Places I Have Lived
As I said on Day 3, I was born and raised in California but have lived in a total of 8 states and 2 foreign countries. The other states I have lived in are Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, Texas, and Washington. I have also lived in France and Germany.
What I didn’t say is why I moved around so much. I guess I come from a family of rolling stones. My parents met in the military, and after they were both discharged, they moved to San Bernardino, California. I was born in Riverside, but by the time my brother was born, only 2 years later, we had moved to Vancouver, Washington. We stayed there awhile, but due to my father’s lung condition, the wet weather forced us to move to Phoenix, Arizona where my younger sister was later born.
It wasn’t too long before we moved back to California. My father was then involved in a motorcycle accident and passed away there. My mom remarried a couple years later, but then she and my step-father were in a car accident that killed both of them. My grandmother became our guardian and we moved to Oregon with her, where we lived until I graduated from high school and got married.
My husband joined the Army shortly after we got married. He went to AIT (Advanced Individual Training) at Fort Eustis, Virginia, where he trained to repair Apache Helicopters. Our son was born while he was stationed there. Next, he was transferred to Germany, and after a short stay in Oregon, we joined him there.
After my divorce, I went back to Oregon for a while and then I joined the Navy. I was stationed in California for a couple years and had my daughter there before being transferred to the Emory S. Land in Norfolk, Virginia. It’s a sub-tender that rarely left the pier while I was on it. “Join the Navy, See the World”, my foot. Our ship was literally stuck in the mud every low tide.
After I was discharged, I went to travel school and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to be a travel agent. A couple years later, my daughter’s grandpa convinced me to move to Bangor, Maine, where I live for about 3 years. I hated the cold, and we moved back to Oregon again, and I decided to work on my degree. This is when I went to France, and I lived there for a summer while in a language immersion program. While going to college, I did work-study at a VA healthcare facility and eventually left school when I got hired there full-time. My ex was also in Southern Oregon, trying to wreak havoc on my life, and my sister talked me into moving near her in North Texas where I continued to work for the VA. After putting up with Texas heat and humidity for 11 years, I was able to transfer to another VA Hospital back in California again.
I have been working for the VA for over 20 years now. I have enough federal service to qualify for retirement, but I’m not quite old enough yet. My kids are grown and I have one grandson, who was born here in California. I have been doing art and handicrafting for a long time and it is something that I love to do. I am currently building Hootowl Handicrafts into my full-time job and working on gathering some long awaited moss.
HootOwl Handicrafts 