She first sold her home. Then enlisted a Real Estate (RE) Agent to supply them with a print out of listings across Colorado. It didn’t matter what corner, as long as it was in the country and in Colorado. The next several months were spent driving to every one of those listings. The young woman and her sister became very familiar with the RE lingo:
- OPEN FLOOR PLAN: Could mean missing walls.
- SKY LIGHT: Could mean a huge hole in the roof.
- SEVERAL STORAGE UNITS: DID mean several port-o-potties lined up and used as storage units (yucky – but true!).
One day, by sheer luck, driving back from trying to locate a place in far northeastern Colorado they came across a property not on the list but with a For Sale sign on it.
When they started this adventure, they were smart to make a list. The list had the following columns: A. All the things they would love to have, B. All the things that they couldn’t live without, and C. all the things that they did not want. This little place was as close to perfect as they could get.
The sister put her house up for sale, and the three of them moved to the country. The deeper plan that the sisters agreed upon was that they wanted to create a place that could provide an extra income as they got older. They also wanted to be able to pass it on to her daughter when the time was right. So, a huge greenhouse kit was purchased as the master plan.
Plans very seldom work out as you think. There were some issues (several with the company they bought the kit from), so the greenhouse was not constructed at the time. Instead, they concentrated on things they could control:
- The daughter wanted a horse. Two were purchased.
- The daughter wanted a sheep. One was donated by a friend when the mom did not want it.
- The daughter wanted to join 4-H. The mother got her all hooked up, and they began to raise special chickens for the daughter to show at the fair (a First place that year by the way! Woo hoo).
When the daughter was old enough, her mom bought her first car. It was not brand-new, but it was good on gas, well taken care of, and appropriate for her first vehicle. The daughter’s response:
“It’s an old lady car?”
The daughter’s friends found it to be loads of fun (it even had a special flip-up seat in the back station-wagon part – too cool), but not the daughter. She beat that car, along with three consecutive ones, into the ground.
When the daughter reached her Junior year of high school, she had seriously entered the teenage rebellion stage. From then on out, there was nothing the woman could do or say that could reach her daughter. The daughter began her road of bad decisions, and all the mother could do was watch her fall:
- Bad boyfriends.
- Dangerous drugs.
- Even more dangerous choices.
- Dropped out of school
- Thought she knew enough to do the GED program but found she didn’t.
Then one day the daughter had a mini-breakdown in the mother’s kitchen. She finally shared with her mother and aunt that she felt so depressed and useless. The mother remembered her own depressing and hurtful teenage years and shared them with her daughter. Then the mother gave her daughter something that helped her get through it all – a diary/journal.
The daughters “real” friends helped her to get back into high school and complete it. The girl then got a good job locally and found some friends to move in with. All seemed right again.
(The young-but getting older by the minute- woman really needs to quit thinking that!)
to be continued…
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Life Lessons Lived 