Hi: Am enjoying your delightful Country Life Page. Can't view it all at one time so will visit again soon. Thank you for sharing your life. Enjoyed your positive spirit. DorineDorine Wrangell
dewrangell@ns.sympatico.ca
It is fantastic and very impressive.
I would like to do something like you in South-Korea,and to learn all the server software to open my home URL.
Thank you and Good luckHyungsoo Park
underconstruction.....
asifvip@yahoo.co.kr
What a wonderful life story is it!!! You lived my dream life in the cabin. I have been dreaming of that kind of life you described here.I have been a computer specialist for last 27 years and am ready to get out of high-tech world and live country life like you experienced in the cabin.
That is the life my life is meant to be!!! Alas, I am not allowed to do so since I have wife who likes city life. To me, marriage is a once-a-life-time thing and the term "divorce" is not in my dictionary.
So, under this circumstance, to manage my obsessive country life yearning, I bought a cabin with 6.5 acres last year. I go to my cabin twice a week. It calmed down my country life fever a little bit.
Anyway your life in your Uncles' cabin is so,so inspiring to me!!! And your site is the best site in the whole world to me.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank you!
Yoshi Sugita
ysugita@bellsouth.net
Hang in there! You did a smart thing by getting the cabin, hats off to you! We need to follow through on our dreams to be happy... otherwise, they are just empty lonely dreams. Love to you, CJ
I loved the quote" Never be sad for what is lost, just be glad it was once yours." I am a firm believer that everything we do gets us to the next place in life. We had to do this to get there. Will come back and read more as I have time. Thank you for the Web page, I enjoyed reading it! AnnaAnna Roetemeyer
roet@aol.com
I truly loved your site. It is enlightening. Keep up the good work and it's nice to have clean reading material with homemade warmth......coming from the heart...Vicki Patrick
vickip@family-net.net
Oh Crystal,how I've enjoyed your site!Makes one feel so comfy & welcomed!Yes, I thought I was born 100 yrs too late too.LOL! The closest I got to experience what it was like 100 yrs. ago was during the 3 winter mo.I spent in NH .The fireplace was the sole heating source, so chopping & hauling wood,gettin' up at 4 am to stoke the fire and cooking on a wood burning stove had to be done daily.Think it snowed tons every day!
Just love your graphics,but I'll have to stop back again 'cause there's just so much good stuff to see!
Autumn
geocities.com/ocktober7/index.html
ocktober7@yahoo.com
Ijust happened along and found your page, I too after spending 22.5 years married and now divorced, I've found myself in debt and responsible as he just walked away from it all, I am trying to close up things and take care of the finacial mess he left me with and then I hope to be able to move on and begin new, I have had to work 2 full time jobs and with 3 kids one in college the other with his dad and the youngest in High School it has been difficult to focus on myself, but I know I will have to take care of myself, for my own well being and am looking forward to starting over once our house in PA is sold, and things can be paid off.This is something I never thought I would have to go through, but I do believe things happen for a reason in life, and I am MUCH BETTER OFF, even in debt, and alone, but time will heal and I too hope to find the Peace within myself, Great stories, I too have longed to be in a place as you described, I've been simplifing my life over this past year and focusing on what is important to me. Take Care.
Eva
ethomas2@wvu.edu
I agree that getting back to the basics and enjoying life for what God has given us is a true peace of mind. These standards are great for moral aspects which our country despertly needs. Our children have been neglected and some what abused for depriving them of the teaching and experience of what some people call the "simple life".We have made the generation of stress, materialistic mind, broken down families, low value of life, praying out of schools, viewing people's selfworth with money,looks,etc.
I pray that the experience of such, will bring a change for the future but we need people like you to stand up and reach the world because they truely do not know what we are talking about. I enjoyed your story. Your doing a great thing!!!!!
Christine Brown
hunter092898@apl.com
I just wanted to feel close to you so I came and read your newer post and updates. You be blessed. You really bless others. Winniewinnie
pooh@flippin.net
I'm Autumn's daughter and I really like your site!! Especially the kitty!! With so many great links, i'll have to come back and visit again.Summer
n/a
leosun75@webtv.net
Hi, believe it or not I was looking for information on manual washing machines when I came across your site. I am very glad it happened. You made me feel very welcome ... thank you. It is delightful.Hazel
tasbelle@freemail.com.au
I was looking for slipcovers and came upon your site. I lived abroad for many years and found returning to the US hard. I had been living in a culture that always made time to stop and relax. Enjoyed your story, and reading about others that have found what its all about. This is a group of kindred spirits and I will come back often. Thanks for the breath of fresh air!!Faith Ann Dressler
FaithAnnD@aol.com
I love your website! Have you read a book called dear madam about an 80yr old woman who went to live in an old miners shack near the kalamath river? I think you would like it.
