The Past Is For Sale...

Weird! Really strange and different! We deposited the g-kids at Son's house, spent the night and left for home the next day. As we were leaving the old neighborhood (30 min upriver from New Orleans,) we drove by the house we'd lived in for 15 years and sold in 2001. We do this from time to time just to see what's the same and what's different. This time... a For Sale sign! Okay... we're not interested in buying, but it was a great house with many fond memories. We'd added the studio of my dreams over the garage and a lap pool and fish pond in the back yard. They were good years and my career developed to professional level during that time. But that was then and this is now.

. . . . .

So several hours later and an hour away from home, we decide to visit property we still own on a smallish lake near a college town. We'd once owned a house there (pre NOLA, 1981-1986) and had purchased the lot next door but never built on it or really had any plans for it. We just didn't want anyone else building on it. Well, donchaknow the old house is up for sale also! Since it was empty, we parked in the carport and peeked in windows, walked down to the lake noting that the landscaping is still all my doing, but has grown rampantly, needing only some thinning out and TLC to return to it's earlier promise. It's obviously not seen a gardening implement since I left, and it's surprising that the woods haven't reclaimed the azaleas, etc that grew near the boathouse J built himself. From what we can tell from glimpses inside the house and the realtor pics on the web, very little has changed inside either. This is an A-frame with walkout basement which we'd finished when we first bought the fixer-upper twenty five years ago... my same wallpaper upstairs and down, same window treatments. It's been on the market since early spring and once again, it's a real fixer-upper...and a possible bargain. We plan to find a realtor and view it, thinking it would be cheaper to buy the old house than build on the empty lot next door. We don't plan to move, just thought to create a vacation home of sorts... we love being around water and after our recent lake reunion with the family, our thoughts have turned to such possibilities.

I can see us spending three or four days a week there, reclaiming my old studio space, renewing old friendships as there are a few still in the area, but mostly, enjoying the lake... maybe a rowboat, canoe or such. We'd had a little Sunflower sailboat at the time and how I enjoyed tacking lazily back and forth, up and down the mile long, narrow lake. Who knows... might get to do it again...