Good-bye Old Home and Other Random Thoughts

The past week (plus) has been a rather emotionally and physically draining experience. It was time to pack up all of my parents' belongings and move them out of the house that I lived in for the first 21 years of my life. (For your information, you really need more than a week to move out of a home that you have lived in for 42 years, and raised 7 children in, (and maybe an extra child's friend or two, as well.)) All in all, exhausting. I held it together pretty well during the week while packing boxes and clearing out spaces, but on Friday night when all the rooms were empty, and I went walking through them by myself, one last time, I cried. A lot. I cried on and off all through the rest of the weekend, too. I'm mostly recovered now but am still hit with little bouts of sadness if I give it too much thought. The next several pictures are just of empty rooms in the house, taken for my benefit. They probably won't interest you if you didn't spend your childhood in these rooms making all sorts of memories that come flooding back as you walk through them for the last time, so feel free to scroll down below.

Mom and Dad's room:

My old room (with poor lighting):

Boys bedroom (I believe almost all of them had this room at some point or another):

The yellow room (Although it hasn't actually been yellow in years), aka the sewing room, aka Jim's bedroom:

What I most often refer to as Rob's room, although, once again, it has served most of my brothers at one time or another. (But it was Rob's for the majority of my growing-up years.)

The living room:

The dining room:

The T.V. room:

The den, aka my Dad's room. He would spend most nights in here studying the scriptures, preparing lessons and listening to classical music. The music is what I remember falling asleep to especially in my teenage years.

The loft - just off of my former bedroom:

The basement. I know you are all jealous of the brown and orange plaid carpet! (But still the site of many memories of games and watching The Love Boat and Fantasy Island with my older brothers on Saturday nights.)

The pool/ping-pong table didn't show up until after my time, sadly.

Good-bye old home!

On the plus side, Rob did uncover my old pointe shoes which I had long ago given up on finding ever again. My girls have loved wearing them around the house. ( I hope no one breaks an ankle.)
On the not plus side, there apparently was a lot more TV watching in the many hours that I was gone and the kids were on their own. (Really, it is almost never on when I'm home - which is usually.) However, Peter has definitely gotten "the lounge" in front of the TV down. The "Thinking Chair" purchase many years ago - when Jonas was a toddler, was a good one since it has served all of the kidlets well.
Seriously, these photos crack me up a little bit.
And if Mom is not around to help you find and put on your snow clothes, it is perfectly acceptable to have an indoor snowball fight.
Duff and Samantha kept themselves busy (and warm) for a long time.
A sampling of Samantha's snowballs:
And one last thing: Anytime it is too quiet with a toddler in the house, you know some mischief is afoot. I guess he just wanted to floss, but there was an entire container of floss unraveled and wrapped around him.
And yet, I still can't seem to get mad at him. This kid just has me wrapped too tightly around his little finger. I see big trouble in my future.