Us Girls

Joy’s Stuff

My name is Joy Erickson.  I am 53  years old and live in a little town in Minnesota.  I have two grown boys aged 35 and 31 and 3 wonderful grandchildren.  I have two that are 11 and one who is 7.  Only one girl in the bunch.
I have a lot of hobbies that I keep busy with.  I love reading, scrap-booking, feeding birds, pheasants, deer, rabbits….pretty much anything that happens along to my 80 acres, leaves with a full tummy.  I enjoy knitting, jig saw puzzles.  I tend to get addicted to whatever it is I’m doing at the time. For example, if I’m into reading, I’ll read a book a day for months or if I’m knitting, I’ll knit for months.  I tend to get stuck in what it is I’m into at the moment.  Right now I hate to admit but I’m terribly addicted to Guitar Hero on the Wii.  What a thing for a grandmother to admit to!!
I also really enjoy talking current events with others so I’m kind of thinking of blogging and we’ll just see what happens.

Laura’s Stuff

Howdy.  I’m Laura, formerly known here as “Laura(LS)”.  The LS comes from my incognito appearance on That Other Blog where I ‘met’ Joy.  It stands for Laura Sue.  Yeah, a good hillbilly name.  Too bad I grew up just outside Chicago.  But it fits now.  I live in Iowa, out in the country.

I’m 39  (for the first time), married for almost 16 years to Steve, and we have one son, Josh.  At the moment, my full time job is Mom.  And I love it.

Steve and I met in college, dated all through, and married a little less than a year after graduation.  We’ve lived in Illinois, Texas, Indiana, and now, Iowa.  Josh came a month before our tenth wedding anniversary, and is the light of our lives.  He’s an imp, constantly on the go, and wicked smart.  I often call him Hot Rod, since he’s so into cars, airplanes, boats… pretty much anything transportation that has a motor.

Last year, at the beginning of May 2008, Steve was in a car wreck (known going forward as “The Wreck”), where he cartwheeled his SUV through a ditch during the wee hours of the morning.  He lay in a field, soaking wet and freezing, for about four hours, until a passing neighbor found him (we live in a VERY rural area).  He survived, but his sight did not.  Since then, our family has been in a state of adaptation and transition.  Adaptation, in that we are learning to live, as a family, with a disability.  No more leaving cars (or laundry baskets) in the middle of the hallway floor!  And transition… where do we go from here?  He can’t do the job that he once did, in finance, at least not yet.  Who will be the breadwinner?  Who stays home?  What are our roles now?  And how do we do all this and still be good parents to Josh?

It’s a learning curve, and it’s an amazing journey, learning all this stuff.  Some of this stuff, truthfully, I never WANTED to learn!  But as Tori Amos recently said, “if it’s on your plate, then it’s your time to learn this at Earth School.”  Kinda weird, but yeah, I get it.

I only know Joy, Nikki and Sue through the Internet.  As I said, Joy and I met over at That Other Blog, and struck up a friendship over a football rivalry.  (It’s a shame that such a nice lady is a Vikings Fan!!  Go Bears!)  I’m hoping that one day, sooner rather than later, we’ll get to meet for real, face to face.

Joy has graciously offered an “out” for my writing passion.  I’ve done little bits here and there, including a stint with the local paper, and keeping my own blog, and now I’m excited to pull a chair up to her table, and join in the conversation.   I’m very excited to join, and look forward to throwing in my twenty cents (inflation, you know!)

Nikki’s Stuff

Hi, I’m Nikki, or Nicole, whichever you decide to call me is fine. I am Joy’s daughter-in-law and help out on this blog as much as I can. I typically do T.G.I.F. posts every Friday. Occasionally,  I have something worth writing an actual post about, but not very often.

I just turned 30 in August  of 2010 and so far my 30’s rock. I am married to Joys eldest son, Jason. We’ve been together for 13 years and have one son who will be 11 in July. Jason is a warehouse manager, and before that he was a truck driver for the same company. He’s been there for 8 years. I am a nanny. I will always work with kids, somehow-someway. Someday, soon hopefully, I’ll do that on a much larger scale.

When we aren’t working, our time is mostly dedicated to our son. He plays competitive baseball for the town we live in. He plays short stop, and he also pitches which is his #1 love.  During the warmer months we spend a great deal of our time at the baseball fields, and when we aren’t there we are on our boat fishing. My two favorite places in the world to be; on a boat fishing, or at the baseball fields.