Welcome to our home… well. It is ours now. Built in 1890, the house was a wedding gift for a young but up and coming lawyer named Edmond Barry and his wife Belle, from her parents. They just happened to have owned the land and conveniently lived next door too. Now, what started out as an upscale neighborhood at the fringe of downtown, Heritage Hill has become a showpiece in the Midwest, and an eclectic mix of architectural styles, diverse population, and an opportunity for us to raise our family in a wonderful historic neighborhood and be able to walk just about anywhere in Grand Rapids.
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Recent posts
This week, we turn up three very different Freshly Pressed posts united by their incisive exploration of unexplored, long forgotten, or unexpected experiences, experiences that have been made somehow peripheral by time, geography, or culture. They’re posts you’ve responded to, and that we hope you’ll find resonant. Notes on Email I started to think how long I’ve been doing this, this whole writing thing, and how it had taken until my mid-thirties before I could really conduct myself in public where I could hold two opposing ideas in my mind at the same time: 1. that I was a writer and 2. I was me. We’re all familiar with the idea of digging through old journals or photo albums. But what about the digital detritus we leave behind?...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 17 hours 1 min ago.
Brian Castner We’re honored that Brian Castner, Iraq War veteran and author of The Long Walk, makes his official online home right here at WordPress.com. Brian’s history and work are fascinating, as are the writing and photographs he shares on his blog. We asked Brian a few questions about his background, his book, his blogging philosophy, and his choice of WordPress.com for his site. Could you please tell us a bit about your unique background? I served in the Air Force as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Officer, and deployed twice to Iraq in 2005 and 2006. EOD is the military’s bomb squad, so we defuse roadside bombs and all types of rockets and missiles and such...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 2 days 13 hours ago.
Who doesn’t love “Before and After” home improvement shots? It’s always amazing to see how just a couple of changes, like a coat of paint or a quick do-it-yourself project, can transform a living space dramatically. It’s no different when it comes to WordPress.com blog themes, in which a little customization can go a long way. Today let’s take a look at Beau and Arrow Events, a wedding inspiration blog run by Ellen and Kate, two San Diego-based event planners. You’d never know that this chic blogazine is running on Comet, one of our sparest themes. Here’s how the bloggers behind Beau and Arrow Events transformed grayscale Comet into cursive and gold elegance...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 4 days 13 hours ago.
An ode to a father, a story of growing up with two mothers, a request for a cloak of visibility, and a reflection on goodbyes. Here are four Freshly Pressed standouts from this week — all quite personal pieces that have resonated with many readers. Go ahead and dive in: Why I Don’t Diet — An Ode to My Father My father spent his years fighting his size, wishing he was smaller, weaker, less of a giant. He was taught to hate his body, and he was ashamed of the amount of space he took up. But he passed his strength to me, and I won’t squander my inheritance. I will not let myself be diminished. Image from More Cabaret.com Tiffany Kell, a contributor and dancer at More Cabaret, reflects on her father’s recent passing, and his long struggle with his weight and health...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 1 week 13 hours ago.
Happy Theme Thursday! Sharing and managing your work online should be easy, and today I’m thrilled to announce a new theme from our friends at The Theme Foundry that helps you do just that! Snap is a responsive, lightweight, and minimalist theme that makes it easy to feature your projects. Snap’s clean grid based blog layout and configurable page templates also make it incredibly flexible. Snap: Home Page Read more about Snap in the Theme Showcase, or test drive it for yourself by going to Appearance → Themes in your Dashboard...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 1 week 1 day ago.
Since the dawn of time, humankind has yearned for control. While we can’t give you more control over most of your life, we can give you more control over your widgets. And today, with the new widget visibility tool, you can configure your widgets to be shown or hidden only on certain pages. Widgets are a way to add new content (like your Twitter stream, a tag cloud, or a link to your blog archives) in the sidebar, header, or footer of your site. To see the widgets you have available to you, log in to your WordPress.com dashboard and click on Appearance » Widgets. To add a widget, simply click on it and drag it up and over to the right of the widget screen, into the Default Sidebar, Header Area, or Footer Area section of your site...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 1 week 2 days ago.
All kinds of organizations make their home on WordPress.com: small businesses, municipalities, religious organizations, schools, community groups. We also provide an online HQ for quite a few non-profits, from the global to the hyperlocal...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 1 week 3 days ago.
Every few weeks, we’re sitting down with an Automattician to help you get to know the people who work behind the scenes to build new features, keep Automattic running, and make WordPress.com the best it can be. This week, we’re very pleased to introduce you to Mr. Philip Arthur Moore: Theme Broker, global nomad, and emoticon expert. What kinds of awesome things do you do at Automattic? Philip Arthur Moore I’m currently the Premium Theme Team lead at WordPress.com. The majority of my waking hours are spent feverishly obsessing over making premium themes a world-class experience for all WordPress users...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 1 week 4 days ago.
In some parts around the world, this Sunday is dedicated to the mothers out there. For Mother’s Day, we’ve rounded up sites on motherhood, parenting, and family. On WordPress.com, you’ll discover mothers on all paths: new moms, stay-at-home-moms, single moms, mothers who are full-time writers, and more. (Even mommy men, as you’ll see below.) We especially want to highlight bloggers with unique perspectives and thoughtful commentary, as well as collaborative blogs with multiple contributors...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 1 week 5 days ago.
This week’s three selections address some of our favorite topics: reading and writing. If you’re looking for inspiring and thought-provoking posts, you’re in luck. From the hunger that develops when a reader can’t find the time to read, to the power of the dictionary and your own memories, we’ve got something for everyone. We are all travelers here I miss the feel of bound paper between my fingers. At daybreak, my quiet commute, punctuated by the flipflipflip of pages, chapters, worlds. At nightfall, crisp, cool sheets, and the sweet scent of sleep...
read more at Edmund Barry House in Heritage Hill Posted 2 weeks 13 hours ago.