Reflections

Our friends, Jo and Bill, are closing soon on their condo here.  They have been snowbird renters for the past four years and this is their Starter Home here in Paradise.  I am so excited for them as now we'll get to spend even more time with them.

Their purchase of a winter abode got me thinking back to the very first place I could call all my own.  I had graduated from college, had a teaching job all lined up in a small town near Kansas City, a few hundred miles from my parents in St. Louis.  I had found the perfect, and almost affordable, place to call my own.

I rented an apartment in an old home.  There were two apartments on the ground floor, two on the second story and my first home of my own in the attic.  It came furnished which was a good thing since all I had to my name (and these things mostly thanks to my parents) were a t.v with rabbit ears, 2 sets of sheets, a couple of towels, a cookie tray and one pot and one pan.  I bought a set of plastic dishes and called my apartment furnished.

I loved the tiny space I could call my own.  I graded papers at the tiny kitchen table, cooked pizza for girlfriends in my small oven on my one cookie tray and stared off into the tree tops from my bed.  It was my own private tree house and I was very happy.

I only lived in my starter home for four months.  My boyfriend proposed, we married and moved back to the college town where he was still taking classes.  Many homes followed and 1 husband (but that is another story entirely) but I've never forgotten the first place I could call my own.

What was your first home like?