It used to drive me crazy, when we were watching TV and Chris would point out a location and say, I have been there. I had never been anywhere. When we moved it was a straight through drive with no stopping for site seeing. It was a lot of driving through the night. The biggest travel story I could ever tell was the Clarksville Tennessee event, and that was not a fond memory.

Chris wanted to go back to Arkansas to be at his step daughters high school graduation. I was off probation by now, and he got permission to leave the state for this event. We loaded up the truck and took off for Arkansas.

I was a little concerned, because our relationship was so new. I didn't know what to expect when we got there. I knew he still had questions about his ex-wife, he still had strong feelings for her. I know that there would have been NOTHING that could have led me back to Frank, no matter what, but I felt really strong that he had not completely closed that door with his ex.

We got there just in time for graduation, and his step daughter was so excited to see him. She came running up and gave his a great big hug. It was nice to see that she loved him so much, even just a step dad. That meant a lot. He had been good to them.

We stayed with his best friends and I was welcomed with open arms. I felt comfortable, and at ease. Kat was about the most welcoming person you could ask for. She didn't care about who I was, or what my past was, all she knew is that Chris was happy with me, and that made her happy.

He had made me a promise, and I was hoping I was not going to have to hold him to it. He promised me that if for any reason, things went different that expected and he did not want to come back here, that he would make sure I got home. That kinda stuck with me when the day came that he went to see his ex. I knew he was planning it, that was one of the big reasons we went. It didn't help that I was just so unsure of myself.

One hour passed, and well, that's okay, then two hours and then three. I was so scared. Kat told me not to be. She said, "He ain't gonna do NOTHING there. Don't you know he is crazy about YOU?" If I didn't know that, how did she know that. That was Kat, she was insightful. She saw through people right into their souls.

He came back, gave me a big hug and a kiss and told me he was glad I was there. They had a really good talk, she tried to do what he kinda knew she would, and I was scared she would, but he realized that what he had waiting back at Kat's was much more desirable that what he was walking away from. (Oh gosh, I still blush.)

We had a nice few days and headed back to Florida and I was one happy person. All my fears had been unrecognized, He chose me. Life was good.

The next few months all he could talk about was moving to Arkansas. He had never pulled any punches about how much he hated Florida. He came down here as a teenager to help his Grandmother move, and it kept pulling him back. That is a known problem with Florida, if you ever get sand in your shoes, the sand always wants to come back.

He had been working for a construction company for a few years, doing A/C duct work for newly constructed commercial buildings. He was good at his job, but he moved from one job to another after each completion. He never had a steady Frankb with any one company. Finally one job ended and the chance for him to move on to another didn't look good. He got on unemployment, and we took the opportunity to move to Arkansas.

We moved into a small house near Kat and her family. A little while after that we moved into a bigger house with them, and things were good. I had a waitress job for a while, but I wasn't very good at it. So I went on to other things.

Kat and I started helping our land lady clean out some of her clutter from some of the houses that she owned. I had never met a hoarder before, and that was a term I didn't really know at the time, but this lady was a huge hoarder. She actually bought new properties just so she had room for more stuff.

She had owned resturaunts over the years, that when they closed, she kept everything out of them. She have never thrown anything away. She didn't keep empty pizza boxes or stuff like that. She threw away newspapers and magazines, but stuff she never parted with, not even clothes.

She had one room that was a studio. The pile started a foot inside the door and went from wall to wall and was at least 3 feet high. She told us that there was a box, right in the center of the room, that had a watch in it she wanted. We started clearing away clutter, and by the end of the day we found her box. It had a watch in it, and it was exactly where she said it was. This woman was not young, and that box had been in that spot for a long time. How did she even remember it was there.

She still didn't let us throw anything away, so even when a pen came up missing, she knew it. We had to dig it out of the trash. We just moved stuff from one place to another, one property to another, and so on. We just made pathways so she could get to things easier, even though she never needed to get to anything.

Chris wasn't working and he had a great idea that he wanted to become a truck driver. Kats husband was his best friend and a truck driver. He went off with him. I stayed and worked the Kat moving stuff around. It helped pay the bills.

When he came home, he could not quit talking about it, so we decided to check into driving schools. We called a couple of companies that had driver training schools and one of them was based in Utah, and big surprise, they required us to be married if we were going to be a team. There was another one that did not require that. We considered both companies, talked about it, and Chris called his Mom. He said "Well mom, I guess we are getting married." What? When was that decided. Of course I didn't mind, I wanted to be married, but I think I would have rather he had asked me first. Not find out when he told his Mom. When Kat's husband came home he told us we were getting married Wednesday. That was 3 days away. It wasn't the wedding of my dreams, but I was getting married to the man God had promised me in my dream. That made it all Okay.

We had decided on the trucking company that didn't require us to be married, obviously that was not an issue. At least I hoped we hadn't gotten married just because we wanted to go trucking. We had already been together for two years, I didn't figure I had anything to worry about. We packed up our stuff and headed for Missouri. We were sitting in the bunk house, watching TV when the news broke about Princess Di being killed in a car accident. That was kind of a bummer. I only mention it as a timeline thing.

We went and got our Missouri drivers license so we were one step ahead. I messed up when I signed it and had to have it re-done. I signed it with my maiden name. I was not used to using my married name yet. Oh yeah, and my initials never changed.

