So much time has passed since I took a job outside of the small town where we raised our children and now three years later live three hours south of there in the country. We went from a small town acre to a country acreage including timber land and a crooked creek that runs through it. Some days I think to myself,"What were were thinking? (within an exasperated internal sigh)", while other days I verbalize it out loud wondering if we were half crazy.

Through an unexpected situation with work, Dave and my workplaces were located in a way that we had to maintain dual residency for three years, agonizing! Fortunately we are now on the other side of this and now (for the past two months) both live in one place 100% of the time. I no longer think the "are we crazy" part, but now look forward to blogging again about our newest adventures. This one will include our "baby", Ricky, faithfully waking us at 6am so he can run outside to chase the squirrel up the tree. The ones where I share about our gardening and current mom and pop business endeavor.... the one that will take several years to build.... again. The one that will require research each step of the way. The one that will require hard on the back labor and need to be watched over ........ did I say that I no longer wonder about crazy, I digress. :-) -not really.

Today's blog entry will also STILL be about family life cycles. I found this great educationally informing website about this topic to share with you:
http://laurencleave.blogspot.com/2010/04/family-purchasing.html

This blogspot focuses mainly on marketing research and sheds insight into purchasing decisions of the family.... nice info if you are looking at selling something and needing to figure out who to target .... exactly the kind of info helpful while future business planning.

Info below is copied and pasted from the website....

Family Life Cycle concept consists of
- income, family composition, changing demands on income -
These are the different possible Titles:
1.Bachelor - This is someone who is young, single, not living at home
2.Newly married - They are Young and with no children
3.Full Nest I - Have their youngest child at under 6 years
4.Full Nest II - Have their youngest child at 6 years or over
5.Full Nest III - Tend to be Older married with dependent children
6.Empty Nest I - Are older married, have no children and living at home
7.Empty Nest II - Older married, retired, no children living at home
8.Solitary Survivor I In labour force
9.Solitary Survivor II Retired

I am in the #6 Empty Nest 1 stage of life. I see that I never had a stage 1 in adulthood, because I went from parents home to married #2 and full nest #3 within a year. So "here we are" on the road map of family life........... I love family life, it's what I chose at a young age, it's what I studied in college and it's apart of what I teach professionally within my job, and now I realize it is what I have been blogging about for years and now will open a new chapter and start a fresh.

P.s. I made the doll pictured above using a pattern from the book: