The House That Built Me

The House That Built Me

One Lakeshore Drive sits a beautiful one-story brick house that many could call home. This place is where a vast majority of my childhood was spent with family. I would enjoy long nights sleeping over with my grandma, Ga-Ga, and spend holidays and other special days with the whole family. The house was more enjoyable than my own most of the time, which is why the house on Lakeshore Drive was my grandparent's house, and my home.

Like something out of a movie, the yard had a semi-circle driveway with a generous maple tree smack dab in the middle. I would get paid to help Ga-Ga with little chores around the house, but coming outside and sweeping with her was my favorite. The house was hidden right behind the bushes with double doors that had long, vertical windows on each side; this was the portal into this magical place. When first walking into the foyer, a small sky light illuminates the entry and welcomes you inside. Many Halloween costume photo shoots were conducted here including the typical little baby pumpkin costume all the way to my 5th grade witch costume. Still at the front of the house is the family room that looks out to the front yard thorough a huge window. This room is where the best holiday of the year happened, Christmas. A tree would set up in the corner and another small tree on the table next to it which had one ornament for every person in the family with their name on it. After opening presents at my own house, I would look forward to being with all of my family around our small trees wondering what they got me that year.

Cooking is a skill I learned from spending many hours in the kitchen at Lakeside, which was extremely spacious. Tradition called for making carrot cakes with Ga-Ga only so Grandad could eat all of it, although I did help to demolish the delicious masterpiece before it even got to him. Another part of tradition made it so I usually did all the work cooking other than dealing with the oven. I even had a special step-ladder to help me reach the sprinkles in the cabinet above the microwave. If the sprinkles were missing, a trip to the store was promptly made. Even though carrot cake was my favorite, many other cakes were made in this kitchen also. Birthday cakes were a special treat because they were never store bought, always home made. There was red velvet, my mom's favorite; simple white cake with white icing, for my Aunt Dana; and since my brother hated cake every aspect about it, he always got a special, store bought ice cream cake. We ate many family meals together in the dining room; even better than all gathering for an extravagant meal was just sitting around eating fondue. We all loved indulging ourselves in blocks of bread dipped into hot cheese.

Any skill I have from learning how to be a top chef in the kitchen, I blame on Ga-Ga's love for Paula Dean's show on the Food Network. In the living room, I'd sit with her listening to a thick country accent talk about how to make real homemade dumplin's. I do believe Blue's Clues was on the TV more than poor Ms. Dean was though. Ga-Ga and Grandad would sit in their own separate recliners, I'm sure having a blast,