We went in for our first day of orientation, and was not impressed with the things he was telling us he expected. When I told him I expected to be able have the time off to go home for my grandsons surgery, and he told me that his job was more important than my grandson, that was not gonna fly with me. Then he told us that we would be expected to move trucks around the state alone, with nothing more than a learners permit. Yeah, that was not going to work for me either. We were out of their right then and there.

We went back to Arkansas, and did not have a clue what we were gonna do now. I started working for a hamburger stand, just to have some cash, and after 2 weeks the owner made me the manager. By the end of the month he wanted me to take it over, and lease it from him. This was the beginning of October. I told him to give me to the first of the year, so I could get it ready for health inspections, and to do the requirements research.. Again we didn't have computers then, so it was a lot of phone calls, and leg work.

I was working on getting things cleared away and cleaned up. I was learning about storage requirements, temperature, cleaning and all that. I had been at it for about 3 weeks when he asked me again if I was gonna lease it from him. I reminded him that I would do it in January, when I could get it licensed. We had started making pretty nice money each day, so much so that I could afford to pay Kat to come in and run a shift for me, so I could take some time off.

There were a lot of things that happened that week that could only be contributed to God. I was working on Tuesday, and someone had a whole bunch of books on tape for sale. There was like $200 worth of books on tape, and he was only asking for $30, he just wanted them out of his truck. I don't do books on tape, but something told me to buy them anyway. It was only $30 and you might find a need for them.

Another day we were driving down the road and a really nice 6 foot ladder fell off a pick up truck. We stopped and picked it up, and tried to catch the guy that dropped it, but we could not find him, so we took it home. There were a few other things, I don't remember what all there was, that were happenstance kind of acquisitions. Things we really did not have use for, but take it anyway.

It was Friday (Still gotta love Fridays. It is just NOT my Day.) Halloween 1997; I had taken the day off to do shopping for the stand, Chris needed tires on the car (For which the boss and owner of the tire store, told us I could pay for them from work) and we needed to get a service done. We did all the maintenance stuff and then went to the market for supplies.

It was early afternoon and Kat was working the shop. Her hubby had come in the night before, the kids were in school so he came up to the shop to just visit with the boss man owner. They had a few beers and were talking about my plans to take over in January. The boss man still did not understand why I wanted to wait. So Kat's hubby, in his typical self, decided that we should not wait, and agreed to take it over right away.

We drove up, I started unloading the car, and the boss man came out to talk to me. He told me Kat's hubby had agreed we would take it over right away. I asked him what he meant and he said they had signed the papers and we were now in charge of the stand. I was so angry. There was no way that place was going to get legal the way it was, and I could not make it happen overnight. When I told Chris what happened, he snapped. This guy had been one of his best friends since they were kids. And he had just totally disrespected me, by going behind my back and making a deal.

I unloaded the car, gave Kat the keys and told her to enjoy her new business. She said HUH? And I told her what her husband had done.

We headed back to the house, started throwing all of our belongings into the car, and we added a kitten we had fallen in love with to them mix. I had been saving all the change I had collected since we got there, and all the tips from the stand, into a jar. We had $68 in change. We had just spent all of my paycheck for the week on the oil change and other stuff we needed so we had no real cash. We might make it back to Florida on $68, but that didn't count for anything else. Then I remember the strange acquisition.

We went to the truck stop, got on our CB radio and started advertising the ladder, the books on tape and what ever else it was. We sold the Ladder for $20 right off the bat. Then a lady driver hollered about the tapes. How much, I threw out $80 because we were desperate and she hollered back, SOLD. Not only did she not question the price, she also took us for a ride in her truck and we had long talk about how God worked in our lives. It was a talk that lasted for hours, and was just what both of us needed. It helped lift our spirits and get us back to Florida with faith, if nothing else. We did see her a few years later when we were driving. It was a really amazing time.

We made it back to Florida, with no plan what so ever. I don't even remember where we stayed until we found a place. I know that we ended up sort of renting a house from a guy that was in the program. It didn't last long, but it was long enough for Chris to get another a/c job and we found another place to live. We had not given up on the idea of going trucking, just had to put it on hold, until we could figure it all out.

There are so many stories I could tell about this time, but I don't think they fit in with the spiritual side of things, so I am going to leave them out this go around. The one thing I do know is that God always put events, opportunity, or people in our path when we needed them the most. I also believe that he took certain events or circumstances to teach us about discernment. He would allow things to happen and allow us to decern the truth. It was often a challenge, and I will agree that we sometimes got it very wrong.

Chris had all his tools stolen from work one weekend, and since he could not work without tools, and we didn't have the money to buy more, things went kinda downhill. That was the encouragement we needed to find a truck driving school. There was one in Orlando that did student grants and financing. Janie lived in Orlando and Skip worked at Disney. We asked if we could stay with them while we went to school. We would, of course, contribute anytime we were able. They talked about it, and apparently my sister won, because we were allowed to stay. I learned later that Skip had been concerned, saying "Once a drug addict, Always a drug addict." I have had to bite my tongue over the years. I wanted to say to him, "Once and Alcoholic, Always and Alcoholic." It's very true, we can always change our addiction, but addiction always exists.

Having made the choice of the school, arranging for an interim job driving cars to the auction, and having a place to stay we were moving forward. Completely out of my Comfort Zone!