My Happy Home

No. This isn't my childhood home. This is the chicken house. It never actually had any chickens in it, so I don't
know how it got its name. Like many of the outbuildings, this one is on the brink of collapse.
This was an excellent place to store lawn and garden equipment.

This is one of those personal posts that may not matter much to anyone besides me. You know, today our society is so mobile that people rarely stay in the same house for their entire childhood. Or maybe they do and my perception of reality is skewed by my location near the military post, Fort Leonard Wood. It seems like very few of the people I know have stayed in the same house for all that long. But I grew up in the same house most of my life. It isn't the sort of house that would have ever made it into a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. It isn't the sort of house that anyone else would walk into and say, "I LOVE this house!!!" It was quirky and cold (or oppressively hot in the summer). I'm not entirely sure that the thing is mounted properly on its foundation these days. It has the scariest basement ever made in the entire history of the world. Many things have fallen in disrepair as health issues have plagued my parents in recent years. But it was my home as I grew up, and I love it. I can hardly imagine my parents not living in that house. They spent so much of their time and energy renovating it and making it their own. Moving them here last winter was so surreal. I love having them here near us, but I wish that I could have moved our Carrollton property down here with them so that I could see my dad working in his garden, see their dog,Sandy, chase imaginary squirrels through the side yard, have Easter egg hunts in the yard, etc. But, alas, that was not feasible. Like I explained in my Carrollton post, we had to sell the property in Carrollton and say goodbye. I already took time to express my feelings about moving my parents and leaving that home when they moved here last year. You can check it out HERE if you'd like.

Today I just want to share some pictures of the things I love about my Carrollton home.

This is a weird picture to stick at the beginning of my tribute to my childhood home because this wasn't our property. I just think that this is the coolest tree ever (okay, probably not the coolest tree in the world ... but). This tree sits on a farm right outside of Malta Bend, Missouri, and I think it is just gorgeous, especially when it is green outside and it stands in the midst of corn or soybeans. Seeing this tree as we drove home to Carrollton to see my family always let me know that I was close to home. It doesn't have much to do with my house, but I didn't think that it was impressive enough to warrant its own blog post.

The old mailbox. My dad's name stickers are permanently stuck to this thing. I imagine the new owners are going to replace it. The poor thing was always getting knocked over by the snow plows, so my dad had jerry-rigged some wood to keep it standing.

Ryan hanging out in front of the house. When my parents bought this house it was a tiny two bedroom place. Through lots of sweat and effort we raised the roof and made it a six bedroom house that could accommodate our large family. The ramp was added to make the home accessible for Ryan's wheelchair, and my parents planted every single bush and flower that surrounds the house in winter and summer.

This tree sits in the side yard, and it is a great climbing tree for my kids. The trees I climbed when I was little have mostly been cut down, but this tree let the next generation continue the tradition of climbing trees.

Here's an old picture from 2009 of Katie and Spencer climbing the tree. I wish I had been able to take some of the house photos in summer. The property is so pretty when it is green out.

Another tree picture. This was a much smaller tree when I was younger, but now it stands as the dominant tree of the side yard. The bushes and evergreens that used to surround it have died, but this tree remains.

A side and back view of the house. My bedroom window is the top left window on the side.

This was my playhouse. It has really fallen into disrepair since my childhood days. My brothers and I would spend countless hours in this building, making it into our own little mini house complete with kitchen and bathroom (don't ask ... yuck!). 

Here's a glimpse at the inside. It has mostly held junk and construction materials in the recent past, but in my days it had some shelves and places we could create our little house as kids.

One neat little thing I found as I looked inside the playhouse ... This was a sand art painting I made when I was in girl scouts (probably in 1st or 2nd grade). I had hung it up in my little house, and unlike most of my playhouse improvements, this little painting survived the years. It made me happy to see it.

