The house that built me

Today I am joining Leigh from Tales from Bloggeritaville in a "The house that built me" party.
She and anyone who joins her will be sharing about how their childhood home "built"them.

So - are you wondering about the picture? No, I wasn't raised in a barn! However, I was raised on a farm and it made a big impact on my life.
I don't have a picture of the house I lived in or the barn that was next to it. The land it was on is now the setting for a health food store and an auto dealership. I'm just going to have to tell you about it.
The house I lived in was also the house my dad was born in. It was an old white farmhouse. I shared a bedroom upstairs with my 2 sisters until I was in 8th grade and we built a new house. It wasn't a problem to share because most everyone I knew shared a room and we had a lot of fun talking and goofing around when we were supposed to be sleeping. Under the double bed I shared with my sister Terri, was a register grate. Our furnace was a gravity furnace and there were no ducts to the upstairs, so this grate was open. We would crawl under the bed and watch what was going on in the kitchen below. This was especially handy when we had a babysitter. We would watch what she ate and listen to her talking on the phone. (What naughty kids) When we heard Mom and Dad come home, we would crawl into bed and pretend to be sleeping! We had an enclosed porch on the front where we spent a lot of time playing. We didn't like the basement. It was dark and it seemed there was always water on the floor. When there was a tornado warning we would have to go down there and we hated it. The kitchen was big, and Mom spent a lot of time canning and freezing there.
I posted the picture of the barn because it looks similar to the one we had. We had a lot of fun in that barn, climbing in the loft and playing in the hay. We had lots of land to run and play on. In the winter there were plenty of hills for sledding. There was a creek where we used to catch frogs, and of course there were cows and chickens to watch. I remember running through rows of corn and riding on the tractor with my Dad. I remember walking out to the fields to find where Dad was working and bringing him a snack. We even had a little building that our Dad cleaned out for us to play house in.
It was a wonderful place to grow up, but the physical attributes of it weren't the most important thing. We were raised in a Christian home, where we were expected to help with the work, do our best, respect and treat those around us well, and we always knew that we were loved.
When I think back to being a kid and my memories of my home, I am struck by the fact that it didn't matter that the house was old and not very big. The memories I have are colored by the fact that I knew I was loved as a child. I knew that no matter what had happened during the day, when I came home I was with my family who would always be there for me. I am reminded again of how blessed I am, not necessarily with material things, but with a God who saved me, a family who loves me and friends who care about me!