If you've been reading awhile, you'll know that I've had non-stop company since May 7th. Among our other company, our daughter, Amy, her husband, and our 10 month old grandson have been staying with us for a few weeks while they complete their move back from Illinois. Let me tell you, I've been loving my time with Amy and baby. My industrious son-in-law found work the first week back, and has been working long hours to get everything ready for their new home. So, I've not been writing much.
My solution for my lack of inspiration is to use a random number generator to choose a year between 1969, when I have my first memories, and 2024. I've written about 1973, 1978, and 2004 so far. In 1998, the world was coming up on Y2K, aka the year 2000.
My husband, Lowell, my first grade son Matthew, and my one year old daughter, Emily, were living in Carthage. My husband was working for the Names and Numbers telephone directory and traveling a lot. He worked long hours selling, then he came home to hours of paperwork. Homeschooling focused on lots of reading, hands on learning, teaching my son to read, basic math, and exposure to lots of experiences. Lowell worked in Branson all fall and would come home on weekends. He bought us Silver Dollar City passes, so sometimes the kids and I would go down and stay a few days and go to Silver Dollar City. That was nice, but we missed being with him.
Somewhere along the way, we started receiving a little magazine called Coming Home*. It was a simple black and white magazine that was printed cheaply, but it had some wonderful, conservative articles that encouraged working from home if possible, preparing for whatever happened when we crossed over into 2000, gardening, homemaking, and homeschooling. The ideas in that little magazine took hold. Soon, we were dreaming of our own little country home complete with gardens and animals. Thus, we were ushered into the idea of that "cow chicken thang". We took our kids along as we looked at places that had a bit of land. It would be years before we were successful in finding the right place at the right price. We eventually would have chickens. Ironically, we didn't have them until we moved into town again!
Two hard things happened in 1998. My Grandpa Frank died that summer. It was so very hard even as an adult. In September, my mom told me that her breast cancer from nearly ten years earlier had metastasized into bone cancer. Believe me, that was the most devastating thing that had ever happened. She had not had proper follow-up care after her mastectomy. It was a heartbreaking development.
But God, had something in mind. He took what the enemy meant for evil and turned it for good. Ah, but that's a story for another year!
~smile~
So tell me, what do YOU remember about 1998? I was up to my eyeballs in diapers and reading lessons, so I don't remember what else was going on in the world other than the Y2K worries.
Don't be shy! Talk to me! Let's make this fun!
Blessings from Harvest Lane Cottage,
Laura
*This is not the same Coming Home magazine currently online.
