Yes, I'd just had my first baby, a boy we called Jack. I can't believe how that time has flown!
21 years ago I was 25. My husand was 29. We'd been married for 6 years and we'd lived overseas for 2 of those. I'd been a nurse for 9 years and I was working at the Royal Children's Hospital in their PICU. I wasn't yet published although I was writing - I think I'd completed two books at that stage. We were still living in the first house we'd bought together. My car was a Nissan Pintarra. My husband was working for a bank. My mother was still alive. My father hadn't retired yet. My sister, Ros, was at uni and doing her social work placement at the same hospital where I'd given birth - she was the first family to see Jack, he was about 4 hours old. He was the first grandchild on my side of the family and the 7th grandchild on the other. His cousin Jessica had been born 11 days prior. We only had one computer and NO internet!! NO Facebook. I didn't even own a mobile phone!!!
Yep. Times have changed!
This is the boy now -
a truly fabulous - smart, intertested, witty, engaged, passionate - young man who I am so proud of. I only wish his grandmother was around to celebrate with us.
So tell me, what were you doing 21 years ago??
1995. My mom had to move into a retirement home when she was "losing it" in January (we think the cancer moved to her brain). When my husband worked 3-11 shifts, I drove the kids to school then went on to Mom's home 1/2 an hour away and did her banking, fed her dog, etc. weekdays then also visited her on Sundays with my family. When my husband worked 7-3 shifts, I drove the kids to school after lunch and continued on to Mom's, knowing that my husband could pick up the kids after school. It was a busy year for me, as she died in July, just shy of her 76th birthday. I was drinking at least 10 Pepsi cans every day, usually held between my legs while driving because we didn't have cup holders back then (and now have diabetes to show for it, plus a lot of extra weight). Very stressful year, what with finding a home for her dog, selling her car privately, having the estate auction, and, of course, the visitations and funeral. My sister and her husband stayed with us for ages during the time we got Mom into "the home" and again when she died. My brother helped at Mom's house, as he lived around the corner (so helped with the dog even more than I did). Yup. Definitely not my best year, but I'm glad it was wonderful for you!
ReplyDeleteOh hugs, Laney! What a terribly sad year for you. Things are never quite the same after your Mum dies, are they?
DeleteOh, wow! Happy birthday to Jack...and happy birth day anniversary to Mum!
ReplyDelete1995- we'd just bought our first house and had been married 18 months. Went on two foreign holidays (we thought we were so very cool)- to Goa and Italy. I was 30 and working in vascular research (9-5, bliss!) and hubby was a GP in Manchester, north England. I was desperate for a baby and nothing was happening- started treatment (medication) which made me a bit loopy, totally unaware that it'd actually work and by October the next year I'd have my baby boy and my life would change forever. But until then we were playing the pee on a stick waiting game...
Writing hadn't come near my radar, and neither had living in New Zealand- we thought we were settling down to live in Manchester for the rest of our lives.
Geez, what I know now compared to back then... :-)
lol, Louisa! If only we all had crystal balls!
DeleteI'd actually just been diagnosed with PCOD and told it was highly unlikely I'd fall pregnant without medication...
Ha! I think I'm the most fertile infertile person on the planet :-)
Congratulations on raising such a wonderful young man!
ReplyDeleteGosh, 21 years ago...that's stretching the old brain matter. My eldest girl would have been coming up to her sixth birthday, my youngest to her fourth (gee, where did that time go!) I'd just started work that year in a party plan business that gave me more than just income. We had moved into our current home a couple of years earlier but still had no carpet and I had no washing line (which had been quite challenging in the years of cloth nappies I can tell you!) I was writing but still getting rejected and I was very involved in Romance Writers of New Zealand, still in its relatively early stages. I was also many MANY kilos lighter and a great deal fitter than I am now, LOL! Yes, I do believe I still had and used a gym membership back then. How times have changed...
lol, Yvonne - I conteplated going near the how much weight I'd put on and then left it for my sanity :-)
DeleteCloth nappies - oi! Remember that all too well!
