Places We've Lived and a Few Other Things

While I was vacuuming a few minutes ago, I thought, "Wow, we've lived here 61/2 years.  That's a record for us in the last 10 years!  Then, I started thinking about all the places we've lived and recording it is more fun than vacuuming!  BREAK TIME!

Phil and I met in June, 1973, and were married in Dec. 1973.  For about six weeks we lived in my little apartment in the back of a house at Lynchburg.
I loved to watch the sunsets there!  Next door lived a little girl whom I taught in kindergarten, Toni Sue Coomes, who is now my very grown up Facebook friend.  The sunset looked like it happened right on their farm!

Next, we moved down a gravel road (same one as Vaughans, Tracys, Messengers, and Penleys) into a trailer owned by a man named Kenneth Royster.  We had a flat yard (a commodity I've come to appreciate). 

This was the first place Stacy and Stephen visited us for three months.  Here, one of my most horrible memories is getting up in the morning and finding a dead mouse that had been roasted in the toaster.  Phil had eaten toast and gone to work.  I wouldn't touch that creature, but Stephen who was about six would climb up on a chair and look at it all day long.  When Phil came home, he took the toaster apart and cleaned it, because we were too poor to buy anything.  I "swore" never to eat out of "that side" of the toaster again. I'm pretty positive I kept my word --yep!

Another memory I have is being so sick, both of us, with the flu at once.  Kenny and Carol came over and risked getting the flu, and our trailer was a mess.  I remember that. 

We could walk through a field and make a long trip down a hill to the banks of Roubidoux.  I remember sitting on a rock and catching one blue gill after another.  Now, that's fishing!

Place number three probably happened by the next summer.  We moved into what Phil called "Uncle Frank's house."  It was an old, old house.  Cecil Benson had owned it, and Phil's brother Kenny had bought it.  He and Phil put in a new FLOOR and a new linoleum before we moved in.  We had no furniture, so Phil went looking in Mtn. Grove where he worked at a Richard's Brothers Grocery Store.  He found a couch, chair, refrigerator, bed, and washer and dryer and more for $500.  We probably borrowed that.   Stace and Steve slept in the old upstairs which had a bare wood floor, and I'm talking boards.  Phil's mom bought some big pieces of carpet so they could have a space at opposite ends of the upstairs.  Phil shot through a packrat hole and we never saw the pack rat again, but I knew I had married a crazy man.

(For some of my friends on Facebook:  Pam, Penny, Jessica, Diane Barnes, Dee Dee Connelly, and others, you were a bunch of beautiful little girls running around the town with Stacy.  I was in a lot of trouble that summer for not letting her be gone from home too long at a time.  Schoolteacher me. I was supposedly the only one who had those rules?  I doubt that now.

READ THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU READ NO OTHER.  At this time, Phil and I decided we needed to move our church membership from Roby and go to Plato Baptist where we lived where we felt they needed us most.  We weren't all that mature, but we hit upon a wise fact!  At this time, we were squeezing every penny, and I'm not exaggerating.  We were borrowing money for plane tickets for the kids and paying it back all year, and doing it again the next year.  Our  groceries were exactly what we needed and nothing more.  We paid cheap rent, child support, and that's about it.
But we made a decision.  WE DECIDED TO TITHE ON OUR INCOME--10%.  We decided to do it at the beginning of the month, 'cause God said, "Try me and prove me in this area in His word."  I'm pretty sure we didn't have the faith to think this would work and then we would be in financial straits by the end of the month.  THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN; IT WAS A MIRACLE.  HE MET ALL OUR NEEDS.  I'll never forget that, never, never, never.

Since then, we've tithed our 10 percent, and God has blessed us unbelievably in many areas of our lives, including financially.  Although it took years of hard work to accomplish a lot of things, we saw God's hand almost immediately.  We, who started with nothing but responsibilities, saw God make it possible for us to buy a house . . . a nice little three bed home very well built.  It is the one Bill and Laura own now, and Bill, Kay, and Laura have made it into a beautiful place.