This is a view of the back field looking out past the chicken house from the orchard. We had lots of fruit trees and grape vines in our orchard area, but none of them remain, sadly. I loved picking our pimply looking jonathon apples from our orchard as a kid. This view shows the living Christmas trees that my parents would plant after Christmas each year. They have a little mini forest of giant Christmas trees growing in this area now. At one time this area held my dad's huge garden, but he moved it to another area of the field in later years.

This overgrown area is the remnants of my dad's garden area. At one time he had a huge garden where he planted almost everything. I hated working in the garden as a kid. Now, as an adult, I wish that I had spent more time learning from him. You can see the fencing area that Dad had to erect to keep the deer out of his corn. Even with huge fences and wiring over the top those wily deer still managed to forage his crop. Northern Missouri deer are no joke. They like their sweet corn. I don't know why they bothered working so hard to penetrate my dad's fortress when they could just walk 100 feet away and eat to their heart's delight in a commercial farmer's farm field.

Herman took this picture of me looking toward the back side of the house. This area used to have our grape vines and asparagus and strawberry patches. And for a time we had a huge barn next to this tree. It burned down after I moved away, but while it was around we even took time to care for the meanest, smelliest goat in history, Clyde. 

And now I'll take some time to show some pictures of the inside of the house. They don't really do the house justice. Like I say, because of health issues the house has been a bit neglected in the last few years. We have pulled most of the important things and furniture out, so all that is left is the trash left to haul away. It doesn't really show how I will remember the house, but it will let me remember it a bit if/when my memory starts to fail me.

Starting at the top ... This is a bookshelf that Bryan made in wood shop in junior high. They don't offer this class in many schools these days, but they really should. What a great thing to learn! I took home ec instead, and I am grateful for that, but there are times when I wish that I could know how to create good solid shelves like this. In the background you see the half bath that would have been really nice to have when I was home, but my parents didn't complete it until recently. And the bedroom that Rick had is the other room to the right.

This old piece of furniture didn't make the cut when it came to the move, but this was my dresser when I was growing up. I painted it myself, and at one time I thought it was super cool how I took an older dresser and made it all my own.

This is the light fixture and wallpaper that I chose to decorate my room. It has seen better days, but I always liked how girly it made me feel.

This is a tiny view of what my room looked like. It isn't a traditional room shape, but it worked. The bed was not mine. I don't know where it came from. Using it when visiting my parents always left Herman and me with a really sore back, but it was functional. The room was cold as snot (okay ... lots colder than snot) in the winter. The upstairs was not heated at all. I must have been a lot hardier in my youth than I am now because I insist on using space heaters when we visited with my family in recent years. Even those couldn't really push back all of the bitter cold in winter. 

The window in my room that faced the back yard. I made those lace curtains for the windows. Like I say ... they've seen better days.

The view outside my bedroom window. It is particularly pretty in the summer when the trees have leaves.

A view of the kitchen from the dining room. This used to be a solid wall, but my parents opened it up, making serving dinners way more convenient. Notice ... no dishwasher. My parents always washed all their dishes by hand. Trying to keep up with the dishes with my own family, even though I have a dishwasher, makes me really appreciate how much work my parents put into making sure the dishes were done every single day.

Another angle view of the kitchen. I will always picture my dad in this kitchen. He didn't cook a lot when he was working because school kept him super busy, but in his retirement he was the main cook for the family .... and he is super good, too. I also will picture him sitting on a bar stool near the sink, doing dishes, refusing any offers of help from us when we visited.

The dining room with a view of the room that was my parents' room when I was growing up, but it became Ryan's room in later years. 

A view of the backyard from the back door. My mother insisted on air drying her clothes always. There is nothing like the panic you feel when you have newly dried clothes hanging on the line and find a freak thunderstorm heading your way. Many a day I spent racing outside with a basket to rescue the laundry. This backyard was also home to the homemade ice skating rink my parents constructed each winter. Winters must not be as cold as they were in my youth because (except for this winter) most winters haven't stayed below freezing long enough to maintain an outdoor rink. I loved our skating rink, and I really, really love ice skating to this day. Least favorite household chore ... cleaning up dog poop from the backyard. Hated it!