Wow, Amy, how he's grown! Congratulations to you both!
ReplyDelete21 years ago I was looking after my four year old and six year old and working part time in the public service. Actually, that may have been when I worked at parliament house. I was also wondering if I was mad to dream of being a romance writer and was fiddling with my first manuscript! What fun.
Looks like there were a few of us tinkering around 1995, Annie!
DeleteAnd yours kids were the same age as Yvonnne's!
Woohoo happy birthday Jack 1995 I was budy working night shift in a clyb hubby had been through cancer and was then not working we had 4 kids in school and there were teenage problems and I still had my mum and dad life was good and yep no internet or computer
ReplyDeleteHave fun
Helen
Sounds like a stressful year, Helen but I love how you count no internet/computer as a plus :-)
DeleteBut there were books! Did you read as voracioulsy back then?
Woohoo happy birthday Jack 1995 I was budy working night shift in a clyb hubby had been through cancer and was then not working we had 4 kids in school and there were teenage problems and I still had my mum and dad life was good and yep no internet or computer
ReplyDeleteHave fun
Helen
Happy birthday Jack and Happy birthiversary to you. Twenty one years ago I'd just moved from the quintessential small-town school to a far larger and rather daunting high school. It was a two hour commute each way, and down a very winding, steep road. I think I was sick almost every day for at least six months. I spent much of the year getting up to speed on all the essentials as declared by Dolly and Girlfriend, and bemoaning the fact I didn't have a GameBoy. No internet - we had a trusty Encyclopaedia Britannica collection (with the pearlescent covers and wafer thin pages) that I used to lose myself in whenever an assignment was looming. I was graduating from the Babysitters Club series to reading Sweet Valley High, and I learned most of what I 'knew' about life from Party of Five.
ReplyDeletelol, thanks, Clare! We had world book encyclopedias when I was growing up and they were our source of info for all assignments!
DeleteHappy Birthday to Jack... he's definitely grown a lot since then and it sounds like much has changed in life for you AA.
ReplyDeleteHmm, 21 years ago I was at intermediate. I was resisting Mum wanting me to spend more time outside since I enjoyed my reading a lot (solution was to read outside). I vaguely recall that it was about this time that I was asking Mum lots of questions about my biological father who I've never met and now as an adult see it as a good thing that I've never met. Let's just say there are many negatives to him as a person.
Oh and most importantly I hadn't screwed up my right ankle yet.
Reading outside - perfect :-)
DeleteIt's interesting the things we see as important when we're younger that we look differently upon as we age, isn't it, Lyn?
Hugs on the screwed up ankle!
Happy birthday to Jack! Crazy how times have changed in the last 21 years - no internet?? How did we live? lol
ReplyDeleteIn 1995 I was in Grade 5, studying ballet and an avid reader. Beyond that I can't say I remember a whole lot! My beautiful grandmother and Nonno were still around, though. I lost Nan only a few years later and I don't even think she'd gotten cancer at that point. Blissful days.
Ack! Stefanie. Grade 5! Now I feel olllllld! :-)
DeleteBallet, books and grandparents does sound like bliss x
Happy birthday to Jack...and happy birthversary to you, Amy!
ReplyDelete21 years ago...I was working for the TAB (oncourse, which was quite an experience...and meant travelling all over the countryside). Like several here I was playing around with writing the odd romance (odd probably being the operative word). And...oh, dying to see Europe, which happened a couple of years later. My word, how can 21 years have passed so quickly? sigh.
I can't believe (although I should be able to given how weirdly your life and my life have aligned) that you worked at race courses when you were younger, Michelle! My first job was at the local race track in the restaurant, washing dishes! It wasn't the TAB but I knew my way around all the areas having to take tea trays to the stewards etc.
ReplyDeletelol "odd" :-) I think we can all lay claim to that one!
What a good looking dude, AA.
ReplyDelete21 years ago I was single, and having a blast. Now married and still having a blast.
21 years ago I was meeting Mr Bailey. That seems to have worked out well for us. :)
ReplyDelete