My childhood...

It's really small. The town can now boast of three traffic lights.:)

I went "home" for a visit this past weekend and that tiny town makes me smile. As I walked the housing development around my parent's house I could almost see my obnoxious little-kid self running around with all my neighborhood friends.

The next door neighbors were adopted family. The mom in that house has more embarrassing pictures of me than probably anyone else. Their son educated me in "Star Wars" and we spent many long hours saving the galaxy.

The neighbors two doors down put up with me a lot:) Their oldest daughter, Katie, was my friend that had an equally wild imagination as I did. We spent hours and even days playing out the same dramatic narrative. We were the most-traveled kids in the neighborhood as far as we were concerned. We had been to China, the Wild West, traveled aboard The Titanic (and survived Her sinking), ridden wild brumbies in the highlands of Australia, and we even accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt!

Katie was also my real-life horseback riding buddy. We spent hours and hours riding our horses through the hayfields. But i sometimes wonder just how we survived all those bareback races...

To this day i still prefer an open hayfield to just about anything. The sweet smell of a meadow is one of the most relaxing things on earth.

Three doors down (in the same direction) lived my piano teacher. And once a week I walked up the street trying to see if I could come up with enough confidence to undermine the fact that I hadn't practiced much in the last six days....

Two doors down in the opposite direction was Kelly...another friend who shared my love for animals. We both seemed to think that rescuing injured bunny rabbits and taking in stray dogs was our calling in life. Our parents put up with a lot of critters:)

All of us built massive snow fortresses, defended great kingdoms in the woods against attack and still made it home in time for dinner.

My childhood...one of my sweetest memories. I'm not one of those people that "lives in the past." But whenever I pull this memory off the ole shelf, and open it up, I breathe a lot deeper and smile a bit more.

Time stands still for just a few minutes.