My Life as Annie’s weekly Time Travel Tuesday asks us this week about our first home:

This week we will travel back to our first home… was it your very own apartment, or a home with your new spouse? What memories do you have from that first home? How did you make that first house (or apartment) a home?

We were still in college when we got married: I had one semester left and Jim had two. So our first home wasn’t too far from the college. The semester before we got engaged, we were looking for housing and heard about one of the professors who had a few mobile homes that he rented out to students. When we contacted him, all of his available housing was already occupied, but he was considering buying another. When we left for Christmas break (and our wedding!) we weren’t sure if that would all work out, but thankfully by the time we were married and came back to Greenville, he had purchased the home and made it available to us.

Our very first day in our new home, though, which happened to be Christmas Day, we heard loud banging on the door early in the morning. It was the man who owned the trailer park. Somehow no one had told him we were coming, and he didn’t allow renters! We contacted our landlord and they got together and worked things out.

The trailer park landlord was a small elderly man, but he ran a tight ship and drove through the trailer park several times a day to check on things. He didn’t allow for loudness and partying and junkiness, so it was a pretty quiet, pleasant place. So many trailer parks are treeless and sterile looking, but this one had an abundance of trees and felt more like a cabin in the woods.

The home itself was a typical mobile home: pretty nondescript on the outside — white with green trim — and inside all the typical (for that time) dark wood paneling. The kitchen area had a cute bay window where I could display a few knicknacks and hang potted plants. The sink overlooked the living room, so we could be together even if I was working in the kitchen. There were two bedrooms, one of which we used for storage, and one bathroom.  The kitchen was yellow and brown: yellow is not my favorite color, but our dishes had yellow flowers, so it all went together. It was furnished except for the spare bedroom. Over time we added to it in newlywed style with a lamp here, end tables there, a bookcase my husband made, a rocking chair he bought and put together, a few wall decorations we had received as wedding presents, adding a few more things we purchased or I made over the years.

We had thought we would be moving out of the area after graduation, but the Lord kept us in town for 14 years. Our first son was born almost five years after we were married, and we transformed the storage room into a baby’s room. We then bought our first home (a fixer-upper, which is all we could afford, but that’s another story) when Jeremy was about fifteen months old. So we had six years all together in the little mobile home. Though far from a “dream house,” it was cozy and safely nurtured a beginning little family.

My Life as Annie‘s weekly Time Travel Tuesday takes us this time to…yesterday! That shouldn’t be too hard on the ol’ memory banks. 🙂

We don’t really “celebrate” Labor Day per se beyond just enjoying the day off. My college student, however, did not have the day off. I told him the night before to be sure and set his alarm, because I couldn’t guarantee when I’d be up. I went ahead and set mine for 6:20, and he was already up and in the shower (yay!), but I decided to get up anyway and see him off. I got to sleep in an hour longer than usual, though, so that was nice.

I went downstairs and had devotions, then breakfasted while reading blogs. I took a break for a bit and was pondering whether to begin a post I was thinking about or wait until later when — the power blinked off. We don’t know what happened (it may be in this morning’s paper, but I haven’t looked yet), but we did read later on the power company’s web site that over 800 people were without power. Ours was off for about 5 hours.

I hadn’t taken my shower yet, though, and our bathroom has no windows or outside lighting at all. Jeremy said, “Well, as long as you can find the soap, you don’t really need light to see what you’re doing.” True, but it’s a little disorienting to try to take a shower without light, plus my balance problem is worse when I can’t see well. I remembered we had a little battery-operated camp lantern in a closet, so I got that just as Jim remembered a little battery-operated push-button light in anther closet. He put that one up over the shower and I put the lantern on the counter, and it was a very workable arrangement.

After it was already too late I remembered I wouldn’t be able to curl my hair and I probably shouldn’t have washed it. My hair doesn’t really curl, but it’s very fly-away and messy-looking when it dries and I usually curl it just under enough to make it look a little more put-together. But I had already washed it, so I put some mousse on it: that helped a little, though it makes my hair look dark.

My original plan for the day had been to start on the family room curtains I’ve been wanting/needing to make. But…there was no power for the sewing machine. I did get the pattern out and read through the instructions to get some idea of where I’d be going. One problem I have with many projects is the multiple decisions that have to be made. I had already agonized over pattern and fabric choice and still wasn’t decided about whether to go to a town 40 minutes away to look for trim (after not finding any here) or to just skip it, when reading through the pattern presented a new wrinkle: it’s a quick-sew pattern and recommended fusible bonding for several of the steps. But the fabric is dry clean only, and I had read something a while back about some men’s dress shirts getting messed up after being taken to the dry cleaners because they had fusible bonding in the seams, and it left a discolored line when it was dry cleaned. I think I will probably sew everything rather than fusing it just to be safe.

We went out for lunch to the food court at the mall. I have a few favorite things there and had my taste buds all set for a ham sandwich from one shop, only to discover the shop had closed! I was so dismayed. I wasn’t in the mood for the teriyaki chicken from the Japanese place that I often get, so I decided on S’barro’s. Honestly I think their pizza looks a lot better than it tastes, usually, but this time I got something like a pizza pie — it had two layers of crust with pepperoni and sausage inside and bacon on the top. It was really good. Jesse got a slice of cheese pizza at S’barro’s; Jeremy got a Cool Wrap at Chick-Fil-A, and Jim got the teriyaki chicken. We had hit the mall at just the right time — scores of teens came in and lined up at several of the eateries just after we started eating. We thought maybe it was just people off for the day hitting the mall, but we saw several similar t-shirts and decided maybe it was a group of some kind traveling. Sure enough, when we left, we saw a couple of buses, but they were marked, so I don’t know what kind of group they were or where they were headed.

So we headed for home — and the power still was off. We don’t realize how much of what we do depends on electricity until we’re without it! I got out a new book on my reading list, The Princess Bride, curled up on the couch in front of a window to get enough light, and read for the better part of the afternoon dozing off just a little here and there. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon off. 🙂

The power came back on around 3, so I hit the computer for a while.

Jim grilled hamburgers and chicken for dinner. Luscious!

After dinner Jeremy and Jesse played Starships of Cataan and I put some laundry in and read my book a little more. We all watched a rerun of “Heroes” (can’t wait til the new episodes start!)

So it was a pretty laid-back and enjoyable day, even with the power being off. I’m glad it came back on before evening.