Take Me Home, Country Roads

Sunset starts early in my West Virginia hills. At 3pm today, I already needed my lights on driving through the valleys along Route 250.

I haven't spent as much time among other hills and mountain ranges, but I always notice the particular way the rising and setting sun hits just one side of the trees along the hillsides. It almost looks like one side of the tree trunks and branches is a different brighter color than the other side. Am I the only one who notices this?

I've easily spent about half of my life living on flatter ground. I've lived in places where the sun doesn't slowly rise and fade behind high, majestic hills. Early on, it seemed so strange to be able to see so far. The sky wasn't so big where I grew up.

My relationship with West Virginia is a strange one. I grew up always knowing I'd leave. But I'm fiercely proud of growing up there, and loyal to my home state.

Today, I loved pointing out landmarks to my daughter. From my high school, to her old school (we moved back for a few years), to where an old boyfriend lived... And then it made me sad when she pointed out several houses and buildings literally just falling down from neglect.

I grew up well off in West Virginia. Even when my dad was out of work, we had strong family support. And my dad got out there, worked for less while he had to, and then worked his way up at a better job. My mom went back and finished her degree. I like to think I inherited and learned my strong work ethic from them.

West Virginia has always had to fight to stay alive, it seems, but I still see signs of her dying when I look around. In Research Triangle Park, NC, fully half of those I worked with were West Virginia natives. For decades, well educated West Virginians have fled the state. Sure, there are exceptions. NASA and other high tech jobs in North Central WV, the Eastern panhandle being within DC commuting distance, and a lot more I'm sure I don't know about since living away. But my husband couldn't make a decent living there as a mechanical engineer, nor could I in market research, other than working remotely for a Michigan-based company.

The state population today (always less than 2 million total) is still less than it was when I was growing up, and my home county in particular has probably lost more than its fair share - where once several coal mines dotted the landscape, none are left operating in Marion County, WV.

My hometown was a boomtown in the very early 1900s, but it is sad to me that it may never see anything like that again. The interstates may have helped to save WV, but mostly folks use those roads to travel across it when they must. Maybe you've been skiing or white water rafting in West Virginia? Well, at least then you may remember that it's a state.

I still constantly hear stories of those who don't recall or perhaps never learned that West Virginia has been a separate state from Virginia since 1863. I've personally run into that ignorance several times.

My challenge to you is this: if you've never really visited West Virginia, you should; and if you've never really been away from West Virginia, you should do more traveling. This world and this country have many wonders to see. There just might be more than its fair share in West Virginia.

As for me, I may travel far from its borders. I may live longer in other states. I may have married a Jersey boy. My kids may grow up in suburbia. But country roads will always take me home.

Thankful Posts

I've tried, perhaps not very successfully, to do somewhat more quirky thankful posts on Facebook this year.  I know folks get sick of seeing all those thankful posts each November, but it's a tradition I still kind of like.  If I were more ambitious, I'd make one of those cute thankful jars or other great Thanksgiving crafts you can find all over Pinterest.  But my problem with Pinterest is that it gives me way too many wonderful ideas that I'll never be able to get to.

So, back to the thankful posts.  I started writing out today's, but it got too long, so you get a blog about it instead.  Lucky you!

Today, I'm thankful for my house's intercom system.  It's not something I would have shopped for in a house (not even this, our 7th one!).  I remember noticing it in the online pictures when we were house-hunting from Lexington though.  I remember my teenage daughter immediately asking if she could plug her iPhone into it to play her music throughout the house.  But the house was built in 2008 as a model home, so that was doubtful.

We don't use the intercoms much to talk to folks at the door or to talk to each other from different rooms from the house (although of course that's possible).  But, it reminds me of my childhood.  Despite them not being as much like this today, I suspect I got my love of tech and gadgets from my parents, because our house had some very cool features for the late 70s/early 80s, and the one that was the most novel and fun (because let's just admit that an 8 or 10-year-old could care less about a whole-house built-in vacuum) was the intercom system.  We had built-in walkie-talkies, for heaven's sake!  Find me a kid that doesn't think this is cool, I double-dog dare you!  We could play the radio in almost every room in the house.

I guess the novelty wore off after a while, but that intercom system was certainly showed off to every visitor that I remember growing up.  At some point, it stopped working, and those poor intercoms just started collecting dust, but I find it very cool that our house now has something so reminiscent of a very techie part of my childhood.

