shameless promotion

I realise I have already posted this on my theworldofsarah.com blog, but if I post it here as well, I get another chance to win a new ipad (i'm a sucker for a competition, especially if gadgets are involved!)

See more Logo Designs at 99designs

homes

Ok, so I actually forgot that I made this blog. I was all ready to make a new one... (Since settin this one up, googlewave appears to have died. ahem)

I wanted to post images of all the houses I have lived in... from Google streetview. I'm not sure why, but there you go.

The first house, though I do not remember it... was in Inkster. I had originally begun looking at my old houses online after watching Requiem for Detroit on BBC2, a documentary about Detroit's history - also featuring lots of post apocalyptic imagery of old houses... which of course made me curious about the houses my family had lived in in the area.

(click any of the streetview images to go to the link)

Another house I do not recall, my dad tells me its just south of 8 Mile Rd:

This is the first of the houses I do remember... we lived here while my dad attended nearby Notre Dame.. and I went to kindergarten here. I also blame the next-door neighbor's pool for my fear of water.. I fell into the deep end and freaked out at a very young age. You can see the pool if you zoom out a little - (though it shows up better on bing)

Now we move on to one of several houses in Holland, Michigan.. the first one, and one of the best, I think. I went to 1st, 2nd & 3rd grade here:

Ok, this next one isn't really very accurate - we used to live in this spot, but the house you see in this picture is the new one they built in its place (and of course it is much grander... its right on lake macatawa, you will see if you zoom out). The previous house was slowly sinking into the ground, and we only lived here for one year while my parents searched for a nearby house to settle in - I recall lying on the blue carpet floor of my bedroom (before any furniture arrived) and literally rolling from one end to the other... on the slope of the sinking floor:

And this, of course, is where my parents are now... and is my proper home (ahem, home from home? its so confusing now...):

This was my house in New Orleans - I spent six months here, following my sister who had moved here first. I was escaping Holland, and I got a job as a pastry chef in a large hotel which no longer exists on Canal street (I think it disappeared after Katrina, I'm not sure). I never thought I would like living in a hot climate, but it was amazing having banana trees outside our windows, wearing endless tank tops & I loved the daily buckets of rain that broke the outrageous humidity.... (oh, and the constant blue sky with white, fluffy, cotton clouds were just surreal!):

Sadly, I ended up returning to Holland before moving on to England... so I chose the basement of this house, outside the city limits I think, and it was the only place I ever got to live on my own... I had a pottery kick wheel, no cable tv, and funky second-hand furniture:

..But then I really did move to England, and this is the first house I lived in, with a British family not dissimilar to the Dursleys from Harry Potter (yes, this is harsh I realise). I didn't stay here long (and the streetview doesn't get any closer to the house... this is looking over from a nearby road):

And here, in a less pleasant location, but much closer to the college was a shared student house. I, once again, stayed in room only slightly bigger than the 'cupboard under the stairs', and stayed with one Chinese, one Japanese, and one English housemate, all of them were taking an MA in furniture design:

This was the first house with roommates of my choosing - two young women from my Fine Art course, though I couldn't afford the rent for long because my student loans were getting smaller and smaller - I ended up moving out of here and living with Matthew's dad (see next image):

This was Matthew's dad's house... I lived here with Matthew, his dad, and for a while, his sister Jennifer as well:

And for an inexplicable 6 months, Matthew and I lived in a small studio apartment above some drug dealers in this apartment building in Chicago. It was a nice neighborhood, and I had a nice little job at the Art Institute of Chicago... but after 6 months, I was granted my UK visa, and I got to return to the UK!:

After a couple of short stays with Matthew's friend, Doug in Luton and his dad in Maidenhead, Matthew and I finally had our first place properly together. This cottage was super old, and had lots of character... I hope to live somewhere similar in the future, but it did need updating, there was lots of mold and very noisy neighbors:

Funnily, the place I currently live has missed the prying streetview cameras! Its probably the prettiest house I have lived in (from the outside), and its the only one you can't see! through that gate, is a converted barn.. and this is where I am now, in Great Missenden (home of Roald Dahl).

So, I have no idea why you would have wanted to know all of that, but its a pretty interesting collection of images, I think. It feels a bit like a fingerprint...

Anyway, I couldn't help but share this image I came across while looking all of these up... Its a plane over Bourne End - I haven't seen this happen in GoogleMap's satellite images yet:

testing testing...

So, since my swanpillows.com domain has been obliterated (on purpose - redirected to theworldofsarah.com), I thought I'd start a new personal blog. I also want to try this whole google wave connect-to-your-blog deal, and this seems to be a bit easier with Blogger, so there ya go.