After I graduated from Monahans High School in 1975, (Yay Loboes), I moved to Waco, TX (#10) to go to college…no, not that college, one of the other three in Waco. My family then moved to Midland, TX and I lived with them during the summer (#11). After finishing at that other college (TSTC) in Waco in May of ’78 with a degree in Electronics, I moved, as I stated above, to Thousand Oaks, California (homes #12, #13, & #14).
I bought the Ti plant while in home #13, on Benson Way. The back yard of the home had a pool surrounded by tropical plants. I think ‘Ti’ lived on the back patio. After that house, I moved to an apartment (#14) and Ti moved into my bedroom. From the apartment I moved to Riverside, CA to go to California Baptist College where I studied music and psychology for two years under the impression that I was going into ministry. I lived in a home with a missionary couple for several months (#15) before moving into the dorms (#16 or #16 & #17 depending on how you count it as it was two different rooms over two years) at Cal Baptist. Ti decorated my dorm room, “the penthouse on 2B”. After two years of working two jobs and going to school full time, I experienced severe burnout and, being totally broke, accepted a job offer back in the software industry.
Over the next years, Ti moved with me to Anaheim, CA (May 1983 – Feb. 1987) where we lived in the Monticello Apartments (#17), the Carbon Creek Condos (#18), and a friend’s house (#19) before moving to Casa Grande Apartments (#20) in Milpitas, Ca, where an earthquake centered two blocks away shattered a plate glass mirror across the foot end of my waterbed at 4:00am, then to a three bedroom house on Park Victoria avenue (#21) in Milpitas before moving back south to Rhapsody Drive (#22) in Huntington Beach (1988). While living in Huntington Beach, I married Michelle Geske and Ti, she, and I moved into a condo on Carriage Drive (#23) in Santa Ana, CA. Our first two children, Ryan and Kaitlyn, were born while we lived in that 900 square foot condo and I completed a Bachelors degree in business from Biola University. By late 1994 we were getting tired of hearing gun shots from gang wars in the neighborhood and so in April of 1995 we moved to
TEXAS!
For two months we lived in a furnished apartment in north Dallas (#24) provided by the company. We selected a lot and began building a home, but our time in the company provided apartment was up before it was done so we moved to a [roach infested] apartment off Preston Road in Dallas (#25) where in 6 weeks we had the exterminator out 5 times. Finally, just in time for Kaitlyn’s July birthday, the house was ready and we moved in to our new home on Hemlock Lane (#26) in Flower Mound where we lived for 10 YEARS! Karyssa, our youngest, was born while we were living on Hemlock and Ti welcomed her home. In mid 2004 I quit my job in the software industry and headed into ministry … officially? ... finally? Whatever. In 2005 we moved to a new home on Crestwood Lane in Springtown, TX (#27) where we lived for 6 years while I served at FBC in Azle and attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. 16 YEARS IN 2 HOMES!
But it wasn’t to last. In 2009 I graduated from seminary and in 2011 we transitioned to a church in the north Oak Cliff area of Dallas…and it was a long transition. The house in Springtown sold before we could find a home in the Dallas area so we lived for three months in a mission house (#28) in Hurst, TX and for two months with Michelle’s parents in Flower Mound (#29) before finally getting to move into our new home on Ten Mile Drive in DeSoto, TX (#30). That didn’t last either. 18 months later we were living in the parsonage of FBC Lake Dallas on Beck Avenue (#31) in Lake Dallas, TX. After 18 months at that home in Lake Dallas, we moved to our current, and, hopefully, final home in Runaway Bay, TX (#32).
Which brings me back to Ti. 37 years and 19 homes later, Ti’s still with us. I re-potted him today for the umpteenth time. He’s died back a couple of times and re-sprouted, so maybe this is technically his grandchild that I’m repotting. I don’t know, but he’s still here. He seems to really like Runaway Bay. So do we. Hope we get to stay for a while.