Needless to say, the first several years of our marriage saw many emotions on different fronts. Between adjusting to being newlyweds, moving into our new home, being a stepmother, my mother's cancer and my father's heart attack, we had endured many changes, a range of heartfelt emotions and a profound sense of gratefulness for love and life itself. When you're young and haven’t endured any major events in your life, you don't realize how a moment in time can change everything. Even when things happen you can’t fully grasp the reality. Many times these things take time and reflection, which is something we don’t grant ourselves when we're young. Were normally on to the next thing before we’ve even processed what we just went through. In some ways that is simply life and survival too, I guess. Through it all, it was so incredible to have the support of my husband with all of these adjustments and difficult circumstances. He was so loving, kind and understanding, especially with my parents and their life-threatening health issues. We were most certainly building a foundation to our marriage and learning from all of these experiences together as a couple. We prayed together through it all and God’s strength and love was the glue that was our common bond. Needless to say, it brought everyone closer together.
After my mom's cancer, I had quit my job to pursue a business of my own and wasn't exactly sure what was in store for me next. I also wanted to spend more time with my parents while they were staying with us that winter. They had been through so much with my mom's cancer and my father's heart attack and I was more keenly aware of how much they meant to me, and that my time with them could be more limited than I ever realized. This gave me an even deeper desire to share quality time with them and being they lived so far away and it gave me a sense to grasp the time that I could while it was there. I knew that God would guide and direct my steps, as He always had, in this period of change in my life. I was able to take a trip with my parents and Grams to Seattle by train, to visit family and friends, it was a true blessing to spend the time with them. It was my first overnight trip on a train, which was interesting. We did not have a sleeper car, so had two seats on either side of the train that the four of us could share. The scenery was beautiful as we road up the coast and through the mountains. It gave me lots of time to talk to my parents, the many hours we traveled on the train. When I reflect on that time it was really special. The time we spent in Seattle was lovely too. On the train ride home we were diverted to buses when we found out there was an earthquake in the Los Angeles area. We had no idea how bad it was at that time, but turns out it was significant. It was kind of scary, to be honest, and we were still so far from home at that point. We couldn't wait to get back to San Diego and the comfort of our lovely home and to my husband.
When I returned home a good friend of mine had heard about an opportunity for an Office Manager in La Jolla, California at an interior design firm. She thought I would be perfect for the job and had recommended me. I thought it couldn't hurt to check it out. I had always had a passion for interior design so was a little intrigued I have to admit. I met with the owner and he seemed to think I was a perfect fit. He and I clicked and I was really impressed with the firm. La Jolla is one of the most beautiful beachside cities in San Diego, very upscale. They did some of the highest end homes in Southern California. On top of that, they offered me a great salary and said I could work part-time and still pursue my own business on the side. It seemed to good to be true...so I took it! I was thankful that God had blessed me with this opportunity and it felt right. I really enjoyed working there and loved exploring more of this beachside town. I also made a friend with the woman who took care of drafting for the designers at the firm. She was really interesting and I felt drawn to her. I enjoyed getting to know her and her life intrigued me. She lived on a houseboat in a marina on San Diego bay. It was an interesting and incredible lifestyle. At first she didn't seem interested in my advances of friendship, and I soon found out that she was manic depressive, or bipolar. It impacted her on a regular basis, but this made me want to be her friend even more because I saw it as an opportunity to do God's Will and show love to someone who needed it. We ended up becoming fast friends, when she realized I wasn’t giving up, and I enjoyed taking lunch and coffee breaks with her at work. We began spending time together outside of work too. Her friendship was a real blessing in my life and I hope mine was to her as well. I grew to care about her very deeply and she made my time at this new job a real joy.
In the next couple years, my husbands job began slowing down and there wasn't as much work for him, as there had once been. It began affecting our bottom line. I wasn't sure what we would do or how it would work out. We began praying about it. Then, at one of my husbands family gatherings his nephew began telling him about the work he was doing. He was working in Hollywood for the the props department doing television commercials and told my husband he should check it out. He told him he was making great money and he should come up and give it a try, so he did. He went up there and worked on a commercial shoot with him and found it to be incredibly exciting. It was so creative and different from what my husband had been doing and he really enjoyed it. It was hard for us to be apart and we realized that commuting wasn't going to work for us, me living in San Diego while he was working in Los Angeles. When his nephew told him he saw endless opportunity, and he felt my husband could make an excellent living, we felt it was an opportunity from God. We decided to make the move. When I look back now it seems like it all happened so fast and we were so certain. I know the only way that was possible was God. Everything in our life seemed to be ready for change. My job, even though great, had become more demanding, eventually, and my boss was not as flexible as he was when he hired me. He had wanted me to take over the bookkeeping department, so his bookkeeper could retire, in addition to the office management. He wanted to try and consolidate two positions into one. It would require more than full-time work hours and would be incredibly stressful to manage both positions effectually. I knew that wasn’t something I could take on. In addition, some thief had walked into the back door of our house one night, when we were there watching television on the couch, and tried to steal my purse sitting on the kitchen table. He had been targeting the neighborhood because there were several elderly ladies who lived alone on our street, leaving their purses, like I had, in their kitchen near the entrance they used to the house . I was beginning to feel unsafe in our neighborhood all of the sudden. So the move, even though somewhat drastic, came at a good time for many reasons. We were ready for a change.
I still couldn’t believe we were moving to Los Angeles! I didn’t know anything about it and hadn’t spent any time there. I had a lot to figure out. My husband continued to work there as I packed up the house, sold many of our belongings and got ready for the move. He was in no position to help me figure out where we would live so I took my mom to L.A. with me so she could help me look for a place. It would be a new chapter in our life and an adventure I could have never have imagined…and where we would end up would be the biggest surprise of all!
♥️LGOF