"The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." ~ Maya Angelou

One of my favorite things about working in real estate, besides helping people build lives and wealth, is the fact that I get to time travel.

Seriously. Time travel.

Some homes we walk into are less "updated open concept" and more "perfectly preserved shrine to 1986", and I LOVE IT!!!! There is a magic in stepping into a space that has not yet bowed to modern trends or HGTV pressures. It's like flipping through a photo album or listening to your favorite old school playlist - but with all five senses.

The other day, I walked into a house with green and yellow rocking chairs and BAM - I was a kid again, in my grandparents' living room, curled up after downing an entire plate of Ritz crackers, cheez whiz, and summer sausage - begging to go downstairs and watch Old Yeller or Troop Beverly Hills on their giant wood console TV (that, I believe, is still in my dad's basement).

Or the wood-burning fireplaces. Ahhhhh That smell!! Straight portal to Christmas mornings at my grandparents' - four generations under one roof, wrapping paper everywhere, the tree glowing, and grandmas cooking turning the whole house into a slow-simmering love letter.

Then there are the little things. The phone on the wall. You know, THE phone. The one with the tangled cord long enough to lasso a small animal (or a little brother), where I spent countless hours in my early teens talking to friends about...absolutely nothing. Or crushes. Or both. Highly likely it was both.

Framed photos all over the hallway - none of them filtered, none of them curated for social media. Just real, slightly crooked snapshots of life as - it - happened. Awkward school photos, Birthday parties in the basement, vacations where everyone is squinting into the sun. No retouching, no staging - just LIFE.

Get this! Some homes still have ironing boards left out like it's a thing people do on a regular basis.

And strangely enough, it gets me. Theres something comforting about it, like a quiet nod to routines that once mattered.

Soooo...forewarning: If you're house-hunting with me, know that I WILL point out the vintage wallpaper that reminds me of my grandma's kitchen. I WILL pause at the avocado green bathroom like I've just seen a ghost. And I MIGHT get quite for a second because a smell or a lamp or a dish towel transported me back to a version of myself I didn't know I needed to remember.

Homes are so much more than structures!! They are memory machines...and I am incredibly lucky to get to walk through them for a living.