By mommie2zs in Family — Feb 11, 2024

A History of Homes

Where we've been.

The summer before I moved to St. Louis where I would meet Buddie, Ragsbottom and I lived in a cheap lean-to apartment stuck on the side of a house in Kirksville. We had no money, but it was a place to sleep. Rags reminded me it was $120/month and the ants were so bad we stored everything in the fridge, including our deodorant and shampoo.

Living room, bedroom, it was all things.

For the start of the school year, our first year teaching, Rags found our apartment in St. Louis, and it was thanks to her choice of apartments that Buds and I met.

Rags and I lived on the top floor on the right. Katie and Kristy on the first floor. This apartment complex, Manhasset Village, no longer exists.

Picture inside that first floor apartment the night Buds and I met.

While Rags and I were living in the apartment on the 3rd floor, Buds was living in an apartment near Forest Park with M. Scott, a person from his Ph.D. program at Washington University.

Buds lived in the back on the right on Waterman BLVD.

Since we met, Buds and I have lived in 13 different homes in 6 different states in our 30 years together.

The summer after we met, Rags and I moved back to K-ville and lived in an on-campus apartment with cheap rent because we had worked for the Res. Life program. Buds would come up and visit when he could. This apartment was the lap of luxury with 2 bedrooms and a bathroom where you could shut the door without moving your legs out of the way as you sat on the toilet.

A screenshot of what the apartments looked like in 2014. They have since been torn down.

Rags, Lisa, and I leaving the apartment to go to our Grad School ceremony in 1994.

After graduating that summer, Rags and I moved back to St. Louis. Rags was getting married, so I lived with John (a good friend from college) and Tom in John's house in St. Louis while Buds moved into a new apartment with Barry and M. Scott in the Central West End in St. Louis. When M. Scott got booted from the Ph.D. program and moved back to New Jersey, my dad suggested I move in with Buds and Barry. (My dad figured if I wanted to live with men, it would be better if one of them was my fiancé.)

The 1st floor with the porch on the right was our home. That's our red truck parked in front and our big red box on the porch.

After we were married, we moved back to the apartment complex where Rags and I had been living when we first moved to St. Louis. Again on the 3rd floor.

Buds in the kitchen of that apartment on his first day working for Bridge, Inc.

Then I decided I wanted to go back and get a doctorate and in order to pay for it, I was going back into Residence Life. Buds had left his doctoral program and started working for a living. These decisions lead to me working at Saint Louis University with Argyle. Housing came with the job, and though the job was hellish, we paid off student loans, which gave us a big financial boost in years to come.

Griesedieck Hall. We lived in an apartment at the end of the hall to the left.

I was grateful when Todd suggested I apply at Purdue. When I was hired for that job, we moved into married student housing on campus in West Lafayette until we could purchase a home.

It was tiny and cheap. A squirrel would come and sit on that window sill where we would leave food for her.

We did find our first home. And it was walking distance from Todd and Gina's! Blessing of all blessings. (We probably didn't walk, but now we would.)

This is the time when Buds made the transition into credit cards. When he was offered the chance to move to Delaware, with the company paying for the move, we decided to take the offer.

Buds lived in a furnished apartment for several months in Newark, DE while I finished up the school year and we sold the Indiana house. Todd and Gina were also moving, so that made it a little easier to leave.

In DE we chose condo living. One of Buddie's co-workers was moving and we bought the home directly from them.

In DE we decided that we were finally ready to consider starting a family of humans, not just pets. We thought living near family would be good, and we knew land in Iowa was relatively inexpensive and we wanted to build a home. As soon as we told my parents, my dad made it is his full-time job to find us land.

Twenty-two acres, a tiny white house, and plenty of land for building soon followed. We left DE in August, 2001 to start our new life in Iowa.

I drove the moving van and pulled the CRX. Buds had Chip and the 2 cats in the Dodge Neon.

Unfortunately, my father neglected to tell us that he decided to blow up the big red barn that was also on the land, and rehab the inside of the house we were planning to live in. So when we got to Iowa, we stayed with my parents for several weeks until the house was back in working order. And it was definitely much better than it had been. The previous owners had smoked in it for 30 years, so it wouldn't have worked.

Monkey was born while we lived here. Lots of good memories in this house, but Buds detested living in it.

We were all very glad when the Big Yellow House on the hill was ready for us to move in. We moved in not long before Buster was born in April 2004.

Moved in. This is 10 days before Buster joins the family.

Two years later, a Yessa was born in the Big Yellow House.

The Big Yellow House and Iowa hold so many memories since the children were born there and had so many of their "firsts" in those houses.

But Buds and Uncle Z had started Juice in February of 2004, so once my dad died, it was time to move to Reston to end the frequent travel back and forth.