When I pulled into my driveway that warm Thursday afternoon, the sunlight hit just right—the kind of glow that made the siding of my modest two-bedroom sparkle like a magazine spread. I hadn’t planned to be home this early,

but the last-minute cancellation of a two-day training seminar meant I got to skip two days of hotel coffee and awkward icebreakers. Instead, I got something infinitely better: a quiet return to my very first home.

I had only owned the place for three weeks, but I was already falling in love with the creaks in the floor and the hum of the neighborhood. The previous

owner left behind an old wrought iron bench in the backyard, and I liked to sit there in the mornings with my coffee, watching the squirrels argue over acorns. It wasn’t fancy. But it was mine.