Home Sweet Home
By Melissa Ringstaff
The Ringstaff Family Home
This photo was taken about a week ago by my daughter, Sarah.
We moved into our house ten years ago this month. I was very pregnant with my daughter Laura. She’ll be 10 years old in June! I never thought I would want to move to Harlan, Kentucky. In fact, when my husband came home and said, “I found a house I think you’ll love.” I replied with, “I’ll go look at it, but there’s no way I’m moving to Harlan.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Harlan. It is a beautiful small town. I didn’t want to be that close to my mother-in-law.
At the time, my husband’s son Justin, and his wife Chelli and their two baby boys were living with us. So we all loaded up and drove to Harlan to look at the house. We drove up in the drive. It was winter so nothing was blooming and the yard was overgrown with bushes and weeds. The house had sat empty for over two years.
I loved the stone wall along the drive and I loved the stone path that led to the back door. Chelli and I walked into the mudroom and then into the little yellow (at the time) kitchen and I saw the big picture window over the sink. From there we moved through the butler’s pantry into the dining room and we looked at each with big eyes. There was a gorgeous crystal chandelier and a lovely bay window overlooking the front yard. And then into the foyer where I saw a beautiful staircase and I knew I had already fallen in love.
The house was built in 1950. Needless to say, we’ve spent the last ten years repairing and s-l-o-w-l-y renovating the house. We’ve replaced the roof, all 53 windows, the garage doors, rewired the kitchen, redone the plumbing in half the bathrooms, put in a new floor in the basement… and cut down something like 23 massive 100+ foot oak and poplar trees that were too close to the house or rotting and dangerous.
Next on our list… finish remodeling the kitchen, rewire the rest of the house, finish renovating the other bathrooms, paint the whole interior, replace the kitchen floor, tear out wallpaper and put in new, rip out the carpet and refinish the hardwood floors… Sometimes it feels like a never ending list of things that need to be done.
Shortly after making an offer on the house, the ten of us packed up the house in Rose Hill, Va. (just over the mountain) and moved to Harlan.
Little did I know that just a few weeks later the flowers would start to bloom. I am blessed to have literally hundreds of daffodils, tulips, irises, day lilies, Irish moss, crocuses, trillium, wild roses, azaleas, and peony’s. Not to mention all of the trees that bloom. During March, April, and May there are so many flowers I can have fresh cut flowers in every room of the house and you’d never know I took some from the yard. What a blessing!
I worried for nothing about my mother-in-law. She hasn’t tried to control my life. In fact, she’s been a real blessing to us. My daughter Laura was born in this house, right there in my bedroom in the same bed I sleep in today. We planted trees in honor of our children. We’ve buried a lot of pets in this yard. Our family gathers together very often in this house for birthdays, holidays, and just ordinary days.
Home Sweet Home
There have been times I wished we could move somewhere else, but I’m glad now that we are still here. This house has given a legacy of love and stability and home to my children. I’ve lived in this house longer than I’ve lived anywhere in my entire life. And the same goes for my husband.
Home is sweet.
Tell me about your home. What does home mean to you?
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Leigh
February 21, 2013 at 8:13 am (89 days ago)Melissa,
Your home is beautiful! I’m living in a house for the first time in my 20+ yrs of married life. Living in NYC, we always lived in apartments. 8/11 we moved out of the city and settled in a little village in the Hudson Valley. We rent, so I can’t “make it mine”, but having the space and beauty of a yard is wonderful! And stairs!!…we have stairs!!
Sometimes I wonder if we made the right choice moving here. Living in a town of 2800, people can be stand-offish. We are s-l-o-w-l-y making friends.
(saw a bluebird yesterday! woohoo)
Leigh´s last [type] ..2 servings a day
Melissa Ringstaff
February 21, 2013 at 8:37 am (89 days ago)Leigh, thank you! I am very blessed. I lived in a lot of apartments and rentals – this is the second home we’ve owned. We owned the house in Rose Hill, Va. – lived there for about 18 months. Before that I spent 10 years in rentals. But renting a house is so much nicer than living in an apartment, IMO. I like my privacy!
