MaryBeth has this week’s Friday Five:

With so many folks starting school, college, seminary, etc. I’ve been thinking of a lot of other firsts in my life.  Share with us, if you will:

1. Your first “place” – whether it was an apartment, dorm room, or home with a new spouse, the first place where you really felt like a grown-up:

Probably my “Little House on the Prairie” apartment – an in-law suite that I rented while I taught school. It had 3 rooms – living room, eat-in kitchen and bedroom. I felt like it was a palace!

2. Your first time away from home. Construe this any way you want. College? Girl Scout Camp? Study Abroad?

Hmmmm… I am sure at stayed at Grandma’s house before Girl Scout camp. Both were fun, with decidedly more cookies and creature comforts at Grandma’s!

3. Your first job in your field of endeavor (so, not babysitting, unless you are A Professional Babysitter today):

Well, if we are talking, “firsts” today then it would be my “first” career. 🙂 I taught music in a small school district in western Ohio. It housed K-12 in one building. And my only other comment about it is that the community was definitely – ahem – ‘ingrown.’

4. Your first time hosting. Again, construed broadly, this could be a dinner for the in-laws, your first time to have guests for a holiday meal, etc.

The first time I had friends to my Little House from college. They were friends from Music School. We sat and laughed, played the piano and talked for most of the night. And the whole town knew it. (See questions #1 and #3!)

5. Your first love.That can be a person or something else!!

While I dearly love my Bearded Brewer, it nonetheless would be my love of playing piano and singing. Something I still do when I need to unwind, but prefer to do when no one is around to listen. Piano is the first instrument I studied, my first area of study in college, and where I gave my first recitals. (The piano pictured above is not the first one I started playing on, but it is the one my parents purchased for me when I decided to study music. Yes. I am a blessed woman!)