{"id":5586,"date":"2016-03-31T17:02:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T17:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/?p=5586"},"modified":"2016-03-31T17:32:28","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T17:32:28","slug":"a-new-day-and-an-old-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/?p=5586","title":{"rendered":"A New Day and An Old House"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 We celebrated Easter this past weekend.\u00a0\u00a0 Resurrection Day for Christians all around the world when we celebrate the resurrection of the living Christ who died on the cross\u00a0for every single person on earth.\u00a0 Took all our sins upon Himself so that no one\u00a0 would perish.\u00a0 All one needs to do is accept Him as your Savior and you are saved for all eternity.\u00a0 How wonderful is that?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I love Easter and all it means.\u00a0 But I also love all the renewal in nature with the trees budding, the flowers growing and the birds nesting and making new families.\u00a0 I love to be with family on Easter and have a big dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the kids.\u00a0\u00a0 We had seventeen at our table this Easter.\u00a0 Friends and family and I felt so absolutely blessed.<\/p>\n

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We had a big Easter egg hunt.\u00a0 We put money signs in some eggs and candy signs in others and the children had to turn their eggs in for money or candy.<\/p>\n

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They were all excited about the money.\u00a0 Yes, money wins over candy, but not by much.<\/p>\n

Here they are ready to start the hunt.\u00a0 We made it a little harder to find the eggs this year as they all found them way too fast last year and they are all getting bigger so we wanted them to be challenged.\u00a0 One hundred and seventy eggs to find.<\/p>\n

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And the race was on for the eggs.\u00a0 We hid them in the front yard, in the back yard, in the side yard and in the\u00a0tiny woods next to our house.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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When the hunt was finished, they all lined up according to age and Grandpa counted their money out and they picked out their candy and I think they were all excited and happy to receive their prizes.\u00a0 I told David that next year I want to make it bigger than ever.<\/p>\n

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And as in past years, we had a contest to see who would get in the pool first.\u00a0 It was 54 degrees cold.\u00a0 All the boys(and that big boy)\u00a0 jumped in the pool.\u00a0 Immediately they all ran for the hot tub.<\/p>\n

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Fifty-four degrees to one hundred and one degrees in five seconds.\u00a0 I think these two were numb from the cold.<\/p>\n

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The biggest boy of all had to get in also.<\/p>\n

Yes, it was a blessed and fun Easter.\u00a0 I am so thankful we can have this time together to make memories.<\/p>\n

And in other news.\u00a0 I love old houses.\u00a0 Our house is over one hundred years old and I love everything about it.\u00a0 Yes, it can be drafty and hard to keep dusted and it’s not open concept like so many people want nowadays.\u00a0 Yes, it’s a lot of work and we have spent a lot of money through the years to make it up to date and liveable, but we would rather have this old house than any new one.<\/p>\n

We had a beautiful older house right next door.\u00a0 It belonged to a doctor who had his office in it.\u00a0 When we first moved here, his office was a bustling business.\u00a0 People in and out all day.\u00a0 He was an OBGYN and everyone I met through the years knew of someone whose baby had been delivered by him.\u00a0 He and his wife were nice neighbors.\u00a0 They let us use their yard when we were building our pool for all the equipment needed to build it to come through their yard.\u00a0 They even gave us flowers for a gift for our pool.\u00a0\u00a0 Then he closed his office and retired and they moved to a house not far away, but kept this old house. Every week they would come and mow the yard and clean up around the house.\u00a0 They would pick up their mail every day. But the house stood empty for years.\u00a0 One time some kids broke into the house and David went over and caught them and we called the police, but the doctor and his wife let them off.\u00a0 They were nice people like that.\u00a0 So through the years the house stood there.\u00a0 David and I wondered what would become of it.\u00a0 Would some family buy it and bring it to life again?\u00a0 Would it become a business?\u00a0 One time David offered to buy it for our quilt shop, but it was the family home so it wasn’t for sale.<\/p>\n

