This Is Where We Used to Live: Part 4

This was our last house in California, and probably my favorite house we ever lived in. I think it was my parent's favorite too. We lived here for around a year and a half. It was all of eighth grade and around half of ninth, before we moved to Minnesota. It's funny, looking at these grainy images on Google Maps, that so far most of the houses I've profiled have looked really similar on the outside. I'm sad that I can't get an image of the Bakersfield house, but there's no street view option. Anyway, I remember them all as really different looking.

 

This one wasn't much to look at on the outside, but was really charming on the inside. I remember the day we drove past it, before my parents had toured it or signed a lease. We parked and got out and peered in the windows, and I was completely in love with what I could see. There were two bedrooms - one powder pink and one powder blue. There was a really leafy yard with a big deck and a little playhouse in a tree. There was a garden trellis covered in ivy that hid a small concrete patio. There wasn't a lot of grass in this yard, but it was sweet. Inside was a small living room and a fireplace that had a cute little country scene painted over the mantle. The kitchen had an eat in area, and a breakfast bar, and of course there was that pink bedroom. I may have had to rent my whole life, but I finally had a room with some color on the walls!

 

I'm sad we didn't live here longer, and that by the time we moved here I was a teen and didn't really play anymore, so I never much took advantage of that playhouse. Still, this was the site of my first serious crush, who lived around the block from me. We would sometimes walk home from school together, and I would think that meant he obviously loved me. I had my first boy/girl party in this house for Christmas, and he was the only boy who showed up. My brother went to his first concert while we lived here, and we spent a lot of time doing things like playing pogs, listening to Weezer and watching My So Called Life. I remember walking around the block to another friends house, and walking home to find my brother crying in the street the day Kurt Cobain died. All my memories here are very nineties.

 

I really liked this house, but I didn't particularly like this time in my life. When I started high school, I was having a tough time with my friends. One of my best friends got a boyfriend and had frozen me out, spending all her time with him. I can't say that when I found out we were moving to Minnesota that I was sad. I was ready to move on. Still, this was a darling little house.