He is currently living with his brother in Indiana and works as a technician installing and repairing generators. My youngest son, Kyle, is in his final year at Indiana University majoring in New Media and has a certificate in Computer Science. He works at a music store and plays guitar, ukulele, keyboards, drums...etc. In High School he had a solo on the glockenspiel at the state competition in the RCA dome.

While most of Indiana is flat we lived on 25 acres near the Wabash River with beautiful woods and rolling hills. I was a stay-at-home mom and home schooled. My children were very active. Holly was in sports, scouts, 4-H, and was a lifeguard. She showed goats, cats, dogs; competed in archery, rifle, various projects, and the County Fair pageant.

The boys enjoyed 4 wheeling and hunting around the farm. We were surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods and cornfields. The woods on our land were filled with moral mushrooms and blackberries. We had 13 acres of alfalfa where one time we counted over 100 deer. Between the alfalfa and corn fields the deer were very well fed and we still had a difficult time keeping them out of the garden and apple trees.

Indiana has a humid climate, with cold winters and long, warm summers. The temperatures can vary from the 100’s in the summer to below zero in the winter and averages about 10-20 inches of snow per year. On the farm we were usually snowed in several times a year, with an occasional blizzard taking out the power. Luckily we had a generator, additional wood burning furnace, and a fireplace.

Indiana is relatively flat to gently rolling and contains numerous lakes and bogs, but mostly we are known for corn fields…miles and miles of corn fields. The first time my sister-in-law from New Jersey came to Indiana was during a snow storm and in the dark. We picked her up at the airport and had a 100 mile drive to get home. She kept asking “why is it so dark...where are all the street lights?” We all laughed and said “you don’t light corn fields.”

I am currently living in Texas, which is about 1,000 miles from Indiana. The winters are much milder and we only have a rare sprinkling of snow. One day my neighbor came over all excited and said "look we have snow."  I wanted to chuckle and say “what snow” there was a light dusting of white on the ground. While I miss the beauty and wonder of the Indiana snow covered landscape, I don’t miss the cold.

I do miss my family and, of course, my beautiful granddaughters. I am thankful for all the new technologies that make it easy to keep in touch. I had already established my Texas residency while I was attending graduate school, so it was necessary to apply for disability here. It is difficult being so far away, but the weather is better for me in Texas. 
 

Kyle and his girlfriend Tara