The House with the Golden Windows...

Once upon a summer's evening about 50 years ago (give or take a little) I walked our country lane together with my mom. I guess we just enjoyed walking together at that time. It had to be before I got my bicycle because I never walked again after that! I flew... But this night, and on several nights after I remember, my mother told me this story as we walked home...
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Once there was a little princess who lived with her mommy and daddy in a very nice home. It wasn't a castle. It was just something nice, warm, and something she didn't really appreciate. She always gazed out her window at the house down the road directly to the west of her. Every morning as the sun rose in its splendor... this house had the most beautiful, blazing gold windows the little girl had ever seen. "Oh, Mommy! I want to live in the house with the golden windows."

"Not ours?" her mother would coax her to appreciate the house her daddy had built her...

"No... I want the one with the golden windows." And every day the princess grew more and more enchanted with the house across the way and less and less happy with the home she had.

Finally one early morning the mother sighed and said "Very well... We must take our things over to the house with the golden windows, and there we shall live." The two set out early that day with several items in a little basket. They walked for hours and hours until at last they came to the hill right before the house with the beautiful windows. As the two crested the little rise, the little girl was simply devastated.

"There aren't any golden windows at all!" For as the sun had risen, the miracle had ceased, and the house (although quite nice) sat there just about the same as her own. She began to think about the pup she had in her yard, the dolls lined up on her bedroom shelves, the look on her daddy's face when he came home and didn't find his wife or daughter. "Let's go back home, Mommy," she said, the disappointment evident in her voice. "This house isn't special at all."

So they walked and walked almost all afternoon to arrive at the little hill right before her own home just about sunset. They were so tired that they couldn't even begin to talk at this point. Up over the hill trudged the mother and her "worn to a frazzle" little princess. As they came to the top of this little rise, they saw an unbelievable sight. The sunset reflected in their own windows... brilliant gold, soft purple, golden shades of pink and yellow. Their house was even more beautiful than the one across the way.

And then the little girl squealed with the delight that she lived in the house with the golden windows after all. This story was spoon-fed to me FOREVER.... My mom was then trying to make me content with what I have... my own home, THIS home... with its golden windows... ah... If I knew now what I knew then.

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These photos were taken outside my car window this morning... a bit of searching and roaming as I had to take them with one arm out of the window and the camera pointed to the rear of the car.... I was driving AWAY from the beauty... until I arrived at school... the last photos are of the reflection on my classroom's windows... Can you believe how beautiful they turned out?

oops! Now where is that gosh darned sunrise anyway? I was so afraid the wind would whip my camera out of my hand... uh... doh! That wouldn't have played well with any audience I know...