#26yearsgoingstrong

Okay...so here we go. Please bear with me as I have never done this before and I don’t want to bore anyone to death as I start out. In this first segment I am going to just give you the Reader’s Digest Condensed version of me. There is a lot more to me but if I give it all away now you won’t come back. Actually my life isn’t that interesting but it definitely has been an adventure so far. 

Back in 1988 when I was 18 I decided to become a nanny and I ended up on the East Coast from the West Coast. Talk about your culture shock!! I loved my job, made friends, and experienced life. I decided to move back home after a couple of years and became roommates with my best friend from high school (also known as party life). Ended up pregnant, moved home to mom and dad’s, had said baby at 21 and gave him up for adoption. Yes, this was a good thing and he went with people I knew and trusted. Moved back to the East Coast, became a nanny again for the same family, and continued on with life.

In steps my best friends (NY best friend -not party life best friend) younger brother and all hell breaks loose on both Coasts. We’ll get into that later when I introduce the family. Now before you go all hog wild on the younger brother situation let me tell you that it has been 26 years and we are still happily together. But at the time he was 16 and I was 21...I know, I know but when it’s right age doesn’t matter; well in MOST cases it doesn’t. He was emancipated in NY so don’t go thinking I committed some crime by leaving state with him in October of 1991. We were on our way to the great state of California...on a Greyhound bus. With some non-perishable food and $8.36 to our name we started on our journey together. To put into perspective of the $8.36 we had..at the time gas was $1.14 a gallon and movie tickets were about $4.25 a piece. Let me tell you that to survive a cross country bus ride with someone you have never lived with takes some sort of super human stamina or super powers...I don’t know which one I have but we survived to California.

Fast forward...we got jobs, found a place to live, made tons of friends, became part of a custom car and truck club, got married, and life kept on getting better for us. Not to say that we didn’t have our share of issues because we did; some personal but most just life kicking us in the teeth. Like our house being broken into, our car being totaled, riding the bus to work (because yes our bikes got stolen too), and bringing groceries home on the bus, But we did it all together and just kept looking forward.