People often asks me what was life like growing up. They want to know my family’s history and what I experienced. I often don’t spend a great deal of time telling my history because that’s the type of person I am.

My family was not rich financially. We lived in a single-wide mobile home most of my younger years in rural Alabama (I will have to tell you about that in a later post). My parents didn’t drive fancy cars and they were hard working individuals. I can tell you one thing and that is we were “wealthy in love”. My siblings and I knew our parents loved us and they worked so hard to get the things we needed and sometimes some of the things we wanted. There was love in that home and it overshadowed any lack of material things. They greatest thing about life back then is that I was taught so much about life, I truly feel it made me the woman I am today.

I learned so much from my parents, family, and other adults in the community. Learning to cook was amazing. My mom and my grandmother were true chefs in the kitchen. Being able to watch them over the years gave me the foundation I needed to be a true “country girl” meal preparer. Although my choice of meals to eat are limited, I can cook just about anything. I also wasn’t afraid of the outdoors. I learned so much from my dad and brothers. Checking oil, mowing the lawn, changing a tire, etc. is nothing to me. I’m so glad I had these opportunities, because it help with my independence.

People often based their childhood upbringing on material things. They always talk about what they didn’t have growing up. It’s not about what you didn’t have. It’s more about what you did have or what did you do with what you had. We have to find the good in all situations. I often hear people tell their kids now about how it was harder back then than it is now. We have to realize their hard is just different. The pressures they have, we didn’t have. We always talk about not having cell phones as young kids. Well, they have them now and the added pressures of cyber bullying and so much more. Regardless of what we had or didn’t have in my family, I am just blessed that we were “wealthy in love.” I am so blessed to have had the parents I did and even more blessed to still have here today. So again, if you want to know how my life was growing up, just know I had everything I truly needed and that was love.