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It was a beautiful old house. Notice I wrote, “was.”<\/p>\n

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For the almost thirty-nine years we have lived next door I could look out any of our southern facing windows and see this beautiful old house.\u00a0 There was something comforting about it.\u00a0 Knowing it had stood there for years sheltering families and a doctor’s office.<\/p>\n

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A grand old home with a big front porch.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But then…….<\/p>\n

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This pulled into the side yard the other day.\u00a0 David and I speculated what was going to happen.\u00a0 David thought they were going to dig a new sewer system.\u00a0 I had a premonition that the old house was going to be torn down.\u00a0 Sadly, I was right.\u00a0It seems the house was uninsurable and had to be torn down for liability reasons.<\/p>\n

So yesterday I woke up and heard a noise next door I wish I would never have heard.\u00a0 The sound of an old house dying.<\/p>\n

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Piece by piece,\u00a0it was torn apart and the pieces put in a huge dumpster.\u00a0\u00a0It would take eight dumpsters to haul away all the pieces.<\/p>\n

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I get\u00a0tears in my eyes just looking at this picture and realizing this house will be no more.<\/p>\n

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How quickly decades of living and memories can be all wiped away.\u00a0 A house is built and\u00a0families come and go in it and it holds all the memories.\u00a0 Where do the memories go when the house is gone?\u00a0 Who will remember the things that went on in this house?\u00a0\u00a0 Who will remember the people?\u00a0 I know I will remember Doc and his wife for as long as I live.<\/p>\n

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Finally the last vestige of the\u00a0house remains.\u00a0 But it can’t withstand the machine pushing it down.<\/p>\n

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A final push and it’s over.<\/p>\n

While watching the house\u00a0going down, David and I noticed all the things left inside.\u00a0 It was almost as if Doc just up and left everything in it and locked the door.<\/p>\n

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Clothes hanging in a closet upstairs.\u00a0\u00a0Some look like army uniforms.\u00a0 Probably from the second world war.\u00a0\u00a0 Why did no one want them?<\/p>\n

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Painted cabinets and beautiful woodwork and wallpaper.\u00a0 I wish I could have gone through this house before it was demolished.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN3072\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A coffee pot and medical records.\u00a0 David found one that\u00a0blew out and it was dated 1932.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN3062\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A sign on the wall about the first year’s growth of a baby.<\/p>\n

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An old wooden cabinet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Someone could have torn this out and used it.<\/p>\n

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I saw this old door and really wished I could have gone in to save it, but in the dumpster it went.<\/p>\n

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Beautiful old wallpaper.<\/p>\n

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The old house sat in a big yard.\u00a0 A yard my children and the neighborhood children played in years ago. Doc was nice about letting kids play in his big back yard.\u00a0 Baseball games, kite flying, walking dogs.\u00a0 There was even a “secret” gate into the adjoining field that my grandchildren loved to look for and go through.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, many memories surround this house for our family.\u00a0 My daughter played under a big old mulberry tree with two neighbor girls.\u00a0 Neighbors met in the field to talk.\u00a0 Now most of the neighbors are gone and\u00a0now the house is too.<\/p>\n

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I don’t want to remember the house like this.\u00a0\u00a0 Just like a person I have loved who has died, I want to remember them in the prime of their life.\u00a0 That is how I will remember this house.<\/p>\n

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Beautiful and stately with redbuds blooming around it.\u00a0\u00a0 Good-bye, old house.<\/p>\n

Here’s to the hope of Easter and dear old houses.\u00a0 Bye.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 We celebrated Easter this past weekend.\u00a0\u00a0 Resurrection Day for Christians all around the world when we celebrate the resurrection of the living Christ who died on the cross\u00a0for every single person on earth.\u00a0 Took all our sins upon Himself so that no one\u00a0 would perish.\u00a0 All one needs to do is accept Him as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-religion","category-family-memories","category-things-on-my-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5586"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5591,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions\/5591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}