Tuesdays in the Summer

(Not my children.  Cute, though, huh?)

One of my favorite things about living in a small town are the fun activities that go on all summer. Within the next week will be the 4th of July fireworks (on the 3rd of July), the 4th of July parade (on the actual 4th), the fair parade and the fair, itself. That's a crazy amount of fun for one week!

This morning the children were so excited that the day dawned bright and sunny. Tuesdays in the summer are Mass at Noon/Picnic in the Park days. The number of families who come vary week to week. Sometimes the park is swarming with friends and sometimes we're the only ones there. Right now, my children are there but I'm not because baby Walter is still napping. As soon as he wakes up, we're off!

It was a Tuesday Mass at Noon/Picnic in the Park day when we first discovered Mayberry. The Holy Spirit had us driving by the church just as Mass let out and the front lawn was full of moms and children... including some we knew. We were invited to join them at the park and within half an hour I knew that we would be moving here. My girls were walking arm and arm with their friends and picking blackberries while my boys were running around with other boys and playing tag. Oh... this was the sort of community for which I'd always longed. By Friday we had contacted a realtor.

My First Walgreens Run

I have recently become interested in "extreme couponing". Next week I'll be taking a class but I've already purchased a binder and supplies. It's super fun! Last night daughter Caroline and I set out with coupons and a list and made our way to the nearest Walgreens. When we got there we discovered something interesting about this Walgreens...

It was actually a CVS. I really should have confirmed that before heading out. When you live in a small, rural town you don't just run out to do errands. With things so far away, you have to plan your outings.

Thankfully we were in the Big City of Ann Arbor, so it didn't take too long to find a Walgreens that wasn't a CVS. We ended up purchasing $50.50 worth of goods for $14. That means we saved $36.50!

To use a visual aid, the items in the back row add up to $14. That means I got all of the items in the front two rows for free...

Good intentions...

Good heavens, I wrote that last (and only!) entry several years ago. I meant to chronicle our transition to small town living. It would take waaay too much typing to get updated so let's just say... a lot of stuff happened.

Best of all was the arrival of these guys in 2008 and 2010:


I'm not expecting anyone to read this blog, except maybe my parents, who are sweet like that. I'm keeping this journal for my own benefit... the modern diary. Next thing you know I'll be getting me one of those telephone thingies that you can carry around with you wherever you go!

Since maybe some other people may read this occasionally, I'll be refering to my children by their middle names. Not that who we are would be difficult to figure out. This is a small town, after all!

The Soul Sucking Suburbs

We were a family of suburbanites... Mom, Dad, four children and a dog, who moved to a small town and have been changed by it. Living in a small town is dramatically different than living in a suburb, in big ways (the distance to things) and in small ways (many stores don't take credit cards).

Pete and I spent the first 35 years of our lives in the suburbs. We have always lived in the suburbs. We knew no other way. Suburbs are so darn convenient. We were near work, a variety of restaurants, the mall... Target. We had a new, lovely house in a pretty neighborhood. All around us were identical homes with other families... we think. We never actually saw other people.

And that was what was strange... we knew that the houses were owned by people but no one visited the neighborhood swimming pool. The playground sat empty. The only living beings on the walking paths were squirrels. For the longest time, we didn't question this, we just accepted it as the status quo. "Well, both parents work and the children are at school or daycare all day. Bummer for us, as a homeschooling family.".

One summer though, our eyes were opened as to how weird all of this was. In a neighborhood of 300 houses, that swimming pool should have been packed. As my children splashed listlessly, looking around for some playmates, it dawned on me that this was creepy... like a Twilight Zone episode. I would hum to myself, "Where have all the children gone? Long time passing...".

I realized that we were deeply lonely, even though we were surrounded by people. I could go to Meijer's and not run into a single person I knew, even though I'd been living two blocks away for seven years. That's not right.

One day it occured to me, "We could all drop dead in this house from carbon monoxide poisoning and no one would know for months.". That's how connected we were to our neighbors. Everyone was living their lives in the fortress of their own homes and not building relationships. We were going through the motions of having a life but it didn't feel like living. There had to be something different, something better... an authentic life.

To make a long, exhilarating and frustrating story short, one summer we discovered an honest-to-goodness small town about 40 miles west of us. Much to our surprise, we moved there. It's been a life-changing experience with wonderful moments and difficult ones. It's not utopia, to be sure. But it has always felt authentic, messy, real. We've gotten our souls back.