Come to think of it, we also stayed pretty up-to-date with the gaming systems of the day, including having a Pong system.  We were a pretty high tech family!

The main unit of my 2008-vintage intercom system came with a built-in 6-disc CD changer.  Ah, 2008, not so long ago, but just before everybody actually played all their music from smartphones.  Sorry, kids, no smartphone/mp3 player input for you.

Ah, but, that 6-disc CD changer was broken, and we just happen to have a good builder standing behind our house and repairing things (thank goodness due to some bigger issues we quickly ran into).  After several months of searching for a replacement CD changer and even trying the one used one they were able to track down that still didn't work, I got a call asking if we'd mind having a single CD player with an auxiliary input for things like mp3 players.  After careful thought and consideration (not), I jumped at that.  It cost our poor builder another $800, but we now have exactly what we thought would be so cool when we saw that picture of our house online.

Sometimes things just work out, and I can see that happening with ever step of our most recent move, down to the intercom system in our house.  I'm not sure why we've been this fortunate, but I am definitely thankful.  Now, excuse me while I get back to work and blast some Bryan Adams through those intercom speakers ; )

Main intercom unit similar to the one I had growing up

Our main intercom unit in my house today

 

A Poem for My Girl

I push you because

I am good, but you are better

I cheer for you because

I am amazed at what you can already do

I say you’re beautiful because

You are, inside and out

I say I’m proud of you because

I am, and didn’t hear it often myself

I criticize you because

I know when you can do better

I praise you because

I know when you’ve given your all

I hug you because

A hug gives strength

I encourage you because

We all need it

I say “Try harder” because

I know you can

I tell you to be honest because

We all should be

I love you because

You are my only daughter

I am proud because

You are turning into an amazing woman

I am sad because

You are almost grown

And, to close, can anyone possibly believe that this girl has no idea she's beautiful?

 

Why I embrace suburbia - Part 2

Have you guessed it by now?  How this girl growing up on three acres of hillside became the mom living behind sidewalks and bike paths, with neighborhood associations and fees?

I'll bet you wouldn't be too surprised if I said it was all due to my kids.

It didn't start out that way.  Our first house was the house in a new town that we could afford.  It was actually downtown rather than suburban, but it was a small downtown in a little place called Plymouth, MI, just far enough from the big city of Detroit.

We wondered then why the realtors were talking so much about the great schools.  What did we care at the time?  We were a good five years from having our first child then, and still amazed that a mortgage company was actually letting us buy a house just based on the promise of a job for Darrell. Yes, folks, I can trace the housing bubble/mortgage crisis back to 1993, when a signed letter from Ford was enough to get two 22-year-olds into a house.

So, here it is, the reasons I've come to love suburbia:

• Great schools. Do you hear about the generally really good schools in the cities or out in the country?  No, they're typically in the 'burbs, where taxes per square foot are high, but give us our money's worth in terms of a great education for our kids.  I've found this to be true in at least five states.
•  A ready-made supply of friends (for the kids).  I grew up with exactly three neighborhood friends. And I was lucky - there was no one near the age of my little sister.  My kids have always been able to walk down the street to find a friend near their age.  That doesn't mean I won't drive them across town to meet up with a good friend, but it's nice that I don't always have to.  
• A ready-made supply of friends (for me).  Thank goodness.  See my post about girlfriends to understand how important this has become to me, a slightly reformed so shy I was afraid of my own shadow kind of girl.  Oh, and being able to car pool now and then can save a mom's sanity as well.
• Amenities like a neighborhood pool and such.  I wouldn't have a pool in my own back yard, but I love having one just down the street.
• Biking/walking paths.  I've only recently discovered what I've been missing out on.  I lived in a great neighborhood for running in Lexington.  I live in one twice as good now due to abundant trails.
• A wide choice of homes.  Try finding your dream house on a few country acres without having it custom built.  Good luck with that.  Try finding your dream house in several neighborhoods with hundreds of houses each.  Can you guess where you'll find it first?
• Location.  Location.  Location.  At least that's what the realtors say.  It's never taken us more than two months to sell a house, in just about every economy imaginable.  We've done it six times, probably more than hundreds of newer realtors.  That happens by carefully choosing a home in a neighborhood with good resale value.  Well, that and you have to take care of your home (but that could be an entirely separate blog post).

