Stories of an Unconventional Childhood, Week Thirteen

Over at Mommy's Piggy Tales, there's a cool project going on about family history. There is a challenge to blog for 15 weeks about our growing up years, with a different time period covered each week. Spitfire talked me into joining in because she's hoping for some wild stories from my childhood.

When we left off last time, I had just moved (again) and was set to begin a new school. Picking up there, my mom registered me for school and I started summer band. I showed up the first day and received a large packet of music and information and was introduced as the new student. We started practice and I was scrambling to learn the music and the way this band worked, as well as everyone's names. One week in, and I found out we couldn't stay in the house because it had sold. So, in the midst of all the newness, we were packing and moving to another house. This one was further away from the school and so I had to ride my bike.

It was a long hot ride. The house we were living in was very different from the first one. I loved the built-in bookcase in my room, but disliked pretty much everything else about it. I missed the plush carpet and beautiful yard. Our new back yard was tiny, bare and surrounded my an 8-foot cinder block wall. But I didn't even have time to fully unpack because about a week and a half later, my mom got a call with a job offer, in another city.

We packed what little we had unpacked and loaded into a trailer and moved to Carlsbad, NM. My mom had scouted out a new home while she was there signing her contract, and soon we were unpacking in a small apartment and registering me for yet another school and starting summer band, which was well in progress.

The school was laid out like a college campus and the buildings were sprawled across a hill. It took a bit to learn where everything was and map out my classes. But eventually, I learned my way around, and learned the music, and learned people's names and began settling in and making some friends. I met some special people there, but most special among them, are my still good friend November (name changed to protect the insane LOL) and my dear husband, thecooldad. Of course, like any good romantic comedy, we didn't get off to such a great start, but that's another story for another time.

Book Review: The Art of War for Spiritual Battle by Cindy Trimm

http://thebulgingbookbag.blogspot.com/2010/09/book-review-art-of-war-for-spiritual.html

Stories from an Unconventional Childhood, Week Twelve

Just before tenth grade started, my mom and I moved again because she got a new job across the state. Interestingly enough, because I was registering right before school started, I received some interesting benefits. In that school, high school covered 10th through 12th grade. Yes, that means I was low man on the totem pole again. But there was a pecking order in the school. The lockers lining the halls were in three layers. Tenth graders got the bottom lockers. Juniors got the middles. Seniors got the top lockers. However, they were out of bottom lockers when I registered, so someone assigned me a top locker. When school started, everyone assumed I was a senior, so I didn't have to deal with any of the junk the other sophomores had to deal with.

School was interesting and I quickly made friends and enjoyed most of my classes. One of the highlights was a cool field trip to some nearly cliff dwellings. Another was my geometry class, which much to my surprise, turned out to be one of my favorites. For some reason, geometry just clicked with me.

We lived in a small cinderblock house on top of a hill overlooking the town. It was surrounded by evergreens and large rocks, which made the yard pretty unusable, but nice to look at.

Toward the end of the year, we learned that my mother's position, along with about 20 others, was being eliminated. While Mom was job-hunting, she found out she had been hired to work at a summer camp. She was a former Girl Scout leader and director of a Camp Fire camp, so they jumped on her application. We put everything in storage and headed to the mountains outside Cloudcroft, NM. We lived at the camp for the better part of the summer, and my mom went on interviews on practically every day off.

I found ways to amuse myself as well. I made friends with the camp director's daughter, who was a couple years younger. I also had a blast teaching camp songs, which I knew tons of thanks to years in Girl Scouts and the summers my mom was a camp director. When they had a week for high schoolers, I actually got to be a camper and attend. The week was a backpacking trip covering a long trail through the White Mountains outside Ruidoso. It was an amazing experience that pushed the boundaries of what I thought I was capable of.

Meanwhile, she had decided we were moving to Las Cruces. We found a beautiful house in an older neighborhood and began moving in. It was a lovely house with thick carpeting, a mural on the dining room wall, tons of storage, and a small fountain in the backyard. Unfortunately, I didn't get to stay long enough to get fully unpacked, but that's a story for another day.

Book Review: The Bernenstain Bears and a Job Well Done

http://thebulgingbookbag.blogspot.com/2010/08/book-review-berenstain-bears-and-job.html

Stories from an Unconventional Childhood, Week Eleven

Over at Mommy's Piggy Tales there's a cool project going on about family history. There is a challenge to blog for 15 weeks about our growing up years, with a different time period covered each week. Spitfire talked me into joining in because she's hoping for some wild stories from my childhood.

 Image via Wikipedia

My ninth grade year was a study in contrasts. It seemed as if anything that could change, did. The year started off pretty normally. I started the ninth grade enjoying school and spending spare time at the beach. But things were far from ideal. My parents were having issues. Dad was spending more and more time away from home and with his friends. When he was home, there was obvious friction. A couple months into the school year, we all needed a fresh start.

Initially, it was proposed that he would move to Albuquerque and find work and housing, and we would follow later. However, he started packing and dividing up the household goods, even sorting out the albums and negotiating about the ones he wanted. It was all very surreal.

Image via WikipediaDad left and it was a few weeks before we heard from him. He finally called and said he had found a job and a nice apartment. We began packing and I began once again saying goodbye to my friends. Little did I know just how different this move would turn out to be. As soon as we hit Christmas break, we finished packing and left to spend Christmas with my grandparents. My mom left from there to go see my dad and check out the situation.

When she got there, she found the apartment was in the wrong part of town and the job was dead-end. She was furious. They had a huge fight and she drove across town and rented an apartment. After Christmas, we loaded everything we owned into a moving van and moved to Albuquerque. If you've never had the chance to move from below sea-level to one mile altitude, I don't recommend it. I was sure they had removed all the oxygen from the city before I got there.
 

School was an adventure too. Before I moved, I was in a school that ran from 7th through 9th grade. When I moved, 9th grade was in high school. I went from top of the heap to low man on the totem pole. I couldn't breathe, I was pond-scum in the big pond, and my mom and dad were getting a divorce.

To say I was miserable, would be putting it mildly.
 

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Eventually, I learned the charms of the area. I could stand on my balcony and watch the hot air balloons and hang-gliders coming off the mountain. I loved to watch the clouds coming over the mountains, which meant snow. I spent a couple of weekends with my dad (after he moved to a better part of town). After a while, I began a life-long love affair with the New Mexican cuisine. I learned the proper answer to the question "Red or green?" for me, is always "Green" and the hotter the better.

Image by svenwerk via Flickr