By Request... Places I've Lived

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to live in Virginia. Several times as a child we vacationed at the home of family friends in Southwest Virginia. I remember climbing out of the car and taking a deep breath of sweet, earthy air. That very specific aroma permanently implanted itself into my memory banks and launched a lifelong quest to make Virginia my home state.

The first 22 years of my life were spent in Mississippi. My first memories are from a house in South Jackson on Belvedere Dr. The thing I remember most about that house was that my room was just off the kitchen. It had a door on each end, one to the kitchen and one to the back hallway. I'm told that when I was a toddler I'd get loose and wander the house in the mornings before anyone else was up. My parents had to put hooks on the outside of the doors to lock me in until they woke up. I also remember that my father brought home a sassafras root. For whatever reason he left it on the back porch. I used to sit out there and sniff it because it smelled like really yummy root beer.

We moved to a second house in South Jackson on Spryfield Rd. when I was 5. I have many, many memories there. The houses on my street were backed up to houses on the street behind us. Between the 2 streets there was an entire community of kids my brothers and I hung out with. We had a building in our backyard. We used it as the neighborhood clubhouse. I have memories all over that house, the clubhouse, the yard and the neighborhood. I lived there until my sophomore year of college when I moved to Hattiesburg. My family owned that house for another 6 years or so, until well after even my parents moved out. My brothers lived there as roommates until the neighborhood got so bad they decided to get out.

Moving out of my parent's home began a span of 10 years of hopping around common to a person in thier 20s. When I moved to Hattiesburg, I lived in a dorm at the University of Southern Mississippi for my entire sophomore year. Dorm life was definitely not for me. My junior year began in my first apartment. I lived with 2 WEIRD cousins. That lasted only a semester. I then moved 2 blocks away to another apartment complex with a friend of mine from school. I lived in that apartment when school was in session until I graduated.

My summers during college are where my world opened up and ultimately paved the way to me ending up in Virginia just like I'd always dreamed. The summers after my freshman and sophomore years in college I was a camp counselor at a camp in South Virgina (The Master's Inn Christian Conference Center). Even all these years later I maintain that those two summers MADE my life. I had a blast. I lived in a teepee for 6 months of my life. There was no air conditioner. What it lacked in amenities it definitely made up in lifelong friendships and memories.

The summer after my junior year life changed again. I returned to Virginia. This time I lived with a family out in "the boonies". That summer was special too but for different reasons. That is a whole different post.

After I graduated from college I spent a summer working for another camp (Crosspoint) on a team that traveled all over the south central region of the US. That was fun but nowhere near as fun as the other camp. At the end of the summer I spent 2 weeks at my parent's house before deciding to move to Florida. I followed a boy to Jacksonville. It was a really bad idea. I didn't know that at the time. I spent a week or two at a friend's house, a month at a friend of a friend's house and then another couple of weeks in a garage apartment. By then the relationship was over and I moved in  with my aunt in Ormond Beach, FL. I lived with her for 6 months.

After 6 months with my aunt I found a cool roommate from church and we got an apartment in Daytona Beach together. We lived in that apartment for 2 years. After that her parents bought a townhouse in Daytona Beach and we moved there. I lived with her there for another 5 years before I became weary of the situation. At that point I decided to get a place of my own. Coincidentally, my mother was ready for a change herself. She had been in Wyoming for several years. She decided that she'd move to FL and we'd be roommates. I found us a townhouse in Port Orange. That actually worked out pretty good.

We lived in the Port Orange place for a little over 2 years. During that time I decided I'd buy my own house. I had waited around forever because I never felt settled. I didn't know if I'd stay in Florida. I didn't know if I'd find a guy, etc. The entire time I was in FL I had the same job working at a local hospital. I decided it was ridiculous to rent forever. That was just money down the drain. So.... I found a townhouse in Ormond Beach, about 2 miles from work, and bought it. It was the first residence I actually owned. The funny part about that is during the process of buying the place I met a guy. That guy lived in Virginia. I lived in my townhouse for only 6 months before I moved to Virginia to marry my husband. My poor mother had to go live with her sister because she couldn't afford to pay the mortgage. That worked out well though because I sold that house after being listed for about 4 hours and a made a pile of money on the deal because of the work I had put into the house. The was just before the housing market crashed. Go me!

Because I have very traditional beliefs regarding cohabitation and was unwilling to do so, my future husband and his buddy worked to finish the basement of said buddy's home. The basement was completed and I moved from FL to Harrisonburg,VA. I lived in the basement for only about 3 months before future Hubby Guy decided it was entirely too cold for me down there and he switched with me. I moved into his house and he moved into the basement until after we were married. We came back from our honeymoon and were finally all in one residence.

It turns out that the house we first lived in was the first residence he had ever owned too. We lived there until our family suddenly doubled. Almost three years ago we moved into the castle where we live now. It's the biggest, nicest place I've lived in my whole life.

Yay! There you have it... places I've lived.