I was very ill with bipolar disorder during the Sanger portion of out lives. I was coming out of a very dark place at the end of our time at the Belmont house. I was still barely aware of what was happening around me. The healing period took years. I was still in a difficult place spiritually in that I felt that Heavenly Father had permanently rejected me. I continued attending church because I knew if I quit attending, it would also affect my family's future attendance.
While living in Sanger, we rented a home with a 5-acre lot on McCall Avenue. The landlord also kept a horse named Pokie there. Pokie had been left in the pasture because she was not considered tamable for riding. Pokie became a part of our lives here, but we knew nothing about horses. We decided to rent out the pasture as an income source for the kids. They would irrigate the pasture, keep track of the residents of the pasture, and collect the rent. Usually, we kept cattle. We knew nothing about raising cows. One time, the cattle got out of our lot. We had no idea what to do, so a neighbor taught us that if we lead the first cow in the line by the ear, the others will follow. Using this method, we got them all back to our pasture.
Kathy became an assistant principal. Her principal made decisions based on what was easiest for him. She became the fall guy when things didn’t work out. She became a great problem solver, which made her popular among the teachers. They went to her when there were problems of any kind. But this caused her relationship with the principal to deteriorate. She made it known in Clovis Unified circles that she wanted to become a principal. At that time, the Clovis Unified path to becoming a principal required becoming an assistant principal at a high school. She interviewed for the open positions many times but was never selected to join that path. We later learned that her boss influenced these decisions to keep her at his school until he retired. She just didn't match the CUSD profile of a principal. Being the breadwinner, she decided to take her career to a higher level. Her mother financed her pursuit of a master’s degree in public administration. Her thesis was on generational poverty. She was determined to become a principal, whether inside CUSD or elsewhere.
We adopted a dachshund puppy, Carmen. She also had a brother who was the runt of his litter. He was not very smart and was not going to be adopted. We adopted him as well and named him Leonardo or Leo. While he wasn’t smart, he gave a lot of love. They were both with us for 17 years. Carmen considered it her mission to look after her brother.
As I healed, I became more functional and was called to be an assistant to Jim Christiansen, the High Priests’ Group Leader. I enjoyed my time working with him. At my suggestion, I was changed from being his counselor to becoming his secretary. They were always making decisions in the dark. Attendance and other data were so slow in being entered into the computer that it was meaningless to help know how much support people needed. As I moved to secretary, I could ensure that information was current and available when making decisions. Later, Jim told me what the right move was, which was to move me from counselor to secretary. The entire presidency was more effective with usable information. I love Jim and what he generously has done for our family, as you will see in the "Fresno again" section.
Money was very tight during this period. Kathy and I still honored our date-night tradition on Fridays. Since there was no money for going out, we would go out to our bedroom. We cooked a special dinner and treat. We then sequestered ourselves in the master bedroom to have dinner and dessert while watching shows on our TV. The kids were instructed that we were not to be disturbed unless the house was burning down. If anyone called for us, they were told that we were out at the movies. Which was true, except that the movie was in our bedroom.
We lived here for four years. When it was time for us to move elsewhere, the landlord took advantage of us. He didn't accept our efforts to clean the windows and insisted that a professional window-washing service had to do it. He told us that the trees in the pasture were our responsibility to keep trimmed and charged us for trimming them. We ended up with nearly $3,000 in charges when we moved out.