by Sharon O | Mar 22, 2016 | Uncategorized
Learning to be a parent was a job like no other.
You cannot read a book and be prepared for it, unlike drivers ed you cannot take a class, practice and pass.
We learned by trial and error as we moved through the days and nights of hard and exhausting work.
Not that children are difficult, but it just takes a lot of energy to do the job of parenting well.
I had very low energy when they were little and a small amount of experience from a few babysitting jobs.
We learned to navigate through the baby stages, then to kindergarten and grade school, and then big school.
I did daycare to help with our budget, so I could stay at home with our children.
Sometimes they even liked and played together which made my job easier.
I didn’t go to a work setting till Sarah was about 1st grade, which would have made Christopher around 4th grade.
There were a few jobs I tried, but I found I didn’t like leaving them.
Oh I also tried to sell Tupperware, or Avon but decided I am not a sales person.
The first clue was when I hung the Avon bag on the door and ran after ringing the door bell, hoping no one would call wanting me to go back.
Whenever I thought of leaving and going to work I couldn’t get a right peace in my spirit.
For years I stayed home and did other things to help our budget.
Eventually I found a job that worked with Larry’s schedule. He worked an 8-5 job and I worked a 6-2:30 job.
He got the children up and moving in the morning and I was home in the afternoon.
When they had days off from school, Larry left for work as they slept, then he was home for an hour lunch, and I was home at 2:45.
Leaving them very little time for trouble. That worked for a long time for us.
We were living in our home that we built and schedules were finally working really well.
They walked home together when they could, we felt with Christopher being 3 years older he could be the responsible one.
They grew and life continued and they were busy with activities like cheerleading and jazz band.
High School brought many new experiences for all of us.
As parents we had to learn to challenge them and direct them and lead them into making good decisions.
We also had to allow them to fall and make mistakes and learn from those ‘wrong choices.’
After graduating from high school Christopher went to college, and Sarah moved in with some girl friends.
The changes a family goes through in 12 years as a child grows up is amazing.
Yes there are challenges, and yes some were harder than others. But we walked it together.
Through those good and not so good times, we made it.
We found ourselves one more time, just the two of us, in our cozy little home, then I wanted to move again.
So we sold the home we built and bought a two story, and over 20 years later we still live here.
We both see the need to move again, one more time back into a single level style home.
As we have aged it is important to get back into the more simple life with no stairs.
Family life brought us many changes and challenges and blessings beyond our comprehension.
We are proud of our ‘now grown’ children.
Both are parents with their own changes and challenges that children create.
The circle of life continues as we move through the process of being a family.
It is my hope in sharing all of this that the theme remained, we made it.
We walked it together as our vows had said on our wedding day.
Through good and bad, we will do it together.
Till we are old and our stories are just memories, we face the challenges with each other.
God has been with us and will continue to give us strength and courage to face the future.
What ever that will be.
by Sharon O | Mar 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
We continued to grow as a family, of four. God blessed us with Christopher then Sarah our daughter.
We moved to an apartment when Sarah was tiny, she learned to crawl and try to walk there.
It was in this house we also inherited a dog named Noah and a black cat. We found Noah at a pet store, where we walked by one day. The ad said, ‘cockapoo puppies’ and I thought that would be a wonderful ‘play dog’ for our children.
To this day we have a little laugh about our ‘choice of’ puppy, he was definitely not what the store had said they were selling to us. We learned we should never trust a pet store.
There was NO poodle or cocker in him. We think he was a mix of shepherd, corgi or beagle.
He was a wonderful dog for us for many years, giving us many memories for our children. He left our ‘home at age 15 or so’, the beginning of our many good-byes.
Our cat arrived on our back porch patio. One day we found a litter of kitties as we looked out the door and I don’t remember how many or the fine details of the story but we ended up keeping a runty size black one. Then we found homes for the others.
We named him Spook. Here is a very old picture of him.
He was a mighty hunter and when we moved into our first home of our own, you would often find him outside guarding the home.
We called him our guard cat as he would chase dogs and other ‘unwelcome’ pets off our property. One day he even brought home a pheasant.
He looked like he won but there was a great fight in the process. Poor guy he had the battle scars to prove it to us.
Oh it was a fun little life, of children, and a dog and a cat and wood stove too.
In this house, our first home God protected us two times from a house fire. The first was in our garage and the second was in our kitchen.
This is also the house where every Saturday night we would faithfully play, the Old Southern Gospel radio station on KPDQ and the children would go to sleep listening to the old ‘down home music’ as they drifted off to sleep. There were many memories of good and some bad but that is the way it is when we live life together.
The story continues and moves on, into more learning as parents and living as a family.
by Sharon O | Mar 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Our wedding cake was made by Larry’s mom. She did a wonderful job of decorating and setting it up.
Hard for me to imagine how she did that, now that I know the pressure of making a cake and also being the groom’s mom.
She did an amazing job and had the colors all matching and the flowers it was a simple white cake with white frosting, I remember she used to shop at the wilton cake store.
Then we had the normal ‘dishes of mints and nuts’, coffee and tea, served on church glass dishware.
After the receiving line, which I hated, (never know what to say to some people) we changed our clothes and left.
Larry was totally shocked when he saw our car covered in crepe paper. Especially black because it was raining and it ran and smeared all over our yellow vintage baracuda car.
We headed to our first night as a married couple off the river at Jantzen beach in Portland, then moved from there to a few nights at the beach.
After that we came back to my mom’s house for a ‘unwrapping of the gifts’ party.
Yes Larry did have plaid pants on and yes there were a lot of gifts to open and unwrap.
After that we moved it all to our first apartment which was a basement apartment under a very large stately home. Our new little place was a one bedroom with a small kitchen, and small living room. I think we shared the laundry facility. I don’t really remember I just know it was small and furnished very moderately. We lived there about six months then they asked us to move when we were expecting our first baby.