Another view out back, this time showing the playhouse and the abandoned dog fence panels that kept the latest Landis pets from running for the hills.

View of the garage from the back door. We never actually used this as a garage. Well, I think we might have parked cars in it when we first moved here, but it has been more of a storage building in later years.

View of the playhouse from the back door. It looks so lonely.

Back inside now. This is a view of the hallway and door leading to the basement. Be careful. Monsters live beyond that door. For reals.

The stairs leading to the basement. I have worried for years that these stairs would collapse as my parents walked down to the basement, killing them. They are not the sturdiest stairs on the planet. And I am not afraid to admit that I was always (even as an adult) terrified at what I might find below them when I descended.

Here is a view of our scary basement. My mom is grabbing some clothespins that were left on the lines hung near the ceiling. These lines served as makeshift clotheslines whenever the weather was significantly wet for long periods of time.

This little corner served as my dad's tool area for years. You can't really see that now, but at one time my dad had an extensive collection of tools in this area that we used to do all manner of construction projects on our home.

When we bought the house it was one story with a basement. We soon took the attic and made it into two rooms, one for me and one for my brothers. when we were in junior high we raised the roof and made four bedrooms in the upstairs area to house my brothers and me. We built this stairway to lead us to the upstairs rooms. The walls were covered with family photos. There was a ledge that held the buildings from a Christmas village. And as an adult I loved seeing my kids sitting along the stairs as we met together in the living room. They really liked to slide down the banister, but it really wasn't long enough to build up enough momentum to make it worth much effort.

Side view of the house along the driveway. There is the remnant of an old chimney that used to go all the way up the house. My main memory of this area ... Bryan and I were super young ... not yet in school ... and we were playing car in the Volkswagon Rabbit. I was sitting in the drivers seat, and Bryan was in the passengers seat. It was a manual transmission car, and I put the car into gear, not knowing what I was doing. The emergency brake was not on, so we went rolling forward toward the garage. I, like an idiot, jumped out for safety. Bryan stayed in the passenger seat, crying. My mom found us in hysterics when the car ran into the side of the garage. Luckily no one was hurt, but I did grow into an obsessive compulsive adult when it comes to engaging the emergency brake on our manual transmission vehicles.

View of the garage full of the things we didn't move here. 

Now for some seemingly insignificant pictures of things I want to remember. This is the fire hydrant that sits on our corner. It is an ugly yellow and green now, but when I was younger it was red, and I spent a lot time climbing this thing when I was a little girl. I thought it was fascinating.

One of my mom's bird feeders. My mom loves birds, and she knows a lot about them. The area outside their living room window had so many types of feeders, and tons of birds would come to enjoy the spoils. I learned to hate blackbirds. They are so greedy and would eat everything, leaving nothing for the smaller, more colorful birds. But my mom and dad would just go outside and refill the feeders, happy to help their fine feathered friends.

Here are some of the early buds of some of the annuals that my mom planted all over the yard. My mom loved planting flowers everywhere, and she would have lots of beautiful plants grow each spring that made perfect hiding spots for the Easter bunny. I'll have to look through some old pictures to see if I can find any pictures of all the flowers in full bloom. For now this will have to do.

This window shined into the stairwell of the house. I think that my mom really liked this window. My parents bought a lighted star that they hung in this window every Christmas season.

 So there's a little snapshot of my childhood home. It wasn't perfect in any way, but it provided a place for wonderful memories and experiences that have made me who I am today. I often wonder if my children will have the same sort of sentimentality about their childhood home. I can't imagine that they would. But for me this little spot in the middle of the midwest will always hold a special spot in my heart. I hope the newest owners love it as much as I do.

One last picture before we say goodbye to our home.