Home is where the heart is...

3817 Whitland Ave was the worst thing that could have happened to me, or so I thought when I was 12 years old. We moved from our house on sedberry road, the only place that I had ever lived. Leaving behind the bedroom that I slept with the overhead light on because I was afraid of the dark much to my friends dismay, the front yard that on any given summer day you could find the neighborhood kids playing on the slip-in-slide or with the badminton net, the kitchen floor that I would fall asleep on while waiting for my mom to cook dinner, the backyard cabin that my dad and granddad assembled for my brother and I for Christmas, and the drive way where I learned to ride a bike in { the same day as my older brother did, might I add} to a 12 year old moving, even though it was only 10 minutes away was devastating. A framed picture of my old house hung in my new bedroom for years.

Little did I know that I would fall in love with 3817 Whitland Ave and it would become the house that everyone hung out at, I think that it part was because I had cool parents, now don't misinterpret that for parents who let us drink or have boys over, because that is not Mary and Steve. But my mom always greeted us with a smile and a fresh plate of cookies, and my dad with his humor and foul language. It didn't hurt that we had a finished basement where on any given weekend you could find girls sleeping on mattresses and the futon in the basement. It felt like Elizabeth, Sarah, and I owned that street, and during the summers we did.

CC, Poppy, & Stucky { Elizabeth, Sarah, & I all grown up}

I tell this story quite frequently because i think it's so funny. Will's first day of college a girl sitting next to him in class asked him "where he summers". Being the quick witted guy he is, will swiftly responded with " the same place I winter, spring, and fall" for those who didn't know, Will went to a very prestigious, small school in Connecticut where it was common practice to "summer" somewhere else.

I never really understood the phrase home is where the heart is, until I went away to college. Surrounded by Northerners I become very proud to call myself a Southerner and to let everyone know that I was from Nashville, Music City USA. Now as my family is scattered I have several homes. Nashville, Dallas, Knoxville, etc. so if someone were to ask me where I summer, I can give them a mouth full!