As for us, we bought it from a man and wife who had six children.  It was "a mess."  And the biggest blessing you can imagine!!!!!!
We had a friend from school redo the hardwood floors but they were pretty scarred up.  It was dirty, yes.  The yard had sprouts and rocks.  Phil did a lot of work on that yard.  We were there for two or three years, and we would've been a lot longer if my dad hadn't gotten a wild hair to move to Texas County.  We sold him the house on impulse.    He moved back to Ripley County after a couple years to be near his parents.

In this home Stacy and Stephen had their own rooms, and Stacy spent quite a bit of time with the girls up the road.  Steve seemed to be a loner or there just weren't as many guys around.

When we sold the house, we had some profit.  We rented an old farmhouse with a separate building with an outhouse.  We bought some land and started having a house built by a carpenter, Elwin Tracy, who worked by the hour!  What a blessing, and what a strong house he built.  This was in the fall, and it didn't get finished until the next April. 

Meanwhile, Josh was born.  Two days later the house we were renting, while waiting for the new house to be built, burned and we lost all our stuff.  (The new babe and we were at my parents).  The Plato community rallied and took such good care of us.  We stayed with my parents for six weeks and Phil's for six weeks and then we moved our new baby into the new house.  It was April and I think the 100 dogwoods around our house on a two acre lot were in bloom.

We lived there for 12 years.  The boys had Bo, the dog, and Arrow, the cat.  They had trails in the woods nearby and lots of fun there.  Stacy and Stephen spent time there as well.  It was there that we woke up one night to see a skunk in our bedroom.  That's another story!

Jordan was born and was brought home there.   Grandpa George Hall, Stephen, and Josh were sitting on the front porch waiting for him to get home. 

In 1991, we decided to move to Houston, MO.  I had left Plato Schools and started teaching in Houston, and we loved the community.  The boys had good friends and a good education there.  We lived above the Big Piney River and could see some of it.  We had 11 acres and four or 5 to mow.  Those boys know how to mow, don't let anybody tell you otherwise!

In 2003, Phil and I retired and moved to Cape Fair.  We lived there when Hannah, Reagan Rose, Sophie, and Judah were born.  We had a wonderful lake view but I pushed until we moved closer to grandchildren.  We had some wonderful times there and in the First Baptist Church of Cape Fair.

So we moved here to Ozark.  Both Phil and I believe that is what God did in order to help with grandkids, because then two little boys, the lights of our lives, Levi and Jackson were born, and we cared for them in our home quite a bit.  (Yes, God just moved them to IN, as he moved Jordan's fam to Mt, but He's the boss, and He knows what's best).

Now, that's the somewhat, not so interesting, story of our residences.  I could've made each more interesting by taking them one by one.  However, I wanted to just get it down.  I don't proofread and I don't rewrite.  Better to write something quickly than nothing at all, I guess.

New Normal for Rose and Phil

Hmmmm.  My last post was in December, 2009.  How can that be?

We are starting a new normal around here.  Our son Jordan and family moved to Montana 5 years ago.  We have lived in Ozark over 6 years where we have been hands-on grandparents to Josh and Rachel's kids who are now 10, 8, 5, and 3.  A week ago they moved to Camby, IN, near Indianapolis to "plant" a church.

So what are we doing--just us--like we started out over 39 years ago? We are just fine.  Phil is hanging my new popping poppy canvas over the couch.  We are expecting new carpet in the next two or three weeks.
We are moving some long-time "blue" pictures to the computer room, as we call it.

We continue to find small toys tucked away here and there and are putting some away for when the grandkids visit.

We are looking forward to having our granddaughter Maddie visit the last week of July and the Hall reunion on Aug. 3.

It is our plan to meet Jordan and Mandy (Reagan Rose, Judah, and Baby Piper) somewhere in the next couple months--maybe in Denver. 

God is so good to us.  We are appreciating our home, our yard, our church, the wonderful people that make up our church, and looking forward to taking care of "life." 

My blogs may be boring, but I plan to do some again!

Remember, Jesus loves you!