Magpie 54 - Puzzle

Magpie Tales writing prompt #54. Click on the link to see the other responses.
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So many years spent gathering the missing pieces, trying to make sense of the random patterns. I can only hope the finished work will be beautiful.

Little House - Magpie 52

This is a writing prompt for Magpie Tales which is celebrating it's first anniversary. Click on the link to see the other entries.
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It's a perfect little house. I wish I could step inside. I can't see a busy family there. Maybe two ladies, a mother and a spinster daughter. It would be very quiet and tidy. I see a stiff little settee and a side chair. A flowered rug. A wooden rocker with a seat cushion and some needlework waiting in a basket. Lace curtains. A linen-covered table set for tea near the fireplace. A grandfather clock in the corner. A neat little kitchen with embroidered tea towels. An old fashioned bathroom with lavender soap and a clawfoot tub. A landing on the stairs where the peaked window looks out onto the street. At the top of the stairs, two small bedrooms with iron bedsteads and white sheets and fresh flowers on a writing desk or a chest of drawers. I wonder what they dream about behind the pretty front door.
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I had to come back to add the sleek white cat in the window sill and the daughter coming down the stairs in the morning in her old chenile robe and fluffy slippers to start the kettle for tea and stir up the fire. Church suppers, card games, choir practice and ordering plants for the garden in the spring. Visiting neices and nephews and an old piano. They are doing just fine in this little house.

Home - Magpie Tales #51

Magpie Tales is a writing blog where writers respond to a photo prompt posted by Willow at Willow Manor.

Funny how a small thing can make all the difference. When I saw the narrow brick street lined with grandfather oaks with a canopy of gnarled, leafy limbs above, I made up my mind. The old house had a big covered porch with wide steps and fat brick columns and a white porch swing. It was autumn and school had just let out. Laughing children were running home in the slanting sunlight. My husband didn't get it. He saw missing roof shingles, crumbling foundation, old plumbing and ancient wiring. But I knew. He left long ago, but I will never leave. It is my home.