Thank you for allowing me to share your life.Gwen Briscoe
gbriscoe@earthlink.net
I've really enjoyed visiting your site this evening. In many many ways your life is a mirror image of my own and it is comforting to know others live and feel the same.
Regards, KarenKaren
bearden@webhart.net
Hi,I hit the wrong site but glad I did.Everyone has a story & it was a pleasure reading yours.Don't you just love the simple pleasures of life & most of them are free."Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.Thanks for sharing it made me smile.LindaLinda
PFinners27@aol.com
How enjoyable to read. LOVE your perspective. I'm a Missouri woman-never left the state...until now. I'm up in the sw corner of Wisconsin pining away for the Ozarks and all my family and friends I left there. I hope to visit your site again. I'm so new at computers, and this one belongs to the company I work for, but I hope to get my own someday soon.Patti Hafner
Very nice site. I stopped by for a visit and couldn't leave without saying, ''Hello!''.Grandpa Chuck
http://grandpachuck.iscool.net
grandpachuck@usa.net
I was just browsing the Net for Christmas gift suggestions and came upon you "Country Life" site. What a delight. I have put it on my favorite site list and will take the time to read more about your take on life that puts a smile on my face. Thank you....Debby Janda
dajanda@hotmail.com
I am really enjoying this site. By the way, my grandmother on my father's side was a Baker. Small world!MaryAnn Crocker
mac@ics.olemiss.edu
bEAUTIFUL WEBSITE THANK YOU SO QUAINT AND CHARMING. MADE MY BLUES GO AWAY.LINDA YSASI
VYSASI @AOL.COM
Crystal, I absolutely love your websites! I think you are a very kind and gifted woman! Gob Bless you and have a very Merry Christmas! PhyllisPhyllis
autumn_gal2
Enjoyed reading about you and what Christmas is all about.
Things that we don't treasure is time spent together, even if it is a sip of tea together.
I find that T.V. has robbed us of us!
Never lived back in the good old days but, heard enough about them that I miss them!
Have A Merry Chirstmas in Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior!Cindy Moore
Mkover@aol.com
I too went through a similar experience. I, too, went back to the country and found myself, again. I had lost me along the way of making a life, family, raising children, running a business, etc. I finally lost everything, but found me again. I am a stronger person and know for sure, that I can survive many things due to my hardships earlier. Thank you for a wonderful article. Ga
I really enjoyed reading your site. I can understand what it is like starting with nothing. I am a 33 yr old mother of two who is married to a wonderful man, buttimes have been really tough for the last five years. Yoursotry of starting over is what just happened to us after being homeless for three months, and having to live with a generous friend. Thanks you for the smiles and the tears.
Rhea
Very nice story & really nice site - thanks for sharing. Best wishes to you. :-)corinne lewis
corinnepearl@aol.com
Your story touched me. It truly is the simpler things in life that matter most. I know a small handful of people who feel the same way and will tell them about this site.Anita
scrappinnita@aol.com
I love your site...especially your storyDarlene Marie Ranek
dardar99@intergrafix.net
I used to live in Portageville, Mo. I truly enjoy living there. I must say I truly enjoyed your web page. So much so I e-mail my daughter to read it.Betty
BBlckwldr@aol.com
i wish i could express how i feel about your story. it came at a time wheni really need to know there are people in the world like you. so much of what you said is as if i wrote my story, feelings, things that i love to do and enjoying what are called "simple" pleasures of life. i don't consider them simle, they are o more value then the most expensive diamonds and such. thank you so much for sharing. peace and love to you always dianaDiana Marie Sovathy
njdiana1121@aol.com
I love your stories. They make me want to just stop the rat race and relax. As a spinner, knitter, weaver and professional computer consultant, wife, grandmother, daughter and much more I get real tired of everything. So does my husband. We have a vacation home that is all but paid for and can't let go of family and home in another state. Sometimes I think we are just plain dumb. Will work it out but I love your page.
