What is “home” to you? Is it the house you’re living in now? Is it the house, city, state, or nation you were born and/or raised in? Is it where your family is? Is it wherever God takes you for His purposes?

Home can be any of these, or all of these. “Home” for me as I grew up was a beautiful white, nearly-century-old home in the deep south. I lived there most of my life before I married and moved out in my late teens, and then again briefly in my early 20′s.

My father, Leland S. Moore, Jr., researched the house and he found that its earliest deed was 5-4-1915. The house and 2/3 of the property it lies on was deeded to my (now deceased) maternal grandmother Louise W. Gentry, my maternal aunt Mary, and my (now deceased) mother Margaret Holmes Moore in 1959, then later to my father.

It is still his home today. It’s where he and my mother lived together and raised four children, two boys and two girls, for the 24 years of their marriage until she died in 1981 – my oldest brother Greg, me, my younger sister Maria, and my youngest brother Herbert, known as “Bubba” to us siblings. (Yes, seriously! There are many boys/men in the south who are nicknamed “Bubba”!)

The house is also the location of my father’s CPA business, which he still runs! (He is 75 years old and says he is now thinking about retiring!) My mother worked as his receptionist and bookkeeper. While growing up, we kids were chastened by our mother coming out of the office, “Shhh! Be QUIET!  There’s a client in the office!” Clients throughout the years often heard us kids tearing through the house, yelling, laughing, and playing…it’s a wonder my father could keep any clients!

There was also the time my little brother, a toddler at the time who was supposed to be taking a nap, woke up and managed to not only climb out of his crib, but unlatched the screen at the bedroom window and started walking around on the roof….a client had an appointment, saw my brother up there and said, “Stay there, son!”, and hurried inside to tell my dad. My father ran up the stairs three at a time to retrieve my brother off the roof. Thank God he was okay and a tragedy avoided!

But other than us kids being too loud at times and my brother’s roof exploration, having a place for both business and home has worked for my dad all these years. Maybe that is where I get it from.   Looking back, I now realize that those seeds of entrepreneurship were planted in me in childhood. I remember my father working 10 hour (or longer) days while I was growing up.  He enjoyed his work ~ and still does today (although he told me he only works “part-time” now – he only works from 9 or 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. now!).

The office was “fun.” My siblings and I used to play “office” at night, while our dad would go to the store. We would “answer” the phones, type on mama’s typewriter, make Xerox copies, “order supplies,” etc. When daddy came home, we’d run out of the office. Then Mama would boil and salt the peanuts that our dad had brought home, and we’d all sit down together in the den, watching Hee Haw on t.v. (yes, really!) or the Flip Wilson show. My dad would eat bowlfuls of peanuts, and laugh at Flip Wilson.

What makes a house a home?

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” – Maya Angelou

I have never seen another house quite like the home I grew up in. It is two stories, with a wrap-around. gray front porch (sometimes called a verranda) that surrounds the house, with a series of tall, white columns. Columns not only hold up a house structurally, but they are also design elements of classic architecture.

These Greek column designs are used on buildings all over the world. From what I can tell, the columns at my father’s house are Doric design columns.

The house is spacious inside (approximately 4,374 square feet) with tall ceilings. It has 11 rooms, not counting a back, screened-in porch, two halls, and 2 bathrooms. It has two staircases inside, a back one which may have been used for the servants.

In one of the rooms which my father uses for part of his office, there is a doorbell by a door which still rings. (My brothers, sister, and I used to love ringing it, much to our parents’ annoyance!)  Originally, the bell was made for and used to beckon the butler or the cook.

When I talked to my father on my trip to Valdosta, he told me about a conversation he’d had with someone, who shared an amusing story about the previous owners. The story goes that the small closet in that room with the bell was used at times to store (and lock up) bunches of bananas, because the owner loved bananas and didn’t want anyone eating them. Since bananas are my favorite fruit, I thought that was interesting and funny.

These are the beautiful front stairs inside the front entry hallway. My brothers Greg and Herbert, my sister Maria, and I used to slide down the bannister, even though our parents told us over and over NOT to do this, because we could fall off and get hurt – but it was so much fun!

The house is still in good shape overall, with some of its original beauty and character preserved. My father had the ceilings lowered when he and my mother Margaret moved into and renovated it in the early 1960′s, to better heat and cool it.  My dad, smiling at the memory, said my mom refused to live in it unless he renovated it.  It was in bad shape from previous careless tenants.

One of the renovations was a new roof, which back then cost only about $1,000! You can see in this picture of the back of the house how there are various levels of roofs, as well as the many, large windows.

A unique window in the house is inside the closet of my youngest brother Herbert’s old bedroom. It’s small, rectangular and quaint. Things like this are often what make old houses have such character, like the front hallway’s antique chandelier, the French doors in the living room (what used to be called the “front parlor”), and pretty doorknobs on the doors.