So, yeah, I guess I've learned how to live closer to my neighbors.  And I've learned to love it.  At the same time, I suspect that once the kids are out of school and we finally settle down (ha!), it may be on a little more property somewhere. We'll see.  After all, I've still never lived outside of the Eastern time zone.  Maybe another adventure is yet to come...

Why I embrace suburbia - Part 1

I saw a friend's post on Facebook about wanting to live in a farmhouse with no neighbors and just peace and quiet, and I realized how much that isn't what I want, at least at this stage of my life.

I grew up in the hills of West Virginia.  That will forever be a part of me, and to this day, 20 years after moving away, my pulse quickens and I breathe more deeply whenever I cross the state line and go back to where I'm from.  If you haven't seen West Virginia in the fall, with the glorious colors of changing leaves all around, you've missed out on one of God's glories that you owe it to yourself to experience. 

 I couldn't find fall pictures, but you get the idea, right?

I didn't grow up on a farm, but I did grow up on a three-acre hillside.  Up on that hill, I had a special rock in a clearing where I'd go to sit when I wanted to get away from everyone, including my family.  It wasn't far from my house, but it felt far, because when sitting down on that rock, I couldn't see our house, or any other house on the hill.  When the snow came, I could sled down that huge hill, better sled riding than any I've experienced in other states, right in my back yard.

When I ran cross country, it was real cross country, running up and down steep hillsides and through creeks.  My own hill was so steep, that to run to the top, up to the radio tower above our property, seemed so far away that I could barely make it up there at a jog, even in the best of shape.  I'm sure it was less than a mile away.

I went hunting on that hill with my father several times, although I didn't ever even really try to kill anything.  I was a pretty good shot though, the best scoring girl (third place ribbon to prove it) in a gun safety course I took as a preteen.  And my father had the boys who called my home asking for me as a teenager believing that I hunted and trapped often, or at least he tried.

I wouldn't change a thing about the way I was raised and where I grew up, and yet, I had a wanderlust all along, knowing as far back as I can remember that I'd go other places and see other things.  I always wonder about people who live in exactly the same town their entire lives.  Don't they know that they are missing out on so much?  And they probably wonder about me as well.  Don't I know what I'm missing out on, not living near my life-long friends and family, not experiencing everything my hometown had to offer?

In the first home Darrell and I bought together, I felt claustrophobic.  It was so weird to step into our fenced in back yard and see neighbors on both sides so close that I could reach out and touch them if I went up to the fence.  It was weirder still to have the neighbor girl tell us what we watched on TV the evening before.  How did she see through the curtains?  And why was she looking into our window in the first place?

So, why have I lived in true suburban neighborhoods ever since?  Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out!

Growing up too quickly

In the beginning, it's all about making it to the next milestone.  That first smile, rolling over, sleeping through the night, crawling, saying their first word, walking...  And for a long time after that, it feels like you are just looking forward and making plans for them.  It's a whirlwind of viruses and playdates and preschool... and, life. 

At some point, your attention has to be more evenly spread between an outside job, more attention to that husband that you hardly remember seeing that first year or so other than to pass off the baby for a break, and eventually, maybe even a new baby.  You might not be able to imagine how your love can be spread between two (or more) children, but seemingly miraculously, your capacity to love increases proportionally.  Because what you really didn't understand, is that you'd love them just as much, even if in sometimes differing ways.

They get more active, signing up for pee-wee cheerleading, Brownie Girl Scouts, soccer, gymnastics, academic team, piano lessons, band, basketball (and that's just a partial list of my daughter's many activities over the elementary school years alone).

I'm not sure exactly when it happens, but somewhere along the way you stop looking forward quite so much, and start looking back, wishing for your child, maybe especially your firstborn, to be young again.  Since that can't happen, you at least want time to slow way down. 

You finally regret starting her in Kindergarten early, because that is now one less year that she could have lived at home.  By the time you debate coming up with any possible excuse to hold her back a year, it's too late.  When she talks about the fact that she could possibly even graduate early, at least you can put your foot down about that, but it's small consolation knowing that she will be going off to college at only 17 years old.

