Selling Breezy Point

Last Wednesday morning, my daughter and I set our alarms for 6:00 a.m. and poured coffee in travel cups and drove the five minutes over to the house in Breezy Point. We've been getting it ready for sale - painting, moving, cleaning, staging - and it is officially on the market tomorrow.

Later that morning, Maddie made the 8-hour drive back to Columbia, to finish her final semester at University of South Carolina. The day after she arrived home for Spring Break, we went over to the house to clean and finish clearing out straggling items. I went to check on her upstairs in her room and she ended up in my arms having a good cry. Wednesday morning was my turn.

Our plan was to sit on the back porch and watch one final sun rise, but the weather didn't cooperate and the drizzle and clouds blocked the sun. We sat together on the small couch and hugged. This time I was the one to cry as 42 years of memories passed by, so I shared some of them...

"My first summer love was here," I said.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"Oh my, between pre-teen and teen, it was probably a dozen boys!"

"All those 4th of July celebrations," she said.
"Yes."

"You took your first steps here. You climbed out of your crib here."
"I couldn't be stopped!" she laughed.
"You wrapped your grandmother around your finger here. It was you two against me."
"And rightfully so..." she said.

She remembered all the different configurations of the furniture and said, "Remember when the TV was here and you stood there and watched the news on 9/11?"
"Oh yes...I could not stop crying."

She mentioned the boy two doors over, "When I think about playing with Matt every day, I just think how we would be outside for hours and hours. We spent so much time just playing."
"Remember you two were allowed to freely go between the three backyards, but you weren't allowed to play out front," I reminded her.
"You were afraid someone would steal me!" she replied.

"All my friends love this house," she states. "They think it's the most adorable house."
"It's certainly small and old," I said.

"I probably studied in every corner of this house,"
I said, "I remember telling people that you were spread out all over this house and I just rented a room."

We took one last walk around. We stood at the back windows staring out of the view. The sun was back there somewhere behind the gray. We hugged.

"So, did you want to go upstairs one last time?" I asked.
"No," she said. "I think I'm ready."

She took a couple pictures of the house before we left the house that built her. I had 21 years of memories in that house before she was born, but the sweetest ones are of raising my child in a house that I loved from my own childhood. For most of those years, her bedroom upstairs was the same one I spent my summers in. I'm confident that most of our memories are happy ones. When I count my blessings, raising my girl in this house and this community are among them. Home, church, friends, family, school, and more - I can't think of many experiences we've had here that don't bring gratitude. It's been a good run.

Happy in her Disney Princesses nightgown!

Cinderalla lived her for a time.

When she accepted Christ, photo on the back steps.

Where she found her passion: Sports Management

My Future Business Leader of America

Senior Photos

My college student/Charger lover!

Putting herself through her first two years of college.

College Senior year Spring Break. Home to say goodbye to this old house. 

Regarding the Recent Election

After the last few days of the Presidential election and subsequent victory of a man half the country didn't vote for, I thought I would write about my memories of how my family handled elections while growing up. Then I remembered that wouldbe violating my "no politics" rule on my personal blog. So, I'm sharing about one of the most important decisions I ever had to make as a parent and how that decision shaped my political perspective to what it is today.


I was never a very good student. I was a goof-off. I talked too much and quite frequently got in trouble. My mother used to say that I was very smart and bored in class. I am not sure if that's true. I wonder if I would have been labeled and medicated had that sort of thing existed. What I do remember is being very interested in reading. I loved to read and would get in trouble occasionally for reading by flashlight under the covers. I did not love to study and I did not love how restricted I felt in school. I started working part time in 11th grade and after starting to make money and having the freedom that it bought, I chose not to further my education past a high school diploma.

As an adult I continued to read and felt a kinship with the biographies and autobiographies of self-taught Americans. A few of my friends chose to homeschool their children and after my daughter began public school in Kindergarten, I felt called to look into the possibilities. Maybe the fact that I never went to college helped me, but I never questioned my ability to teach her. What could she possibly need to learn that I was incapable of learning too? She was so tired at the end of the day in 1st Grade. It took so much out of her. She loved school, but she seemed to be stressed out by the teacher pleasing that school took. 

In Kindergarten she would come home with homework that instructed her to write a number several times across the page and then it would tell her to draw something that number of times. I have a vivid memory of the number 12 and the 12 lady bugs she had to draw. There were so many tears. The lady bugs were not perfect and she loved her teacher. How could she turn in a project that was not perfect? That's when the light bulb went off in my head. She didn't have a clue what this lesson was about. The purpose was to learn the number 12. She thought it was an art project. My heart broke for her and the wheels began to turn.

I spent most of her 1st Grade year starting a business and planning for homeschooling. Regarding the starting a business - again, had I been to college I would have learned that one does not just start a business. There is so much more to it than that - business plans, marketing plans, licensing, capitol, etc. Had I know what I should have I would have never done it. In retrospect, my lack of education served me better than an education would. I had no fear of failure, because I didn't realize I was expected to fail. What I learned over that year - her 1st grade of school and my first year of business was that God gave me the ability and the rights to pursue our dreams. 

What did I hope to teach my child through my parenting and as her teacher? My goal for both of us was to take all those labels that signal probable failure or at least disadvantage and roar past them on the road to a life of our own design. A single unwed mother with a an only child abandoned by one parent. According to the statistics, we would be on a road of government entitlements and public school and daycare and a safe job with good benefits. In short, a life of mediocrity and merely surviving. 

On behalf of both of us, I chose freedom. And we have taken full advantage of our life outside the box the world expected us to live in. If that still doesn't make my politics clear, this is it: I need just enough government in my life to keep our world safe. Beyond that, we're fine on our own.

With one of the artisans at Roanoke Island Festival Park. Manteo, NC

Riding her first horse at Cacapon State Park. Berkeley Springs, WV

Sharing a birthday with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Charlottesville, VA

Snake handling with the naturalist at Cacapon State Park

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