Why A Little Bit Country?

The reason I chose this name for my blog is because I feel like it fits my life at this point. I grew up in the rural South (Arkansas to be exact). When Tim and I got married we moved to Tulsa and that became our first "city" to live in. We loved it. It was an easy city to get around in and it was a great way to break in to kids from small town America to a larger place.

After that we moved to Indianapolis and we lived there for close to 4 years. We actually lived in the suburbs and again we loved Indy. There was always something to do, there were neat places to eat and shopping was easily accessible. Our next stop was Louisville, Ky. Again lots of positives and not many negatives (especially if you learn to think traffic is the norm). We then moved to the country. We lived in a little town between Cincinnati and Louisville for 6 months. We never really made the switch. I continued to commute to Louisville to work and so we still had easy access to "the city".

We left Kentucky on a cross country jaunt to Spokane, Washington. Again a nice city with lots of amenities. We were only in Washington about a year. That was long enough for me to figure out I am not cut out to live in colder climates. I really prefer more temperate weather.

So if you like warmer weather where do you think we ended up but on the opposite coast in Florida. We moved from Spokane to Stuart, Florida. While Stuart isn't a "big city" if you have ever been to the coast of Florida then you know that the one thing Florida has lots of is people. They are spread out in lots of little towns running up and down both coasts. Stuart is actually only about 30 minutes north of West Palm Beach, It is a series of towns called the Treasure Coast. The population when we moved there was over 100,000 on the Treasure Coast and it has grown even more since then. We stayed in South Florida for 3 and 1/2 years. We loved it.

Now I know that there are some people who don't care for Florida, they don't like the people, the sand, the sun, the hurricanes, the hustle, or whatever, but for us we couldn't figure out what wasn't to love (except for hurricanes). We moved from South Florida to an Orlando suburb where we lived for a couple of years. It was great to be able to go to the theme parks for an afternoon and not feel the stress to do it all. We were still within driving distance of the beach (on either coast).

When we were looking at moving from Florida we decided that we wanted to be closer in proximity to our families. My parents lived in TN and Tim's parents were in NE AR so we ended up moving to Nashville, TN or rather town very close to Nashville - Murfreesboro. It was large enough to have lots to do, we were close enough to Nashville to enjoy it but didn't have to fight the traffic on a daily basis.

Our next spot was the midwest or St. Louis, Missouri to be specific. Again we were in the suburbs (see a theme here) and again we loved it. We went to the Zoo, to Cardinal games, had lots of cool shopping and lots of sports.

This is where the country part comes in. When we left St. Louis we thought we were moving to North Carolina for a job. We packed all our stuff in storage and took a week vacation to Galveston and the beach. We stopped in Alabama and visited family on our way to NC. Something in this job just wasn't "right". Well we ended up not taking the job and therefore we were homeless.

Fortunately we have awesome family. Tim's brother and his wife have a finished basement and let us "land" with them while we tried to figure out where God was leading us. It was an interesting time for all of us. We had 3 children at the time and they also have 3 children. We spent the summer with them and while our kids played we began searching. We were searching in both our hearts and also for ministry positions.

Tim went to work at a pizza place for a friend. In June he got a call to "supply preach" at a little church out in the country. (Do you see where this is going?) Well he preached there and they kept asking him back. This is a country church that is over 100 years old. They were in the middle of conflict and were trying to figure out how to work things out. This was totally different from anything we had ever done (that is another post) but we loved the people and we knew God had placed us here.

In October of that year they offered Tim the title "Interim" and that told us that they had a parsonage that we could live in until they hired a pastor or we found a full time position. So we made the trek back to STL to pick up our belongs which had been in storage since April. We moved into the country. We are about 30 minutes outside of the nearest "town". We are about 6 miles from our little town which has a population of 3,000. Our county has a population of about 40,000. We are now officially in the country. Our church is wonderful but they often get a kick out of some of our "citiness".

We have been in the country for almost two years now. This will be our 3rd Christmas in this house. While it has been an adjustment for Tim and myself, the boys absolutely love it! The men cleared some of the land to the side of our house and so now the boys have woods to play in. We have a huge front yard with a long driveway that is great for riding bikes. They love seeing snakes, rabbits, deer, and especially all the bugs they find. And this summer we finally gave in and got not one but two dogs. Every little boy in the country needs a dog. So that is the origin of this blog "A Little Bit Country".