Harlan is a little town, too. And we are in the heart of poverty stricken Appalachia and mountain people are friendly but at the same time clanish and so over the last ten years we’ve slowly made some friends, but I don’t have any close friends. Sad, I know. Part of that may be mu fault though since I’ve always had a hard time making friends… and I have a fear of rejection (I was terribly picked on as a child – ha, ha). But I’m not shy any more and can talk to pretty much anyone…
Tammy Cameron
February 22, 2013 at 8:01 am (88 days ago)Hi Melissa! You have a beautiful home. I love to hear about your life in Harlen, the beautiful flowers and your family. My life to me is so different now. I am 44 now and 3 years ago I had a massive stroke. My husband said I was like a newborn.He had to do everything for me.
I have two beautiful children who are teenagers now. I am slowly getting better. Before the stroke a was a Women’s leader and I did a Teenage Girls ministry among other things. God did amazing things for me to become all of that because I was very shy,very insecure, very quit.God taught me so many lessons . Now after the stroke it’s like I had a plague. I lost all my friends people don’t come to me for advice anymore my phone never rings. I haven’t driven in 3 years and I’m so isolated.
I could go on but Our Father has me all to Himself. I have learned so many lessons from Him. When I wasn’t emotional I asked Him why a stroke He said When you are week I AM STRONG.My dream is to preach to the multitude. You know the story about the Loafs and the fish how Jesus had the people sat down in groups and Jesus gave thanks and broke the loafs and satisfied the people. I feel like I’m being broken to satisfy the people.
Before the stroke we lived at a horse facility.We boarded horses, my husband trained horses we had a pond my children fished in and swam in. We had a golf cart. Our home had to be foreclosed on because of my stroke and because my husband had to take care of me. My kids had to watch their horses leave. We had a garage sale and sold everything. Every morning before school my kids would say Momma I don’t want to move And I would say God has a plan for us and a reason or He wouldn’t move us.
We live in a small compact rental now. Some days I’m strong and faith filled other days I just cry. I have depression anger all the things a Christin is not suppose to have. We are in a process of building our on house that we own in a fabulous neighborhood. It a huge step for me. I a women with a stroke went to a design center. We bought a lot, me who had a stroke. I see my home that I know The Lord gave me as a new beginning. A new chapter for my Family.
I know all the right way to think and act but I don’t do it sometimes. I feel guilty because I’m so unstable. I can’t do my daughters hair or put on her makeup and I feel like she sees me as week and unpredictable.I didn’t bond with my Mom and I didn’t have Women friends and I want to make sure my daughter and I have an awesome relationship. My children are so special to me and before the stroke I did everything for them. Now I can’t some days I fall apart I feel like my husband is their parent and I don’t fit into my on family.
I know this is long. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this . It’s healing to me to tell someone. I very excited about this new house but scared at the same time. The unknown, letting go of the old is harder then I thought, pressure of perfection, what if it’s not at all what I thought.Ready or not here it comes!!
Melissa Ringstaff
February 22, 2013 at 8:38 am (88 days ago)Tammy, thank you for sharing your story. My heart was broken hearing your struggles. I am so sorry that you’ve had to endure such a difficult thing. Of course, I’ve never been through exactly what you have gone through, but I struggle with a chronic illness and a weak immune system and when I get sick, I get REALLY sick. Sometimes for weeks or months at a time. I’ve felt bad that often my daughters take care of me when I am sick, cook and clean, bring me food in bed, etc. But they are such sweet children and so loving and such a blessing to me. Thankfully, I am not sick all of the time. There have been times when I’ve had to care for my Mother-in-law and it was hard, but that’s what families do – THEY TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. I’m sure your family loves you very much. I’m sure also that they are very thankful that you didn’t die from the stroke.
What a blessing to be able to build your own home! New beginnings are good. Have you read the book Unglued by Lysa Terkeurst? I’m reading the devotional to that book and it is wonderful. Maybe you would enjoy it, too. I don’t know if you have thought about it in the past, but sometimes it is easier to write a letter to your loved ones… your children to let them know how you feel. I do that sometimes.
And no one is perfect. Only Jesus. Don’t let expectation – yours or others – control your life. Embrace joy. Live each day the best you can. Slow progress is okay. And you can only do what you can do. I’ve had to learn this the hard way.
I pray that God blesses your family’s new beginning, new home, new walk with HIM.