Fireplace

If you don't know yet,

Rozann has a new blog.

www.rozannjohnson.blogspot.com

Check it out!

She's a great writer!

Yesterday she posted a "tribute"

to Mom and Dad's home.

Where we all grew up.

With PICTURES!

So I decided to steal them

(the pictures)

and focus on them this week.

So this week we are talking about

the basement.

This isn't what it looked like when I grew up.

The fireplace didn't have the pretty insert.

And there was a rust / orange hide-a-bed.

It was

U G L Y

but pretty comfy!

(Ok, except for the bar, but when you are

little and only weigh 60 pounds you don't

notice it much...)

And it was more "two rooms" than one big

room since the flooring changed from one

room to the next.

There was carpet in front of the fireplace

and tile floor on the other side.

There was a piano where the TV sits now.

Back then, the TV was right at the bottom

of the stairs (to the right of the photo)

There was also a beautiful

tall black vase / urn thing that Uncle Chuck made.

(We had lots of his pottery!)

It held some cattails Mom found on a car ride.

And one day,

they BLEW!

LOL

The pretty little velvet sausages popped

open spewing white fluffy mess everywhere.

Darn it.

(I don't remember if Mom had a hay fever 

reaction or not - but I'll bet she did!)

Also, please notice the ONE lonely log in the

firewood bin.

This is because they no longer have 5 little

"willing" helpers who were tasked with

carrying logs from the wood pile

down the 13 long, slippery, scary

steps to the basement multiple times

throughout the winter.

In the summer the wood pile was home to

scary things like DADDY LONG LEGS!

In the winter the wood pile was covered in

ice and snow, requiring that you chip it out

first before you could load up.

(Load up being a relative term - please see

above note about weighing 60 pounds...)

I was pretty proud when I moved up from 3 logs

to 4.  (Logs being a relative term...

Dad split all the logs into quarters...

otherwise it didn't burn and his wimpy daughters

couldn't carry them...)

The painted deck and the painted porch steps

were SLICK!  Even when not covered in 

ice and snow.

(Cuz the bottoms of your boots quickly

loaded up with ice and packed snow.)

It was like an ice rink.

"Please fill the wood box"

struck fear into my heart for YEARS.

But BOY OH BOY we loved those

fires!

ie:  Sunday night after church usually

meant a fire, pink lemonade and popcorn.

Aaaaaaaaah