14 years ago in TIME Flies and other Thoughts

At the end of that November our household goods were packed on a Mayflower Truck headed for Wisconsin. It is crazy to think it was just 14 years ago because we have started over and lived in 2 other states since then.
We loaded up my husband’s truck with a few items and our dog. We made a stop in Oklahoma to visit my husband’s Brother for a few days and then continued North.

My husband had been living in Wisconsin 18 months before me. He bought some land and had a house built. He would send me email with the progress. It was soon to be finished in early December of that year. He pretty much made all the choices in flooring and kitchen and bathroom, etc. He wanted this to be a surprise. I was okay with that. He has a good eye for this sort of things. He chose well. He even had them build a pantry in place of an extra closet (that we didn’t need as the one by the front door was sufficient).
He knew how I loved having a Trash Compactor in New Mexico so he had the kitchen built to include one. He also had a Sound System built into the house. I LOVED this feature! It was downstairs and upstairs and outside. I loved having it outside. He had a huge deck built in the backyard. In nice weather we had many of breakfast’s and dinner’s out there, with Classical or Smooth Jazz playing through the outside speakers. I read all my books out there on that deck.

We had 2 bedrooms on the main level. The Master and a Guest Room. We had 3 bedrooms downstairs but only one of them was a bedroom. One of them was a Storage Room. It housed all my Rubbermaid Tubs on shelves. The other room was a TV room. My husband had a Sectional Couch in there and the big Screen mounted on the Wall. Then the rest of the Basement was a large area that had the two Office Size Desks and Hutch and we had a Recliner and a Cat tree with still lots of room to put more things but we didn’t.

After about 6 months we learned the house that faced the other street was being sold. They were our closest neighbor… practically in our back/side yard. We kind of sort of wanted to control who lived there if only by doing a background check. The house was a 1941 house and when we looked inside. What- a- piece- of- J-U-N-K! We bought it because we could see potential. We fixed it all up and rented it out.
Shortly after that we learned the corner lot was for sell. There were people considering it. They could have build apartments there or 3 or 4 houses. We rather liked the empty space around us so we bought it too. Our house was the only house on that side of the short street!

Our backyard extended about a foot past our very large deck (but we had a fence on the side yard for the dog). And about a year later the people behind us facing the other road were selling their place and their extra plots of land. They knew we were interested in one of those plots but they were only selling in 2 plot increments, so we had to buy the other plot too. We got a Great Deal! Eventually, we fenced in the one plot we wanted and built a gate to the second one. Needless to say.. we bought a Rider-mower.

Our corner lot was Grassy with Trees. It reminded me of a Park. I always thought to put benches out there but never did. Across the street from the Corner lot was a Bike Path. We bought Trek Navigator Bikes and started using that trail. We even did it when our daughter came to visit. We would rent bikes for them. My Nephew lived with us for a while and he would Bike with us too. We would do 18 mile round trips into downtown. It was fun. There was a Dairy Queen halfway when we took one of the routes.

I hooked up with Bowling.. a lot of Bowling! At one point I was on 4 leagues! On one of my leagues there was an older woman on my team and I got to know her. She invited me to a Bible Study she had and then to Game Night she had at her house. The Game night consisted of about 9 couples from her Country Church. They all had been meeting for years! They would go out to dinner somewhere, then to one of their houses and play all kinds of games, then snack and leave about 11pm.

This elderly woman and her husband owned a Berry Farm.
They welcomed people over at anytime. I was there to help plant and prune trees. I was there at lunch time. I was there to use their landline for my part time job of Card Merchandiser (a job I loved). I was there for fellowship and I was there to play games with them. I was there to go Strawberry Picking with her. This woman who was old enough to be my Mom was my closest friend. 5 years later when I moved away, in a few of our phone calls she asked when I was *coming home. Awe..... I missed this woman and her husband the most when I moved away. Wonderful people. Both of whom have since been called to Heaven. They were in their 80’s.

Through this woman I met another couple who I became good friends with. They lived down the Freeway in another town. Once a week I visited with them spending the whole day. The woman was wheelchair bound and her husband had a terminal disease. We’d get together to do crafts, jigsaw puzzles, and have lunch. When my husband was out of town for his job, I would stay the night at their house. Sometimes they had Game Night at their house. They both have since been called home to Heaven. They were in their 60’s.

As much as I hated walking the Dog in the below freezing temps (before we got the fence put up) and just having snow packed streets for 4ish+ months and having 300 feet of sidewalk to blow the snow off of and the lack of Sun, my connects there were awesome. Friendships make or break where you live.

That 1st summer, as I was sitting on the deck reading and listening to smooth Jazz as my husband was barbecuing, I thought to myself, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
I could have lived there forever.