41 posts tagged “qotd”

How many times did you move growing up? How did moving (or staying put) impact your childhood?

I've moved enough that I don't really have a "home town". 

I was born in DC and lived w/my parents in Kensington MD for about a year.  My dad worked as a surveyor for the Geological Survey (Dept of the Interior).

He was sent on an assignment to Sullivans Island, SC.  Then back to DC.

Another brief assignment in Bowling Green, OH.  Then back to DC.

Back to SC, this  time to Isle of Palms, SC.

I was getting close to starting kindergarten, so we went back to Silver Spring, MD for a couple of years.

My folks had the opportunity to buy their first home, so we moved to Sterling, VA in 1962. 

Stayed there for a few years and for reasons I don't know, we moved back to Maryland - Beltsville, MD.

In 1968, we relocated again, this time back to Sterling, VA.  First in a townhouse and then a rental house, and finally a home they bought. I lived in that house when I graduated from high school in 1974.

AS AN ADULT -

I got married in 1985 and we bought a house in Hamilton, VA.  

We got wanderlust in 1987 and moved to Phoenix, AZ.

After a job layoff, we moved briefly to Martinsburg, WV in 1989.

Leesburg, VA was our next stop, where we lived long enough to produce 2 babies. 

When the boys were 1 year old and 2 weeks old, it was either be laid-off again or move.

In February, 1991, we moved to Seattle, WA.  Actually, we lived in 3 houses, two in Kent, WA and the last one in Auburn WA.

Boeing was nice enough to lay my (ex) husband off and we decided to move back to the DC area.  I stayed in Charlottesville VA with my parents for 11 months.  The younger 2 children were with me and our oldest stayed w/his dad and Grandma in Martinsburg WV.

We finally moved to our own home in Frederick MD in 1995.  After our divorce, I moved with the kids to 2 different townhouses in Frederick.

In 2004, my future husband and I moved with the kids to a house in Brunswick MD.  We stayed there for 2 years when we decided we'd had enough of traffic, high prices, long commutes and grumpy people.

In August of 2006, we made a move to Mark's hometown of Manchester IOWA.  For the first time in my adult life, I feel like I've moved to a place that I can call home.  I can't imagine ever again living on the east coast and will probably spend my last days sitting on my porch, admiring another glorious Iowa sunset.

What are you doing to save money during this economic downslide?
Submitted by Jenn.

 

 

Now that's a funny question!  I don't think I could squeeze one more penny out of our already bare-bones budget.  Once the electric, phone, gas, water and Dish bills are paid, I hope there's enough to cover groceries for 2 weeks.  I can't, no matter how hard I try, get the weekly grocery bill below $125 (household items, food for 3 animals + 4 people).  If I'm lucky, I have enough at the end of the month to buy a pack of gum.

But that's the beauty of living so close to the edge....there isn't very far to fall.  That's so much better than making $100K a year, losing your job and then being forced to live like the rest of us poor slobs.

President-elect Barack Obama is being sworn into office today. Where are you watching the events of this historic day unfold? 

I started my day at 6:00 am CST when I tuned into "Morning Joe".  I turned on the Tivo at 9:00 am, settled down on my comfy couch and began watching all the festivities with my son and daughter.  It's now almost 6:00 pm and the TV is still on - watching the magnificent parade. It's been a very long day but one full of joy and inspiration.  I never thought I'd see and African American taking the oath of office, but it's happened and I'm very proud of us all. I'm also proud today to be an Iowan because we gave Obama his start, the momentum that propelled him to victory.

What's your favorite winter activity?

I hate Iowa winters.  I love living in Iowa from March to November.  December through February are brutal.  Today, for example - Blizzard Warning...an inch of snow an hour...50 mph wind gusts...-35 wind chill...nasty stuff.

