January 20, 1986, I had lasagna for supper. How do I remember that? Because since then, I have heard an old wives’ tale that says spicy food can induce labor. So, when my contractions started a few hours after dinner, I made a note of it.

Nicholas came into this world, pink and perfect, about four o’clock the next morning. There is so much I could say about him, but that will wait until the day I write his life story. Sorry, Nick, but right now, this is about me.

I had held several jobs since I had quit both the donut shop and the 7-Eleven in the spring of 1985. The worst had to be working for the F.O.E., which is the Fraternal Order of the Eagles. Their membership headquarters was in Denver and somehow I got a job helping to keep track of their members nationwide. Wow, just try to imagine how exciting that would be. Again, remember this was before computers were widely used. And, well, it would probably have been sacrilegious for the Fraternal Order of the Eagles to use them anyway.

After that I worked at an ice cream parlor that a friend of mine, Nancy, opened in downtown Castle Rock. Never a good idea for a pregnant woman to work with that much ice cream. Unfortunately, they were only open a couple months when Nancy decided it just would never be lucrative.

The next place I worked for just a couple weeks was through a temp service making up files for some big corporation. It was pretty mundane work, but I had a good time. I worked with a motley crew of people – a retired woman, some big goofy kid just out of high school, I can’t remember who else anymore.

Basically, though, when Nick was born, I was unemployed. I also was very ready to move out of Dan’s parent’s house.

They came up with this wonderful idea. They would co-sign a loan for us to buy a house and pay half of the mortgage for the first year. Supposedly, the housing market around Castle Rock was so booming that we couldn’t lose. That would give me a year to get a real job. No pressure there.