March 31, 2004.  That was the day it became ours.  That was the day we signed our names for the wood paneling, the stained carpet, the ugliest bathroom in the world...

I remember pride.  I remember excitement.

I remember the smell - Oh, the smell - like someone took month old kitty litter and crammed it up our noses...

I remember the carpet cleaner, bleeding black sludge into the shower stall as I emptied the contents of a once-over from the hallway.  I remember how I cleaned and I cleaned but that hallway was never really clean (until I ripped out the carpet and almost suffocated from the rotten underlay)...

I remember the screened in porch.  The creaking door.  The carpet (yes carpet - on the porch - terrible grass green indoor/outdoor stab you in your wounded sole carpet) that wept the odor of pets unloved...

I remember the horror story we built around the upstairs bedroom.  How the lock was on the outside.  How the ghost of that poor child must have permeated these very walls with howls of torture...

I remember the work.  The sweat.  The love poured out to make a home...

Eight years is longer than a lot of marriages.  This place - this house - this home - it will always be a part of me...