My childhood neighborhood (writer's workshop).

When I read the prompts for the writer's workshop last weekend, I immediately knew I would do number 1) What do you miss most about your childhood neighborhood? I grew up way out in the country in upstate New York; we were way out in the sticks, the backwoods, the middle of nowhere (but it wasn't Podunk, that was a few towns over). As a kid, especially a teenager, I longed to live in a city, but now that I look back on it I miss being in the country.

I spent my childhood running through the forests, splashing in creaks, playing with bugs, climbing trees, swimming in ponds, rolling in the grass, and so on. I spent my childhood outside, in nature. Whenever I go back home, I am stunned by how beautiful the Fingerlakes area is (of course I only go back in the summer). I love living in a city now, and there are many conveniences that I would have a hard time giving up, but I still miss the wild things.

This little cabin is where I lived for the first few years of my life. It still stands on my father's land, but no one has lived there for at least 10 years now. It's rustic (very rustic), but it's so cute too. When we lived there, the land around it was cleared, but these saplings have grown up over the years.

My tiny kitchen (writer's workshop).

I'm back for another week of the writer's workshop. This week I'm choosing Kat's third prompt: Show us your kitchen! Don't get me wrong, I'm not choosing this prompt because I think I have a beautiful kitchen. On the contrary, I want to show you that you don't need a huge fancy kitchen to cook your heart out (although I do dream of double ovens, six burner stove tops, and islands full of storage; heck, even a few feet more counter space or a window would be amazing, but I digress).

We've been in our place for three and a half years by now, so I have the kitchen set up just how I want it, and I am comfortable in it. One nice thing about having a small kitchen is that everything is always within a few feet of you (never mind that sometimes that means a few feet above my head causing me to climb to reach it... these are the perils of being vertically challenged). Anyways, the moral is that you make do with what you have. I've even made Thanksgiving dinner for 8 people in this kitchen. It took some planning, good timing, and a lot of stacking, but I made it work, and you can to.

Okay, enough talking, now I have to go clean the kitchen so that I can take some pictures to share with you (at least since there's no window I don't have to worry about taking pics during the daytime!).

 Here's the overview shot; you can see that I wasn't kidding when I called it small. It's long(ish) and narrow, so there's not much space for more than one person in there at a time. Matt and I are always sidestepping each other trying to get to the fridge or microwave.

Going back in time (writer's workshop).

I have been a spectator of the writer's workshop over at Mama's Losin' It for a while now, and I'm finally taking the plunge and becoming a participant. I actually linked up last week too, but that was just because my post happened to fit one of the prompts, not because I had planned it. This week I chose prompt #5)  Find a photo of yourself taken 10 years ago and display it on your blog along with a current photo. How have you changed since the day that photo was taken?

10 years ago I was a junior in high school, fall 2002; Showing off my new baby journal Christmas morning, 2012