Houses and Homes

It's often said that "A man's home is his castle."  But a woman's home is also her castle, no?

 Windsor Castle

 Queen Elizabeth II

It's also frequently said that "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

Gardener's Cottage
Glenveagh National Park, County Donegal, Ireland

*Just a warning to those of you who might get bored:  This is a photo intensive post.  Mr. Forest Manor and I frequently refer to our house as our "humble abode," and I think that's meant in a good way.  In the course of our married life, we have lived in four different homes.  Our first home was a townhouse (couldn't find a picture) that we rented for two years before we bought our first house.

This house was actually a Sears kit home -- one of three Sears kit homes on our little block.  It was built in 1924.  The exterior front porch was eventually converted into a heated and cooled sunroom, so the house had a little less than 1,500 square feet of living space.  It looks very small in the picture, but the house extends back quite a bit.  This house had a shared driveway; ours is the house on the right.  I honestly can't imagine us sharing a driveway now -- much too inconvenient.

 We lived there for six years.

When we first moved back to this area from Greensboro, we wanted to take our time to look around before we purchased another home.  So for a year, we rented this house.

 

 It belonged to my husband's mother and her siblings.  The five of them grew up here with their parents and made lots of good family memories in this house.  When my husband's maternal grandmother died in 1980, the house was rented out for a while because all the siblings had homes of their own in different parts of the state.  The house is civil war era, circa 1860 or 1861.

Then in 1996, we purchased our current home.  We've made a few changes since this picture was taken about ten years ago.

 The one style of house I used to tell my husband I never wanted to live in is the very kind of house we wound up buying -- a brick ranch-style. :o)  I thought they were so boring.  But I've come to change my mind about that over the years.  The Sears bungalow we lived in was cute and charming, but inconvenient in many ways.  Our current home is the most convenient and comfortable house that we've owned, even though it wasn't new when we bought it.  It's home to us, and that's the important thing.

So what is it that really makes a house a home?  Well, for us, it's books,

(our family room)

music,

family photos,

(sunroom in our Sears bungalow)


and flowers...

Flowers are wonderful, but so are kindly neighbors,  :)

and a family pet.

Bonnie 1989-2000

MacDuff


 A park right down the street is always nice,

 (park near our bungalow home)


Celebrations are important, too.

(the day my husband received his MBA)


...and decorating the porch for the seasons (and holidays) of the year

But I bet we'd all agree that the memories we make in a house are what really make that house a home.

 

 

Here are more pics from our house in Greensboro.  The quality of the pictures is not the greatest.  I loved all the big windows and tall ceilings that made this house seem so light and airy.  I loved the hardwood floors throughout the house and the wide moldings around all the doors and windows.  What I didn't love about the house were the tiny (almost non-existent) closets, lack of basement, no carport or garage to park the cars in, and way too few electrical outlets.

What's your favorite house that you've ever lived in?  Besides good memories, what are some of the things that make a house a home for you?

Thanks for stopping by, and as always I really appreciate your visits and your lovely comments.  I'm sorry I haven't been visiting everyone lately, but our big house project is almost finished, and I plan to pay some catch-up visits very soon.  I hope you all have a great weekend!

Denise 

Poppies For Remembrance

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD  (1872-1918)

Canadian Army   

I recall memorizing this poem when, I believe, I was in Junior High school.  I know it seems a strange choice of poems for a young girl to memorize, but I just found it very moving, somehow.  As an adult, it now has even more meaning when we observe Memorial Day every year.

I found the story behind the writing of this poem very moving, as well.  John McCrae was a poet and physician from Ontario, Canada.  In 1915, he was serving as a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade during the terrible battle of the Ypres.  On May 2, 1915, a young friend and former student, Alexis Helmer, of Ottawa, was killed by a shell burst.  Lt. Helmer was buried later that day in the small cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station.  In the absence of a chaplain, McCrae performed the funeral ceremony himself.

The next day, May 3, 1915, McCrae was sitting on the back of an ambulance, when he was moved to write this famous poem.  He noted how the wild poppies grew around the graves of those who had died at Ypres, and he wrote down these fifteen lines in a notebook.  He then gave the notebook to a fellow soldier, Sergent Major Cyril Allison, who later convinced McCrae to send it in for publication.  "In Flanders Fields" was first published by London-based magazine, Punch, on December 8, 1915.

The poem's references to the red poppies resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming such a recognized symbol for soldiers who have died in battle.

Flanders Field American Cemetery, containing the graves of 368 Americans, is located in Waregem, Belgium.  It is the smallest of eight permanent American cemeteries commemorating World War I in Europe.

 Source - Wikipedia

Thanks for visiting House at Forest Manor.

May God Bless Our Military Men and Women and Our Nation

Denise