Time for another year in my Randomness series. This time it's 2004. I expect most of you ladies were alive in 2004, though many will remember it better than others. Believe me, when I wrote about 1973 recently, I was amazed to realize that it was 51 years ago! How did that happen?
Let's see now, what was I doing in 2004. One would think that would be easy to remember since it's so recent, but, well I've done a lot of sleeping since then. ~smile~
In 2004, my high school sweetheart, Lowell, and I celebrated 18 years of marriage. We had four children ranging from 13 down to 3. Most of my time was spent with them. We lived in Pittsburg, Kansas. We moved there from the farm early in the year. We downsized our home and bills dramatically. Lowell missed his tractor, but he didn't need it on our corner town lot. That's when we went from having Harvest Lane Farm to Harvest Lane Cottage.
We were in the thick of homeschooling at the time. We read a lot, and Sonlight Curricula was my favorite, because it was literature based. I believe if kids learn to love reading, there's no end to what they can learn. I truly loved teaching my kids at home. I believe it was an excellent start for them to branch off into the things in which they were most interested. We also built strong, positive relationships between the kids.
Shortly after we moved to town, my husband started a mobile automotive reconditioning service. He spent long hours driving truck and trailer all around the four states area going to car dealerships and RV dealerships detailing, doing paint touch ups, leather and vinyl repair, and a plethora of other services. It was hot, tiring, and physically demanding work. He was faithful to do it for our family. Ultimately, it wasn't the business for him, and he closed it some time later. It was a course in the college of hard knocks. He learned so much about business during that time. It's helped him greatly in his current career of small business consultant. He's been able to help lots of people to make their businesses run more efficiently and to be more profitable.
Some of my favorite hits on the radio were Third Day's Nothing Compares, Mercy Me's I Can Only Imagine, and Chris Tomlin's How Great is Our God. I was listening exclusively to Christian radio at the time.
That was also the year that my friend, Sherry, brought me some fabric, a doll dress pattern, and some apron fabric before Christmas. It was a very frugal Christmas since Lowell was getting the new business off the ground. I made doll dresses and aprons and all kinds of things to make the Christmas season special for the kids. The emphasis, though, was always on Jesus.
I received many comments last time about 1973. I enjoyed writing back and forth. I want to hear from you. Let's be blog friends!
So, tell me, what do you remember about 2004?
Blessings from Harvest Lane Cottage,
Laura
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Wow, 20 years ago. So much has happened in the past 20 years. I know my life has changed drastically in that time.
ReplyDeleteI'm still amazed that we're 1/4 of the way through the 21st century!
DeleteMy youngest son, was born in 2004.
ReplyDelete~smile~
DeleteWe had been in Spokane, Washington for 11 years in 2004. Our kids were 24, 21 and 16. The oldest was a nurse, living in Portland, OR. Our middle was married and a computer systems manager living in Helena, MT. Both had their Bachelor's degrees. Our youngest was starting his Master Degree program and teaching Engish 101 at Washington University. When he was 19 he moved to Japan permanently where he began his own business after working at Keio University for several years. Now he's married and lives in London with his beautiful wife and little girl.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Betsy
I was working as a bookkeeper and Hubby was Operations Mgr for a company there. We had just built a house in 2002 and moved in. Not a big house, but it was supposed to be our retirement home. We had no way of knowing that we would be moving back to Nebraska in 2021 to care for my dear Mother-in-love. Life was good and we were all very happy. We missed our kids but our firstborn was just a 6 hour drive away and our middle child was about 4 hours away. We, and they, made the drives often so we could see each other.
It's good to know more about you and your family too.
Yes, the school of hard knocks is a very good teacher for most. : ) Oh yes it is. I think we could all tell stories on that right? I listened to the same kind of music as well mixed in with some Glenn Miller big band and perhaps beautiful music such as the theme to 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Elmer Bernstein.
ReplyDeleteWhat we were doing? We have four daughters, our oldest was around 22 and our youngest was around 11. We lived in the burbs on a nice street with trees, had lived in the country before that and now we are back in the country, (thank the Lord!) we had been homeschooling since '90 and were probably getting ready that summer to do our family workshop at the homeschool conference entitled "Vision for a Godly Home". I would be so nervous! Once my slip fell down to my ankles right before we were to go up on stage! I be like ...But Lord! I stutter! lol (like Moses!)
Our home was alive with activity in 2004, our second born daughter would do homemaking and Bible study classes for girls called Vessels of Honor, VOH that she led in our home. We did a Christmas party for other youth with hayrides at Christmas time, one of the young men would bring his guitar and the kids sang Christmas carols on the hayride through the neighborhood...I could no way do all of that without the girls, they did most of the work, but it was a nice, fun time and of course hubs had something to do with that hayride too as well as other things. : )
As you write, we too have had to watch our pennies, hubs is a real estate broker, we own our own company so that means commission only and paying bills too, oh yes, frugal was a very known thing to us in 2004. We were still making short term sacrifices for longterm goals but life was good, we loved to sew and cook and bake. Formal dresses were bought at Ross Name brands for less for around 10 to 20 dollars, sometimes we would splurge at Penneys clearance racks for formals after the month of May. ...That was the year, 2004.
Sorry so long, but that was a portion of 2004. A very different time in our lives that struck some heartstrings.
God bless you Laura, these are fun, I look forward to reading others' comments too. ~Amelia at My Forest Cathedral blogspot
Hi Amelia,
DeleteI loved your response! I feel like I'm getting to know you better. I love the opportunity for building community that blogging brings.
Have a terrific weekend!
Laura
Thank you Laura! I feel the same! : ) Blogging friends are the best! Truly a blessing!
DeleteBlessings! ~Amelia
Have a great week!
DeleteLaura, what a fun post! In 2004 we had an 11 year old boy and a 5 year old boy. We were in the thick of homeschooling and we decided to move from a neighborhood to 3 acres that my in-laws were giving us. We lived with my in-laws for 9 (very long) months while we renovated my husband's grandparent's old farmhouse. I signed up for everything I could that year, just so the kids and I could stay busy, since we didn't have our own house. Not long after we finally moved in, there was a hurricane and we had to evacuate for a whole week. I prayed that the house was either perfectly fine or complete destroyed, because I couldn't take the idea that we would have to renovate everything over again. Thankfully the house was just the way we left it and we only lost about 70 trees :) I would say we probably weren't sad to see 2004 behind us :) Some years are like that.
ReplyDeleteLaura, I was thinking about the Penney's formals. We actually paid only $5.00 for them! These were beautiful formals with the net underskirts. I recently took them out of one of our daughters' old closets and gave them back to them. A very strange feeling.
ReplyDelete2004 was an interesting year. I was new to homeschooling. We were using The Prairie Primer as a unit study so we read The Little House books. That was when I found out Laura Ingalls Wilder was a real person. Lol. We went on field trips with our homeschool group ( and none of the moms and girls wore denim jumpers!) with our favorite was apple picking at the now closed Apple Lane Farms in Solvang, CA. I can't remember much more about 2004. My music tastes consisted mostly of children's songs so I don't know the popular singers were back then.
ReplyDeleteI remember the Prairie Primer. I thought very much about using that. I cannot remember why I didn't. Most of my kids were preschool age, maybe that's it. I loved Little House Books while growing up. They were very influential in my life. We read them many times through the years.
DeleteBe blessed,
Laura
I loved homeschooling my children. It is so nice that many of us had that experience. We always had to be frugal too. It is a good skill to have! God bless you!
ReplyDeleteYou were a great encouragement to me in those days! You still are.
Delete