This week, I am celebrating.
25 years ago, the day after Payne Stewart won the exciting US Open (beating another golfer I liked, Phil Michelson, and telling him how great it is to be a father), Reatlor, Dottie Wilson, called me.
I had been "house=hunting" in Mandarin for several months. I was still in a grief mode. Rich Suhey had suddenly died just over six months before. Soon after his death, maybe even the night he died, my children had said, "Mom, you need to move to Mandarin."
Some patios and townhomes were being built, and my sister, Cindy, had driven through the area. This would be a perfect place.
Except they were all "taken".
Dottie said, "The woman who was having one of the patio homes built no longer wants it."
My daughter, Becca, and I came to see it. In time, the rest of my family saw it, and by the end of July 1999, I had signed the papers!
I recently "floated" the idea that I might sell and move to a retirement community.
I walked through my house and looked at what I enjoy - and treasure - and cannot take with me.
In 2008, my son, Tray, had just started his contracting business and needed to give his employee some work. This is what I got.
I don't want to leave it - or my backyard, which slopes down toward a small stream. I love to mow it. I have a heritage room and a noisy neighbor, and I live less than five miles from my siblings and two of my children.
Between my birth and my 52nd birthday, I had lived in four states and many different houses. We moved a lot when I was growing up, but I never had to change schools or churches or make new friends. The four states, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Kentucky, were all good places to live, and I still have friends there.
When I was reflecting on that time, now a quarter of a century ago, I realized once more that I love where I live. And that reminded me of this. It was the first time I was paid ($50) for something I had written. It was published in the Florida Times-Union in November 1982.
I feel really good about the fact that what I said 42 years ago about the house that was a homeplace for the Nesmith/ Huffingham families for so many years - is true to what I feel today. In 1982, I felt that my life was in shambles, and I wrote that where I lived was offering a nest - a place of peace and security for me and my children. When I found this house, I found a place where I hoped to find peace and security. I believe that happened.
With a group of friends, I read a selection from Simple Abundance by Sara Ban Breathnach each day. The goal is to reflect and respond. The book invites the reader to learn to relax and appreciate the simple things of life. Each month has a central theme with words of encouragement for each date of that month. The focus in June is on the home. There are suggestions of things to change, add, or sometimes remove. It's been a thought-provoking experience.
In the book of II Samuel, when the shepherd/king David was settling into a palace, he prayed that God would bless his house.
That has been my prayer as well, and I believe that God has done just that!
May you have enough sunshine in your life, to make you appreciate the shadows
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