And she's always been the independent one.  Your son may beg to live at home during college.  But your daughter, your firstborn, has been ready to move out on her own (at least she thinks so) since about age 4.  You suspect that she talks of college in California just because it's the furthest continental state away from home.

Ah, my daughter, my beautiful, headstrong, independent, strong young woman.  There are so many things I want you to know before you venture out on your own.  Two and a half years doesn't seem long enough to make you realize everything I want you to know.

Forgive me when I look at you, and still see this little girl instead of the nearly grown woman you're so quickly becoming:

You are beautiful.  You are loved unconditionally, not just by me, your father, and yes, even your brother, but most importantly, you are loved by God.  You can do (almost) anything.  I push you hard sometimes because I know that you can go further than your father and I ever did, or could.  I expect a lot from you, probably more than is expected from most of your friends.  But I believe children live up to expectations.  I went to college because I was expected to.  I made good grades because it was expected of me.  I expect all that of you, and so much more.

You are the child I learned on.  I don't know if that means I'm a better mother to your little brother, of if knowing that I've made mistakes is a good thing.  I know I could have done better raising you, but I could have done much worse as well.  Hearing positive comments about you from your teachers, peers, and parents of your friends...  Just looking at you, I know that you will go far.

You are strong.  You are sometimes fearless.  You are honest.  You are amazing.  You are my daughter, and by that I've been blessed beyond measure.

The Importance of Girlfriends

This, my friends, is something I used to not appreciate nearly enough.  I had exactly two best friends all through high school.  Before Facebook, they were the only ones from my high school I kept in contact with.

Then, and sometimes even now, I found it much easier to strike up a conversation with boys than girls.  I can't really explain why, but it does explain that even though I was generally painfully shy, I did manage to have high school boyfriends.

After college, Darrell and I made a group of couples friends.  We were fresh out of college starting our new careers, all but one couple without kids yet.  There were a few singles we socialized with also, but mostly it was that core group of couples friends, one set from college and the others either transplants like us or locals to the Detroit Metro area.  We played board games on Friday nights, went out to dinner together.  They were the ones who would visit or even drive Darrell home sick from work when he was fighting Hodgkin's lymphoma.  They even helped us move away when the time came.  I would sometimes do things separately with the ladies, but it wasn't quite a cohesive group of ladies friends.

My first real dip into a group of adult girlfriends came by joining a playgroup with my daughter the few years I stayed home with her.  Those ladies saved my sanity!  Talking to them about what we were all going through as generally first-time mommies was the best therapy imaginable, and quite reasonably priced as well.  Their children became my daughter's first friends, but I am the one who remembers them and knows that they had a leading role in making that first year enjoyable, and perhaps even saving my marriage, probably without even realizing it.  I haven't kept in touch as well as I should, but they still mean the world to me.

The next time something similar happened, it took seven years to build in Lexington.  For the first time in my life, I became a real part of a network of friends, mostly girlfriends.  We carpooled our kids to activities, filled in at bus stop pickups, cheered each other on in going back to work/changing jobs, talked about our husbands, had book clubs and game nights, let my daughter watch their young sons, watched our kids (generally boys somehow) grow up together and play soccer/basketball/join cub scouts/etc. together, had Bible study together, hosted/attended various family gatherings, trick-or-treated together, had girls-nights-out together, even went on a cruise together.  I could go shopping at Target or Kroger and maybe even run into one of them there.

And for the first time in my life, I felt like I perhaps could not live without my friends.  Before, I'd always thought it might be Darrell and I against the world, with the help of our families.  Now I realized that we could call in reinforcements from so many more.  I cared about these ladies.  They cared about me.

Which might explain why I'm so darn excited that several of them are coming to visit me this weekend!  I've been so happy I've nearly been skipping around my house, definitely not typical Jennifer behavior.  I'm more excited to go to the grocery store for them than I have been in...  (well, perhaps ever?)

Those two friends from high school?  Yes, I still love them, too!  One of them is coming this weekend, too.  Lifelong friends that you can pick up the phone and catch up with anytime are priceless, and I won't give them up for anything, probably more so now that I realize more about the true value of friendship.

I'll always remember the little girl who wandered the grade school playground with no one to play with, who was too shy to ask to join others already playing.  I'm glad she's been blessed with more friends than she ever imagined as an adult.  Thank you, girlfriends, you are each amazing!