Home is a feeling.

Home is a place of extreme comfort and home is the place that you can return to when you are having a bad, bad day.

Alexander was smart! He knew home was the best place to return to after a bad day!

Home is a place of memories. Some memories are not good ones—but, the good memories usually outshine the not-so-good ones.

Home is the place you long to be when you are not feeling well!

Poor Oona!  She had such a bad case of the flu–but turning the family room into the sick room makes it just a bit better!

Home is the place where you can be happy.

Ain’t nuthin’ like seeing your kids happy–it gives you a sense of home!

Happy kids equal happy mom!

I lost this house when I got divorced. Before losing it, this house was home.

This was my home before I got divorced.  I couldn’t even pass by it for a long, long, long time without getting all weepy!

It was filled with kids, and celebrations and comfort and love. My children spent most of their childhood here. They established great friendships. This was the place they came home to after a long day at school, and after the victories and defeats of their various sports games. It was the toasty place they came back to after a day of fun in the snow! It was where they ate meals and watched TV and slept and got in trouble and were hugged and loved.

Snow play in the back yard!!! After that, hot cocoa and some warm soup!

I even held parties for the neighborhood dogs! Dorothy and Ruby LOVED being the hostesses!

After losing it, my home became just a house to me, but a home to someone else!

This is the first house I lived in. Ozone Park, NY.   When I was young, the house was covered in vintage shingles…and once you entered through the front door—the house became a home.

This was the house I lived in until I was six years old. It was, a great home!

My very first Christmas was spent here! Santa was good to me that year!

This is me in front of the home that we lived in when we were in Ozone Park. My mom and sister Sissy are on the stoop. That’s me–looking mighty pissed off. It was most likely because I was no longer the center of attention.  Even as a child it was all about me!!!

Oh look! I’m in a much better mood here. Most likely because I’m the best dressed girl in the crowd!  My mother had the fashion sense to dress me in a beautiful coat and beret! I love the Mary Jane shoes too!   The front stoop was a very social place!

My grandparents and aunt lived on the top floor and we lived on the bottom.

Shiny, waxed hardwood floors with inlay strips sparkled throughout. My sister and I shared a bedroom. We had twin beds covered with chenille spreads and the walls were covered in pink wall paper with cute illustrations of little boys and girls.

I loved my ballerina bedspread!

We didn’t have a basement. We had a cellar. And in this cellar was a coal heater and a coal room. In this cellar, my grandmother had an old wringer washing machine.

The landing on the top of the steps leading up to the back door housed a milk box. And the Dellwood milk man would leave fresh, cold milk in that box.

In really cold weather, the cream would rise to the top of the milk bottles. Kind of like me. I’m the cream that always rises to the top!

I am that old!

It was fun to go upstairs and have a cuppa tea with my grandparents each day.

Nothin’ said home like a cup of tea that my grandmother brewed–and the matching slice of Drake’s pound cake!

This is the place that I came home to after having my eyes operated on, and where I was in quarantine when I had Scarlet Fever. It sucked too, because my parents had to get rid of all my toys due to “germs”! Well, it was not all that sucky because I got new toys!

When I started school, my grandfather would pick me up from the bus stop and walk me across the street to Novotny’s bar. He would have a boiler maker and I would have a “shot” of cola and a bag of Wise potato chips. People called my grandfather “Gov’ner”. I honestly thought he was the Governor of New York City.

New York will always be home for me. I mean, the entire expanse of New York City and Long Island will always be home for me. That’s where I’m from!

THIS is home and no matter where I end up, New York will ALWAYS be my home! I’m in a New York State of mind!

When we moved to Long Island, we moved into this house in Bay Shore. It was home. We did our homework here. We played for hours in the finished basement. We celebrated holidays here.   We played in the backyard and the woods next door. And in the woods we would pretend that we were on an imaginary island or in a forest. We never had to worry about safety. Then one day, the woods were cleared to build another house…..a part of our home left us.

This was our first home in Long Island. Ohh…if my mom were alive, she would be very upset to see a pile of stuff in the window! Windows are meant to look out of and see the beautiful view–not to be obstructed!

When I became an adult, I moved back into New York City. I’m far more comfy in the cocoon of a city apartment than in the suburbs.

I’ve lived in apartments in Manhattan…and they were homes within my home of the city I still love!

214 Riverside Drive. My first apartment in NYC. This building was GREAT! It was like a dorm! A place of endless weekend parties!

It was always comforting to return to my apartment after a challenging day on Wall Street, where I worked. Sometimes the ride on the Subway could be filled with delays and other surprises.

But when I returned to my apartment, I could shut the rest of the world out and enjoy the peaceful calm of my little private world.

After the boys were born,  downtown Manhattan was just starting to get pricey. So—we moved to the Inwood section of NYC, just above Washington Heights.

This apartment waa s GREAT home!!!!  Many, many great memories with the kids when they were younger!

Look to the left. See the windows underneath the windows with the a/c units? That’s my home! These steps, otherwise known as “The City Steps” led from Park Terrace East down to Broadway. Now I know why I was thirty pounds thinner when I lived here!  I climbed these steps at least three times a day! Who needs a gym?

Real Estate people now refer to this neighborhood as “Hudson Heights”. Really—what a crock of shit! I guess to pretentious people “Hudson Heights” sounds better than Inwood. I’ll keep calling in Inwood because that is where my home was!

Uh oh! Was Roman predicting the future when he was playing in this box as a house? Was he trying to tell me that I would eventually lose a home?  Ouch!

When I’m in Paris, Bonaparte’s Aunt Daniele’s  apartment is my home. And when we’ve been out and about all day, we’ll say “Let’s go back home”—and we mean to the apartment. It’s warm. It’s cozy. It is my Paris home away from home.

My Parisian home away from home! Thanks to Bonaparte’s aunt, Daniele, she’s always made me feel this IS my second home!

When we are in Theoule-sur-Mer, this is the terrace that is part of our vacation home. We’ve rented the same place for many years. For two weeks out of the year, this is “home”!

This is our two-week-a-year home. And it becomes more comfortable and familiar with each new year! It’s definitely got a home vibe!

These days I live in the Philadelphia suburbs. This area will never, ever be home to me. I don’t have that same warm and fuzzy feeling living here. I don’t have that “hometown” feeling….but…

When I open the door to the house that Bonaparte and I own in these suburbs, the house becomes home.

This is the entryway to the house we’ve made a home! Oops! time for me to get a new doormat. That one is FILTHY!  Remind me to have Bonaparte take that disgusting pink towel off that hook. He insists on wiping Chippy’s paws with it. Can’t he just move it into one of those baskets??????

This is a home that Bonaparte and I have worked hard to build. It is our home.

A comfy family room adds to the coziness of home!

It’s the place of new Christmas traditions!

I got a lot of banister to decorate these days! Oh…I’m getting dizzy!

Part of my new tradition is decorating the home with pillows….

…lots of pillows.  That one pillow may say “eat, drink and be merry”, but if you spill that drink on my white slip cover,  merry may be leaving!

When the kids come to visit—it becomes their home too.

You know why?

Because home is where the heart is.

Doesn’t matter where you live. If your heart isn’t with you–it’s just not home!

You can live in a box, or a mansion or a high-rise or a teepee or a tent or a boat—and if your heart is there—it’s your home!

This is NOT my home. It WAS the home of Madame de Maintenon. She was married to Louis XIV.  She turned THIS little chateau into quite the home, I might add!

Home is the best place!   Here’s Dusty Springfield with Burt Bacharach to remind you that “A House Is Not a Home”! XOXOXOXOXOXOOOO!