Welcome!

Hi,

Here I am just starting out, new to this blogging business, but looking forward to spending some time here and getting some feedback from all of you out there.

The idea behind this blog is to exchange information about all facets of real estate and any related topic. I hope to share information that is relevant, timely and practical, as well as being occasionally entertaining and thought provoking.

I would like to kick off this first, inaugural post, by talking about home. You know, the place where our hearts reside and evidently our hats are hung. The place where, in theory, they always have to take you in, but since you can’t go home again I’m not sure how that works.  ( Wow – welcome to my first annual cliche fest!)

Home was, in my younger years, the place I couldn’t wait to get away from and in my later life, the place I missed the most. Home has had many different meanings and many different locations for me, and I suspect, many of you. I once moved three times in nine months. Then I bought a living room set. That slowed me down some.

There is a Chinese proverb that says “may you live in interesting times”. Well I’ve certainly lived in some interesting places! One of the most unique was back when I was in college - the time I refer to  fondly as the “Ramen years” ( I was poor , noodles were cheap).  One year at the end of spring semester I needed a short-term, summer rental. I found an efficiency for a semi-reasonable rent and moved in.

The apartment consisted of a main room that served as the  living room/bedroom/dining area/kitchen and a small bathroom.  The slashes far outnumbered the amenities! One side of the main room was bisected by what might, in a very big stretch of imagination, be considered a “bar”. It was an unpainted, wooden plank resting on a 2 x 4 nailed to the wall and an upright wooden post on the other end. There were other boards nailed to the wall for shelves.  The best part  was the kitchen which wasn’t an actual kitchen, but rather a single piece I referred to as the “unit”.  The unit consisted of a shallow bar sink and two burners on top with a dorm-size fridge underneath.  It’s a good thing Ramen is a one pot deal because a meal with actual course would have to have been prepared, and eaten, in shifts.  I did however, have time to write my as-yet-to-be-published, runaway bestselling cookbook titled “Two Burner Gourmet”. Rachel Ray has nothing on me!

Truthfully the only good thing about my summer with the unit was it’s brevity! Still for a few short months I did hang my hat there,  and most of my clothes, although the closet was kind of a bad joke.  As they say,  be it ever so humble there’s no place like home!

To those of you who read this, thanks for spending time with me. I’d like to invite you to share your stories of home – the good, the bad, the ugly and anything else you would like to talk about.