Thanks Jo KingJo King
peachqb@aol.com
I really enjoyed reading your story and the warmth that lied within . Thanks for sharingmajbritt
Dear Crystal,
This is the second time to sign up in the guestbook. Ever
since the first one, I visited your site countless times,
and each time I felt as if I returned cozy home from exile.
Your wonderful personality is ever present there in the site. Your grandma-like hospitality with a cup of virtual
hot coffee is so good too though someday I would like to
have a real one also.
Bravely overcoming such a hardship, you showed us, site
visitors, exactly where the true value of life is. The
value is not in any amount of materials, but in the
unflinching spiritual strength that you so splendidly
demonstrated through the hardship. Such a strength to
which I am eternally attracted is very rare today.
Crystal, take good care of yourself, and thank you so much
for your reply to my first sign up. I am improving my cabin
with my never-ending do-it-yourself works by borrowing your
frontier spirit.
God bless you and I love you,
YoshiYoshi Sugita
ysugita@bellsouth.net
Yoshi,
I'm still working on getting myself pulled back together and miss my cabin in Missouri and those hills!
I moved back to Moms' birthplace and work here is impossible to find. Thanks to internet and Ebay I am selling books online and saving for another cabin in the middle of nowhere to enjoy the simple life again.
You get spoiled when you are around loving people and the ones in Mid-State Missouri showed me how wonderful folks can
still treat others. Warm, friendly, and worth more than a million dollars in my book!
I'm the same person here I was in Missouri but that attitude just doesn't fit in here the way it does in the country :)
Made me realize that the town isn't wrong... I'm just in the wrong town! Am going to do my best to get back where I feel I belong and wake up happy just seeing the hills with snow tipped trees and birds pecking on my window to let me know the bird feeder is empty or just looking into a fire and enjoying the peace...
The cabin in the story wasn't fit for Winter living when I first had it. I wasn't fit for that life when I first did it either so we were even I think.
The one year it got so cold I put cardboard and newspapers in the door facing the river to keep drafts down. When you have to find an answer to make it, that answer will come. May not look the best but you learn to do whatever it takes to survive and realize that is all that matters... that and sharing a cup of coffee with people that understand :)
You hang in there and it does get easier as you go. After awhile you know you can figure something out no matter how impossible it seems and it gets to be a game to beat the elements.
After many years the cabin was warm and cozy, but more than that was a feeling of well-being no matter how rough things got with my life. That feeling is one that makes the hard work worth it.
Love to you and my coffee pot is always on for a kindred spirit!
Love to you,
Crystal
https://members.tripod.com/~Crystal_J/CountryLife.html
i really liked your site and hope to stop back oftenjenny
jladywolf752@aol.com
This is a terrific site, Crystal. I couldn't help but notice back on the autumn's board that you were from Missouri. I've lived here most of my life and I know what you mean about this place. I live in Springfield now but I know most of the Ozarks like the back of my hand. I hope to visit here again soon and thanks for sharing all your thoughts and keeping the faith.Brian Butler (Longfistking)
http://pub37.ezboard.com/bfrontiermoon
longfistking@yahoo.com
Brian, Glad you liked the site. Yes, I am from Missouri in heart anyway. When little I hated to go home after a Summer in the Ozarks!
Can remember crying when we'd leave there. Spent many happy times around Cook Station, Union, Sullivan, Steelville, Kimmswick, and Augusta. Fact is, I still can take in a deep breath of sheer delight when I hit the Valley Park area knowing my hills & friendly people are close by :)
Do hate it that they tore the rock bluffs out around Eureka & Pacific! That was where I'd smile knowing I was almost "home".
I was raised in Illinois but never felt the connection I do in Missouri. When I find another cabin on a dead-end road I'll be back there!! I keep a picture of the cabin on a book shelf, and pictures of Mint Springs & Huzzah area & hills I love so much there...
May be living in Illinois right now, but my heart is closer to your neck of the woods. If there is Heaven on earth, it is in small towns across Missouri for sure!!
Been many places but have never seen more friendly loving people in one state. Had the cabin there 15 years and I never met a stranger there :)just people I didn't know yet.
If any of you go to Missouri, forget the highways! For a real treat, visit some of the smaller towns and wineries, and say hi to people you see there, you'd be surprised! They are wonderful about making any visitor feel at home...
Who knows? Like me, you may find people the way they should be but seldom are...
