Old empty buildings make me sad.  Where there was once a thriving business, the old abandoned shell sits forgotten and lonely.  I can almost sense the life and personality the building once held and imagine it as a living person that now is like an orphaned child.  Perhaps that same sense of mine is why other people often imagine ghosts in old buildings as they try to conjure up the life that once filled the old place.

Many of you who live near me will remember the old Friendly’s Ice Cream place.  When our girls were young, we loved to go there for lunch, dinner, and of course ice cream.  That business closed up a long time ago and the poor building sat vacant.  It eventually got bought up and transformed into a bank. (A BANK??  Like we need more banks?  Yeah – that’s beside the point.  Any ways…)  Every time we drive past that bank, I smile and remember it as being Friendly’s!  Tellers are working at a counter right where we probably used to eat our ice cream sundaes!  The building has transformed and is a thriving business once again.  The foundation of the building is all the same as well as much of the original structure.

Another building that went through the same kind of metamorphosis is an old movie rental store that is nearby.  Like many movie rental places, the business closed up several years ago and has sat vacant.  Poor sad building.  It has recently undergone a makeover and is soon to be open as an urgent care facility.  It looks all spiffed up with fresh paint and interior.  Soon it will be alive and bustling with a new order of business.

As we count down the days (again) to getting Amanda moved out to her own apartment, she has been catching me off guard at some of the wise and mature things coming out of her mouth.  I am rather amazed.  I am beginning to think that she has spent too many recent years sitting around here like an old abandoned building.  As she gets her mind adjusted and set to taking up living on her own (with staff of course to help) it’s as if she’s getting a second wind – a fresh breath of life in her.  I really think she’s going to surprise us all.  We’ve been butting heads for so long now (Amanda and me) that I think she is going to very easily take over as the boss in her new place.  She will get to do things her way, call the shots, run her own business.  She’ll still be the same Amanda – but she will have a new occupation as head of the house!

Oh I think Ted and I will have to ‘support’ this new Amanda business.  We’ll have to make frequent stops.  Hopefully, her other friends will stop by and support her as well.  But it will be like she is finally breaking away from corporate Greshel headquarters …

… and starting her own little franchise!  🙂

just Laurel