Our second home was a tiny little home behind a home. We basically were in their back yard.
Now time, they would call it a tiny house.
It was about 680 square feet and it was cozy and very pink. I actually loved the vintage look which included a porcelain claw foot bath tub.
The living room was small. The kitchen was cozy, our room was almost big enough for a dresser and full size bed, you had to go through the bedroom to get to the old fashioned bathroom. The babies room was two crib lengths long and one crib length wide. Christopher loved his room till he was about three, then baby number two came, we put the cradle on top of our dresser, it had a flat bottom and it fit just right on top so I didn’t have to bend too far. We had a son and a daughter and then they asked us to move. They felt the house was too small for a family of four. It was cheap about $80.00 a month and very cozy.
Both of our babies were born there and it had ‘good memories for us’.
After we left they tore this little house down.
It was a sad thing to hear, and I would have loved to have kept that porcelain bathtub.
Our new life was beginning as a family and the story continues.
by Sharon O | Mar 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
The invitations were hand made by a friend of mine. She as a very gifted artist and I wanted her help.
We were in art together then in graphic art class so we spent a lot of time ‘together’.
I told her what I wanted, a couple, simple picture and a cross. This is what she drew.
Then I wanted to make the thank you notes simple and very much like the invitations, so we made these.
Then the scroll that was handed out as people came into the service was hand made. It was a song by the Carpenters. Karen and her brother.
A good friend of ours sang the song at the end of the service. It was a ‘saying of good-bye and a thank-you’ at the same time. I would share the song for you at the end of this series if I can find it.
Our service was beautiful, very surreal and very interesting.
I am not sure if I was walking down the aisle in great anticipation, can you really know what is going on at age 18?
It was more like, “I am not sure about this, I am kind of scared, I am in love but do I know what that means?”
Which are very fair questions when one is young and not sure.
I had my sisters and he had his brothers, it was a family time. The service was traditional and nice and a new time for us to begin as a family too. My mother wanted me to have a bible covered in flowers, so we could have a picture of it. I have never taken it apart. After 42 years it is still in my hope chest together. The bible and the flowers all wrapped together in a protective bag.
Our wedding was beautiful I always loved the cross above us, I saw it a symbol of protection and covering and peace that would carry us through the years to come.
My sisters and my best friend Joyce were with me, and I felt like all was going to be fine in this new life we were forming together.
I haven’t been able to find Joyce, have no idea where she is now. Would love to connect with her. We were very good friends back then in the 1970’s.
I don’t even know where to look for her, or what her name is at this point in time.
Ward gave us a big hug and talked to Larry after the service. It was so sweet and I still remember his big arms circling around me.
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So young and so not ready to start a life of as a young married couple. God was with us.
by Sharon O | Mar 17, 2016 | Uncategorized
As I continue on the story of US…my husband and I in our ‘beginning years’.
We dated the rest of my senior year of high school and since I was in art and also in a graphic arts class I made our wedding invitations by hand.
I printed them off and also at the same time received a triple A because of the class project and because I was in the class three hours.
The financial burden of the ‘wedding’ was on me and I did work part time at a Christian Yellow page business.
I worked on a typesetting machine and a printing press.
It was a long three hours as I had to transfer onto several city buses to finally get to the work site.
Kind of silly now when I think of it as a young teen, working only a two hour shift then heading back to the bus to go home.
I am sure my ‘wage was low’ and I can’t imagine why I actually did all that for a small amount of money.
The grooms family provided rehearsal dinner. Our rehearsal was very simple and the meal was even more simple. I think it was sandwiches and finger food and maybe a vegetable platter.
I would graduate in June from high school and we would be married by early November. I was age 18.
Ward our youth pastor at the time, gave us some counseling and then he said we were ready.
Are you ever ready to start a new life, leave your old and begin again?
I was ready to leave as my mother had gotten married and it was time.
As the days moved closer my grandmother made my dress.
It was a hand made, hand sewn beautiful dress by her.
Custom designed as the McCall patterns did not have dresses for 85 pound brides.
Grandma had to redesign it to fit me.
Since she was a designer at Jantzen she knew what to do and how to do it.
I always hated that paper she used for measuring with scratchy pins… holding the pattern pieces securely.
She was a wonderful seamstress it was just a challenge to get it to fit me. The bridesmaids wore the same pattern only in different colors.
Our wedding was not really ‘ours’ since my mom did most of the planning.
Most of the time she had a ‘I am in charge attitude’ and I didn’t have enough voice back then to fight it.
I am sure it was fulfilling a dream of hers in one way or the other.
I did have some opinions but very few.
I wanted my grandpa to walk me down the aisle, I felt like he would have loved to play in that role, but she said no. I couldn’t ask him.
It made me sad but again I didn’t fight it.
I didn’t have my dad he never saw me as a young bride. In fact he never saw me on many special events, but that is for another blog post.
It was a ’empty’ place in my heart, not a healing one for sure.
She had me walk down the aisle with her husband who was not my dad and not my choice.
I didn’t feel safe with him, so it created a ‘dissonance for me,’ on our wedding day.
I am not sharing this to be mean or critical, I am just telling my story as it was at the time.
I did know my best friend and two sisters would be in the wedding. He had a few brothers too who would be in it.
(They had five boys in his family so the older ones were a part of our wedding party)
It was always a bit surreal to me. As the story continues.
We were young and heading into a ‘marriage that was new’ to both of us as we began a lifetime together.
When I saw Ward our old Youth Pastor, a few weeks ago, I began to walk down memory lane in my head and in my heart.
Stay with me if you are interested, as we continue to journey through the story.