My favorite winter activity is anything that takes my mind off how stinking lousy the weather is.  I get somewhere around 20 garden catalogs and they all start arriving in the mail in early January.  I look at the pictures and plan what new perennials I'll put in the garden beds.  I draw and re-draw the plans for the vegetable garden.  I ignore the weather outside and focus on warmer days.

There are only five shopping days left before Christmas... Who do you still need to buy presents for this year?

I'm finished.  It took me 2 days and very little money to take care of my family.  I'm so disgusted with the 'buy buy buy" of the season.  We never have nor will we ever go overboard.

When was the last time you drove out of town? Where'd you go and why?

Now that's a good question, but it depends on the definition of "out of town".  I mean, I live "out of town" if you consider that my little 'burg is 40 or so miles from a mall, bookstore, Starbucks or Home Depot.  When we want to do some real shopping, it's a day trip to Cedar Rapids or Dubuque.  Woo Hoo....Mama and Daddy go to the big city!

If "out of town" means a real road trip to some far away place, that would be our convoy from Maryland to Iowa when we moved the whole brood here.  Hubby driving the 27' U-Haul and me in a minivan with 2 cats, three kids and a rather large dog.  We underestimated the time it would take to make the trip with a fully loaded U-Haul truck.  What should have taken 14 hours (a simple overnight) took 23 hours.

My next trip out of town will be in  the summer when I meet my friend in Virginia and we take a wild road trip back to Iowa.  We're going to stop in the northern Indiana Amish area and do some serious flea market shopping.  This is a trip we started planning 30 years ago and just let life interfere with our plans. 

Where's your favorite place to have Sunday brunch?

My own kitchen.  Every Saturday morning I make a huge breakfast. We have either bacon or sausage (good Iowa pork), scrambled eggs w/lots of cheese, fruit (cantaloupe is our favorite), biscuits and grits.  If I'm feeling very energetic, I'll even make waffles.  Of course, I brew a pot of my best coffee and juice for the husband.  The only  thing I dislike about our Saturday feast is the clean up!

If you could choose your own name, what would it be?

Waterlily DuBois

How silly is that?  I read the question and that's what immediately popped into my head.  Maybe I need to go back into therapy!

Which one of your ancestors would you most like to talk to? 
Submitted by Kathy.

Off the top of my head, I think I'd like to spend some time talking to my great-great-great grandfather, Patrick, who left Ireland in 1850 and came to upper Ontario, on Lake Huron.  He left terrible poverty and famine in Ireland and came to a place that was untamed wilderness, part of a determined group of settlers.  I'd like to hear what it was like to leave, knowing he'd never see his family again, and travel for 3 weeks in a "coffin ship" across the Atlantic Ocean.

I'd also like to chat with my great-grandmother. She was the glue that held her family (husband, my grandmother and mother) together during very difficult times and left a lasting impression on all who knew her.  I was only 5 years old when she died but I have very vivid memories of sitting on her bed while she read story books to me. My mother still cries when she talks about the Christmas tree made of green construction paper, and how Gammy made her school clothes of out her old dresses.  She found a way to make do and make wonderful memories from hard times.

How far from your last home do you live? Why did you move and are you glad you did? 
Submitted by Matthew 25.

We moved about 1000 miles from Maryland to Iowa. We moved for as myriad of reason, primarily financial.  The cost of living in the DC area was squeezing us beyond what we could continue to afford.  We also moved to get away from the influx of urban ills and all the stresses associated with long commutes and a generally overcrowded area. 

Am I glad we moved?  I can't think of much to miss. Oh, my little town lacks the cultural life of an urban area and I sometimes long to see a mountain on the horizon, but that's about all.  This slow paced, rural lifestyle gives us more time to enjoy simple living.  The lack of malls and "big box" stores, plus the fact that local stores close at 5 pm and on Sundays, encourage us to think more about what we buy and how much driving we do.  The urban amenities are at least 40 miles away in any direction.

I feel sometimes like we've gone back in time.  That's not a bad thing.