entire family...and a few friends...could gather and cook, and eat, and laugh.

I miss having my very. own. dressing room. All mine. Just for me. Girly. Mine. Wonderful.

I miss having a third floor attic (with yet another staircase) that was as big as an entire floor of the house. It was an attic where five children could play make-believe, pretend and use their wild imaginations. It was an attic that held literally held memories, and figuratively held memories.

 I miss tree-houses and tire sand-boxes from a great-grandfather, and the biggest yard in town.

 That entire yard you see is only part of our yard. My children and pets and neighborhood kids spent hours and hours and hours in this backyard.

I miss planting random garden spots throughout the yard with my end-of-the-year-bargains and anxiously awaiting to see how they did the next spring.

 I miss a giant-stone foundation that held up the entire house. That heavy stone foundation mirrored the strong foundation we gave our children by raising them in the little Kansas town.

I miss everything about our old house. But mainly, I miss how the house was filled with friends. With five children growing up in that old house, it was constantly filled with people, fun, food, laughter, stories, sneaking-outs, jokes, animals, and more friends than a person deserves to have.

So it is not just the old house that I miss, but what filled the old house.  Not only will we never be able to replace the big huge house, but we will never be able to replace what filled it. Now, two years later, I know more than ever that for 17 years I was lucky enough to live in an old house and fill it with some of the finest friends God ever put on earth.