The House and I, We Thank You

On the last day we're going to be in our little house, I want to pause and thank some of you readers and friends, who I have been thinking of as I've packed up all our worldly possessions this week. I have fond memories of my little bilevel, and I have realized it's not the house itself, but the people who have shared it with us at different times and for different reasons.

So here goes.

Thank you, M.W., L.W., B.B., and C.B. for late nights at the dining room table playing Hold 'Em, and later nights down in the basement (back when it was still dark, depressing wood panelling) playing Catchphrase. And dropping red velvet cake.

Thank you, D.R. and B.R., for being our first overnight house guests and for visiting us almost annually since. I always think of the basement as "The Rs' bedroom."

To K.H., for driving all the way up from Atlanta to come to my baby shower and for trying out Ainsley's big-girl bed years before it was actually her big-girl bed. And for tolerating that bedroom for several days back when it was very, very teal. And to R.H., who joined K. to visit me while I was sick and desperately needed to feel like life on Farmwood was business as usual. Let us not forget the cigars you both also sent for my remission anniversary, which Jason and I enjoyed out on the deck on a beautiful summer night when all was truly right with the world. (This is my absolute favorite memory of our house.)

To M.W. and H.R.M., for a great night of intelligent (on your parts, anyway) political conversation over beverages. See? We can disagree without being disagreeable. Don't forget that we agreed to talk religion next time. We have to keep having these summits so we can solve the world's problems AND get rid of the surplus Bud population.

Thank you, C.B. and B.B., for Unibroue and Rock Band. Sometimes separately, sometimes in combination. But always a good Saturday night.

Thank you, J.K. and C.B., for bringing the kids every Halloween and starting the cousins-trick-or-treating thing. And thank to D.M. and A.H. for some good times watching UK basketball which I can almost remember.

And for those who aren't with us anymore and won't get to see the new house:

Thanks, Dad, for making sure the essentials were taken care of for us when we moved in: you bought us a TV for a housewarming. Ours had gotten busted in the move, and you strongly believed that a house is not a home without a working television. Preferably a big one. We plan to always follow this line of thinking.

Thanks, Kathie, for spending a weekend with us and telling people afterward, "She is a good cook...and an excellent housekeeper." Coming from you, this meant so much and made me see my house in a more positive light: I got the Kathie Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. High praise coming from a woman whose house I always coveted and whose footsteps I always felt were too big to tread in.

Thank you, Scout, for killing big spiders, providing attractive window dressing, alerting us to the presence of unseen things above our heads which may or may not have been ghosts, testing the water quality every time we turned a faucet on, hiding toy mice in obscure spots so we would be sure to think of you even after you were gone, and in general making our house feel like a home. No matter how many years you spent at my mom's, this was your house as much as it was ours.

Ainsley tonight will be saying her own goodbyes and thank-yous to her neighborhood friends, and she will have the experience of looking out the window of a loaded car and watching her home disappear in the rear view. It will be sad for her, and for us. But a new home and new memories await.

I hope to see y'all there.