Alchemy of Clay: homes

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Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Back to Florida

My Homes, Chapter 5: (an archive for my descendants)
Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Tampa Florida

Beach Blvd, Jacksonville, FL - After a vacation (from Tennessee to Florida) which included going to a beach on the Atlantic Ocean, I wanted to be back in sunny Florida. So I again typed my way into various temp jobs. We moved into a medium size mobile home in 1994. I kept doing Administrative Assistant work, and turned down a few offers for permanent jobs typing on computers.

Below shows the location of our home in Jacksonville, FL. I spent a lot of weekends going to the beach!

Countryside Village Mobile Home park on left, Atlantic Ocean on right

Still living in Jacksonville, eventually I got a job doing counseling with elderly people in nursing homes. Several were in St. Augustine, where I commuted every day driving down highway A1A along the beaches! And I was just 4 hours away from my oldest son in Tampa FL who we visited every other month or so.

15th St., St. Augustine Beach, FL - I found a lovely apartment just 5 buildings back from the beach of the Atlantic Ocean, and I could drive to work in 15 minutes. My youngest son moved off to college after graduating from high school here.

Tampa condominium

Hanging Moss, Tampa, FL - a condo near the U of South Florida. I moved to be near my oldest son and his family, while my youngest son was at college in St. Petersburg FL. Middle son had married and was beginning his family in Atlanta. I worked at a new position which fit me like a glove...an Activity Director in an Assisted Living facility, starting in 2000.

Lotus St, Tampa, FL - I rented a medium size home in a slightly questionable neighborhood (thus it was affordable.) I was now working with elders in a 200 unit independent living building...as an Activity Director still. My youngest son was living out in Colorado, while middle son remained in Atlanta. My oldest son and his family were still in Tampa, but I only saw them a couple of times a month. It was good, but changes were to come when I considered retiring!

Quote for today:

Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom.

Sogyal Rinpoche
Glimpse After Glimpse

Friday, October 21, 2016

The Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee homes

Chapter 4:

I lived and worked where?

Myrtle Beach, SC - First job after grad school was as a secretary in a child psychologist's office, where I might have eventually had the opportunity to give play therapy. It was hard transcribing the psychologist's notes since she had a heavy accent. We lived in a nice town house, walking distance of the beach. I did enjoy being in the neighborhood of a Spiritual Center for Meher Baba, an Indian man who took a vow of silence, but managed to make many wise statements through his teachings. (He first said "Don't worry, be happy.") For more information about the Meher Baba Spiritual Center check out here.

Lumberton, NC (photo below) - We lived in a sweet little house in a small town. I'd had had another offer before taking the Myrtle Beach job, and I called to see if the Workshop Coordinator job was still available. It was and we lived there a couple of years. I loved working with folks with a mental illness, who wanted not only to have something to occupy their days, but to make friends and even have jobs.

(Post script: this little town just got flooded (inundated) following Hurricane Matthew in Oct. The main north south highway I-95 has been closed for over a week from this. I hope all the people who live there will be able to pick up their lives after the huge clean-up. I wrote this before the storm.)

Youngest son's first snow in Lumberton, NC

Laurinberg, NC - Another job change, and moving to a nearby town. We lived in another townhouse apartment. I continued to use many of the skills from my Counseling graduate degrees, but I felt like I'd never get to do mental health counseling as it was done by Social Workers in North Carolina. The U of FL Counselor Education graduate degrees in Mental Health didn't seem to be recognized there yet.

Youngest son (on left) playing one of our favorite board games with friends on our front stoop.

Poplar Pointe, Atlanta, GA - I finally got a position doing substance abuse counseling. We lived in a very nice apartment, in a predominantly black neighborhood. My son was one of 2 kids who were white in his 6th grade class, a cultural difference still in the 90s, especially in Georgia. My second son also lived in Atlanta, so there were frequent visits though he was starting his career and had a serious girlfriend to keep him busy.

There's one of the cats on the downstairs screened porch of our apartment, behind my car.

Creekside La, Knoxville, TN - Another job opportunity...to develop and run a program for co-dependency, in conjunction with a substance abuse program. Unfortunately the insurance companies didn't reimburse us for co-dependency treatment, though it seemed to be helping people. So I went back to substance abuse counseling. My career required me to move around, which sure hadn't been my original plan when I got my graduate degrees. I wanted to do art therapy, and never did. We lived in another really nice townhouse, which backed up on a creek.

I'll be back again, and you'll see I returned to a state I'd lived in before!

I'm adding this post to the October Meme at Sepia Saturday, of "From Here to There." It seems my moving around in SE United States was also from here to there, though just in my own lifetime rather than those of more "sepia" photos.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Where did our young family live in the 60s-70s?

My husband and I arrived in Connecticut, where his parents lived. I soon realized my mother-in-law was a sweet woman who wanted me to do things "her way." Thus it ever was with MIL's...which I hope I have not passed on to my daughters-in-law.