The house still has its original fireplaces and mantels, which are beautiful and elegant.

But they closed up the fireplaces to avoid a fire and put in gas heaters to warm the rooms, like this one below.

Even with the heaters, the house was like an ice palace in winter. My brothers, my sister and I hated getting up in the dark, out from underneath our comfortable blankets, having to face the cold to get ready for school. We would try to warm up by the heaters as long as possible, wanting to avoid taking a shower ~ the hot water often ran out quickly! Since then, my dad has had more insulation put in the house, so it stays warmer and cooler easier.

His office also has a window air conditioning unit, a MUST in sticky, humid, southern summers! During heat waves, the temperatures swell sometimes to over 100 degrees in summer in Georgia.

Below is a picture of my father’s bedroom that is now downstairs. This room used to be the family dining room, where we celebrated big Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. You can see another one of the lovely, original fireplaces and mantels.

One of the most incredible features of this house are the floors. The house still has the original, hardwood pine floors. They just don’t make beautiful floors like this anymore!

I used to sleep in an antique brass bed. It’s still in my old bedroom. I’ve never seen anything like this, either ~ very unique. The curtains and bedspread in the room are the same ones that were there when I left home in my late teens! Sometimes we want to leave things just as they are…it’s hard to let go, isn’t it? Especially of our children. (I write this with tears in my eyes.)

On the mantel of my old bedroom were some pictures of me and our oldest daughter Heather. It’s funny; when Heather showed this picture to her oldest daughter Annabelle (age 8), she immediately recognized that it was “Nana and mommy!” (me and Heather)  Check out my 80′s curly perm, lol!

Here is where my “writing career” started – this antique, round-mirrored dresser that was mine as I was growing up. I would sit in the curved part of the dresser and write in my diary or write short stories, then stuff them in one of the drawers.

My little sister Maria would sneak into the room later when I was doing chores and read my stories, which would make me mad and we would argue, because I didn’t want anyone to read them yet – they weren’t finished! (She and I are now best of friends, and she is one of my greatest encouragers and biggest “fans”!)

This “writing desk” is where it all began! Where was your original writing room or writing desk?

The house is still incredible – one of a kind – and what I’ll always know as “home” in Georgia. They don’t build solid, beautiful, southern homes like this anymore.

Outside in the back yard, my father showed me a tall, sturdy pine tree that he had planted there just before I was born. As I looked up into the sky at the magnificent tree, I was amazed. God spoke to my heart through it, which I will share with you later this week.

Where – or what – do you call your home?

***Stay tuned when I write about my dream home tomorrow.

Continuing with my posts on my brief journey back to the south, I noticed again when I visited Maria that southerners have hospitality and manners down-pat. “Come on in” is a well-known southern expression that you hear when you go to someone’s house…and you are expected to stay awhile and EAT SOMETHING.

While visiting my dad Leland, he offered my sister, her kids and I some nut-clusters chocolate in his refrigerator that a client had just made for him (from scratch). He insisted that we get more than just a few pieces. Simply. Delicious. It would have been impolite to say no, I reasoned!

Politeness is one of the strongest attributes of southerners. I was raised by my strict parents to say “yes ma’am,” “no, sir,” “please,” and “thank you.” (Although eating fish with your fingers is acceptable manners, as my nephew Nicholas pointed out to me when I “wrongly” ate fried catfish with a fork -gasp!)

I was also raised to write thank you notes after birthdays and holidays, something I have tried in vain to teach our kids to do, who are terrible procrastinators – something that drives me almost crazy because I want to get things done NOW.  It’s humiliating having southern grandparents email or call weeks or months after they sent a birthday or holiday gift to our children, because no thank you card was sent to them in the mail! I assure the relatives that it’s not because I “forgot my raisin’” or that  they are ungrateful, little brats;  they simply forgot – or put it off.

Thank you notes, and written letters in general, have become a lost art. But thank you notes are part of southern tradition. If you are homeschooling, they make great language arts projects for practicing handwriting, spelling, and grammar.

A stationery box full of beautiful thank you cards, reflecting your unique elegant or quirky personality, can be a writer’s dream. For professional business owners, a handwritten thank you or other note will make you stand out in the crowd and be remembered. In fact, I received two thank you cards for my business in my post office box yesterday from new online friends, which surprised and touched me – yes, handwritten ones!

Thank you notes are a way of going the extra mile to let others know how much you appreciate them and that you CARE.

Another southern tradition used to be sitting on your front porch with a glass of sweet tea (and I do mean, sweet!) and waving to people as they drove or walked by. Life is too busy and hectic for that now, and even southerners today are finding that they need to slow down the pace and savor life more.

