Warning: Porch Allure is Contagious!

One of the sweet peeps I have met online lives in Lakeland and wrote me an email to tell me about her evening drive down a certain street last night and how the porches were alive with howdy and hey y'all,  how she saw doors wide open with lamps on the porch and how she was envious.. I know this envy....  People who now live in this area were envious once too.  It's contagious.. be careful..read no further!  The first signs of infection are a draw to drive or walk around the area of homes with quaint porches.  You may feel a tingle at the sight of a rocker or a flag pole hanging from a trim piece.  If you start looking at listings "just for fun" it's all over... you've got it bad.  I knew I had it when I started stalking this 10 street neighborhood, oohing at porches large and small while I happily ate my lunch in the car.  The virus worsened as I started rehabbing chairs (why chairs, I'll never know..) but they are stacking up with no place to go.

I informed the hubs that the minute the boys get all graduated that I was moving downtown.  Hubs said, "Those houses are old"...  He doesn't get it.  Hubs came from Salem, Mass where the homes were built in the 1600's so a 1920"s home should be like new construction!  Hubs likes the 1998 subdivision model built on slab and planters shelves.  The kids like the proximity to friends and such.  Me?  This is all good and I am grateful for a nice home~ but one day...color me on a porch near the lake with a glass of iced tea a couple of spare glasses for visitors, dog at my feet and simpler living for I will have succumbed completely to Porch Allure.