Take care Brian & see you at Autumns' Place!
PS Springfield is where I used to antique/junk shop and wander the historic sites in the area.Crystal
Crystal, I dropped by to visit your page again,a nd realized that I didn't sign your guestbook. I enjoyed reading everything again. 'Course I enjoy all your posts. You're very special to me.
Love,
SarahSarah/Keeper
slcastro@bigvalley.net
Crystal,
I really enjoyed your story about the cabin life; what an experience it must have been, and continues to be. I love the "Thought you left to us". I always contributed my positive attitude to my Czech ancestry; guess some of it comes from my grandmother Weeks too.
Will check your other web site recommendations when I get a chance.
Your "Weeks" cousin, Barbara
barbara leibold
bkl@prodigy.net
What a wonderful blessing to have found your story on Mid-Life Crisis. My husband threw his "mid-life crisis" bombshell on me about a month ago. Says there's not another woman making him do this (no prior history) but whether there is or isn't, it's like you said - you can never be the same from this point on. It changes everything for both of us. Never been happy with his life or himself and believes getting rid of me is the last chance to make himself into something and be happy, because happiness hasn't found him in our almost 15 year marriage. He says he holds out hope that maybe we can reconcile one day once he "finds himself." Funny thing - I didn't realize I had "lost" him. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I know I have a tough road ahead. Got to go to post office to pick up the divorce papers now. Thanks again for your inspiring words. God bless and keep you strong! Much Love, JoAnne
JoAnne Brown
jazmin8356@aol.com
Crystal, Wonderful story. I have just been asked by husband of 23 years for a divorce. He is very confused right now and only wants to change his life. Your story gave me some hope. I know that someday it won't hurt so nuch.
Thanks,
DianaDiana
diana_lb@hotmail.com
I loved your story about Mr. Teddy. Hope you don't mind, but I passed it to some friends on the Jack Russell AOL message board.
ConnieConnie
Spotbd@aol.com
Hi from Weldon Springs, MO. I like your page.Eric Johns
ericstcharles@yahoo.com
I want to tell you, that I like your story. I am sure I'll read your other stories as well. I'm living in the Netherlands, we were living on a farm. My live was very different from yours, although we had lot of sorrows. But who has not? In 1967 and 1968 an American girl was staying with us and my daughter was living in Charlevoy (Mich) for a year as an exchange student. Love and greetings from Corry Romeyn.Corry Romeyn
keeromeyn@hetnet.nl
I love your site.. I am a county girl also. I live in KY on a farm with a pond, a pony, 5 ducks, 2 goats, 2 dogs, 1 cat,2 pigs, 3 kids and 1 husband. I love the simple things also. We heat our home with an old warm-morning wood stove. and thoroughly enjoy our lives. I have never lived anywhere else except the country. I never want to. I feel blessed that God has chosen this beautiul place for me to raise my children. God Bless you and may you have many, many more happy memories.Tammy
evertams@aol.com
Hi! I like your website! I've done quite a few years in the country myself, and am planning to move back soon--thinking about MO or AR, although I've never lived there! I live on Maui now, but it's turning into city, rat-race, hurry-hurry life. I need something laid back again! Well, take care and keep up the good work! It's interesting! --Tesstess
tessmcmanus1@aol.com
I am planning on building a rustic cottage out in Pigeon Lake, Alberta, Canada and get out of this noisy city.John Andrelunas
johna@wci.ab.ca
Just want to take the time to say how much I enjoyed your site!!
Vicki :-)
You have a really neat site - keep up the great work on it!! :)Lady Sparklez
http://www.therumbles.net/
ladysparklez@therumbles.net
Good ReadLEE PAYNE / DALE HILLIER
dale hillier @sympatico.com
I really enjoyed just the simpleness of your page...It was very relaxing to read...
Thank You for sharing it with me...Cyndy
strthundr@tgi.net
I loved reading your pages, I was raised in the sticks and remember the coldd nights of the outhouse and the thunder mug to save trips during the night. I was raised from a family of nine children, I live in kansas. My father was born in missouri though. sincerely, rubyrubyriley828@msn.com
rubyriley@ckt.net
rubyriley828@msn.com
Haven't read it all as of yet, getting late. Will call it a night, or morning, anyhow this was great reading and is very true and interesting. Will definetly get back on line and finish up where I left off. Thanks for sharing.
RichardRichard
StefansonCyruss@aol.com