But the practice of “not knowing any strangers” still abounds in the south. People speak warmly to you in public, whether they know you or not, as if they are related to you. Sometimes they ARE related to you. When we met someone at Maria’s college graduation, my dad – who has done extensive genealogy research on both sides of the family – wondered if he was a distant cousin because of his last name. Maria thought this was hilarious.

But southerners are genuinely interested in knowing who you are and where you are from – and who your family is!

When I went to downtown Valdosta while Maria was at work, I found a little floral shop filled with beautiful Christmas decorations. The owner, originally from London, chatted with me as I admired her displays and of course, she asked me what I was looking for, where I was from -  and who my family was.

Some people (especially non-southerners)  find this interest in your life disconcerting, even nosy. I believe the heart of it is a desire for intimacy with others. Isn’t it better than just being ignored? Maybe the South has a few good lessons to teach us.

I guess there are exceptions to southern hospitality and politeness. My sister Maria, my nephew Nicholas and I went to the Game Stop store one afternoon for Nicholas to exchange a video game.

The store was packed and the lines were long. Maria asked a white man standing in front of her with his son if there was one line or two, and he began ranting: “There’s two lines, but they’re not moving! There’s only two workers here, who apparently don’t want my money. What’s the problem, let’s go, people!” He began loudly clapping his hands, like he was at a football or basketball game. We would soon need a referee blowing a whistle.

As his voice became louder and the rest of the customers grew more uncomfortable (the store employees were just trying to do their job, looking down and not responding), a customer standing further back in line became the prophet of the hour. “Hey man, we are waiting in line, too. Be quiet, man! Go to Wally World if you don’t want to wait!”

The man replied that there were four registers and only two employees, and an employee told him that one was a “dummy register.”

The customer then became downright rude: “That’s just what we need in here, a dummy! This is ridiculous! What’s wrong with you people?”

Then it  became more interesting. The other customer told him to SHUT UP, and said, “I’m fixin’ to show my true color in here: NE-GRO!” (Yes, this was the actual conversation!) They began arguing until the irate man finally was waited on, purchased his son’s video, and walked out (to everyone’s relief).  So much for southern gentlemen.

My sister turned to me and said out of the side of her mouth, “I wish I had a card to give that man and tell him to call me in four years so I can help him with his problems, when I’ll be a therapist!” (She’s enrolled in the master’s program now in psychology)

We both started laughing, but later we talked and wondered together: What was really going on in that man’s life to set him off like that? Nobody likes waiting in long lines. But he was obviously agitated about something more than a video store line!

One of the highlights of the trip that I have to tell you about was on my flight home. There was an older woman sitting beside me on the plane, and when the flight attendants gave us our snacks, she began a conversation with me in that lovely southern drawl: “Are you going somewhere for the holidays? Do you live in the south?” I explained I used to, and had been visiting my sister for her college graduation.

I found out several things about her as we had our conversation: she was on her way to visit her sister in Kansas City (she and her 2 sisters were going to rent a limo and ride around the Plaza!), but she lived in Georgia now; she had been married to a military man and they’d spent some time in Germany where he’d served in the army; her husband had died 14 years years ago; and she had moved to the south when her grown children moved to the Atlantic coast. She had two children, several grandchildren, and also several great-grandchildren.

“Life is short,” she told me wisely. “We should enjoy our families each and every day. And so many things depends on our attitude. We should have a good attitude, no matter what is going on in our lives, good or bad.”

I love these God-appointments!

I had noticed a device in her hands when I first sat beside her and asked her if it was a Kindle. It was an Ipad 2. I asked if her children had bought it for her and she said no, it had been a gift to herself and she started laughing.  She said she liked playing games on it.

Intrigued, I asked what games and jokingly asked if she played Angry Birds. (I’ve never played it, but have heard people talking about it online.)

To my surprise, she said she HAD played Angry Birds sometimes. Now I started laughing. But mostly she likes playing Solitaire and other games on it. She said that her great-grandson likes playing Angry Birds on it, too.

But what she really wants, she confided in me, was a  Kindle Fire. She then began telling me the features and benefits of it – you can download ebooks on it, watch movies and T.V. shows, listen to music, play games, have the internet on it, etc.

When this great-grandmother began sharing that you could get great apps on it, I thought I would scream laughing. Technology has taken the world by storm – even for your great-grandma!

It was good to go for a visit. Tune in tomorrow for more about my trip to the south. I want to share with you about my parents’ nearly 100-year-old home which I grew up in, and about the Crescent, my dream home. (Think of Ashley’s home in Gone With The Wind.)

I’m “fixin’” to go relax now.

Oh, I did bring home a little souvenir- I picked cotton from a cotton field to show Leah. It’s as soft as the ones in a package of cotton balls. (This amused Maria.)