This is Cathy at our first house, in Sterling, Kansas, in 1984. We had a rude welcome to the renting world when we stopped by the house coming back from our wedding in California, headed to Hamilton, Illinois for our wedding reception. Weather was miserably cold, and the first thing we noticed when we opened the door was a funny loud hissing sound...Cathy went to check it out and quickly found the problem, water spraying from a broken pipe right above the water heater. So, we got that taken care of and got a late start on our trip to Illinois. Hard to imagine that $125 a month for rent was a lot of money, and the renovation bug hit Cathy early as she worked a deal with our landlord to replace some wallpaper in exchange for rent. We did a pretty good job removing the first layer of "old" wallpaper, but started to get concerned as layers 2 - 9 started falling off the wall, some in bigger chunks than others. Several hundred hours later, we had completed the project, but would have been much better off just paying that month's rent!For the last 24 years, we have been fortunate to be able to live in many different "houses" around the world, but Cathy always made sure we had a home to live in and enjoy as a family. We always knew our homes would be somewhat temporary in nature, as we always seemed to get the bug to move every 3 - 4 years...But, our farm house was Cathy's favorite home and we always looked forward to retiring there and spending time together sipping home-made lemonade and swinging on the front porch. I still look forward to that and know Cathy will be with me, even though I will have to learn how to make the lemonade myself now....