First we lived in a town house apartment in Hartford, CT - raising a one year old.

Woodland, used to be Dauntless Lane. We had back corner that's partially hidden by trees, and in 1965 it was too!

Jean St, Thompsonville, CT - The first house we owned. My second son was born when we lived here.

The fenced back yard was great for kids to play in, and the woods behind the house are still there since 1967!


Hartford, CT

I worked in the "boat" building downtown, when I was pregnant with my second son. In his 30s he also worked there! (He and I had both moved many times before then!)

Sunset St., Windsor, CT - Our second home was a Cape Cod. Again, the house has been painted a few times in the 30+ years since we lived there, but looks very much the same.

I worked for about a year in the Art School at the University of Hartford, Connecticut

Chalet Apartments, Temple Terrace, FL - We moved the family to Florida, after being really sick and tired of winter storms. I liked living in a luxury apartment with a pool, where we would frequently have happy hour.

Chalet Apartments (somewhat like this)

W. Jean St. Tampa, FL - our third home. A four bedroom home, to which I added a pool.

But...
soon we divorced and I didn't want to keep up the large house, so the kids and I moved to a mobile home which had a recreation building with a game room and a pool that someone else cleaned.

Fountainhead Mobile Homes, Tampa, FL - I also bought a camper van, which provided my oldest 2 sons and myself a home away from home for a whole summer. (I was amazed a bank gave me a 5 year loan on it, the amount was one years' worth of my salary at the time.)


This very van but with a fiber glass raised roof...thus...

But wait, there's more!
Where did I move with my sons after our 10,000 mile summer of living in the van, without air conditioning?

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

My various homes

I guess it's in my blood. My parents moved around before I came along, and then every 3-4 years while I lived with them. I moved sometimes more often, through my 74 years. So where have I been living all this time, you may wonder.

Born in 1942, Dallas Texas.

This is a night scene of downtown Dallas, while I was off in the maternity ward of Florence Nightingale Hospital.

My first home, on Meridith Rd. Dallas, TX

I love this early 1950s scene of downtown Dallas, but alas, when I was 4, we moved to Houston, TX

That is me on the left with my little sister, Mary, in our Valentine outfits made by our seamstress Grandmommy. Red wool tams and skirts. The frilly blouses were embroidered by our Great Aunts Alice and Gertie. (The were really cousins once removed I believe. But one of them was the first female dentist in El Paso Texas, and I don't theink I ever even saw them.)

This photo is in 1939, but Foleys store was The Place to shop in Houston. When I was 6 I had my first haircut there, in the beauty shop upstairs.

Winter in 1949 gave Houston enough snow that cousin Claudette, myself, my sister and cousin Sandra got to play in the yard at my Gummy and Poppy's house on Brockton.

Then in 1950 the family moved to St. Louis. We spent about a month finding an apartment, an upstairs unit, but it was big enough for the 4 of us. Again, snow was falling in the winter, and summers were hellishly humid and hot.

Myself, my mother Mataley Rogers, and sister Mary in front of apartment on Cates Ave.

After maybe 3 years, we moved to another upstairs apartment. These were both within walking distance of The Principia, (on Page Blvd.) the school where mother worked and I attended from 3-12th grade. I even went 3 years at The Principia College, across the Mississippi in Elsah, IL. But let me go back to one home at a time.

Mother, Grandmommy and Mary in front of apartment on Clara.

Here I am with a snowman in the home my parents bought on St. Edumund Lane, in St. Ann, MO. This meant commuting to school and work.

After I graduated from Upper School and had one year of college completed, my family moved to another home near the new campus of Principia, on Clayton Rd, in Clayton, MO.

Mary, myself and mother, in front of the house that they had built for the family (almost without me.) I had a bedroom, which was also a guest room. My sister had the entire ground floor, with rec. room and private bath as well as bedroom.

Miami Springs, Florida REO Properties, Miami Springs, Florida Bank REO ...

Miami Springs, FL house.

After college I lived in several places. First I lived in Miami Springs, where I rented a tiny cottage behind another house while I was a stewardess for Pan American.

When I quit flying I moved to New Orleans, LA for a short while with my boy friend (soon to be husband).

521 Saint Philip St # 1, New Orleans, LA 70116 - Public Property ...

St; Phillip St, New Orleans, LA (efficiency above a bar!)

Our next apartments were in Corpus Christi, Texas. We had 3 llittle one bedroom apartments while expecting our first son, and my husband's discharge from the Coast Guard. I don't have any pictures of them, but the first two were second story dwellings.

Then we moved near my husband's parents, in Hartford, CT.

I don't have any more to share with you at this time. Some of the homes I lived in were for just a month or two, and some for as much as 4 years. I don't think I ever lived anywhere longer than that!

I'm going to find some photos to share for the rest of the places (37 in all) where I've lived. These were just the first 21 years so far!

When I wake in the middle of the night and need help getting back to sleep, listing these places is better than counting sheep!

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