TBT - That time we lived in Illinois for a few months.

When Ben was working for a large construction management firm right out of college, he was sent to work on-site in rural Illinois for a few months beginning in January of 2006.  Usually, the employee would go on his or her own and be separated from his or her family for the duration of the project, but Ben worked it out for us to be able to go with him.  The job was in the town of Mt. Sterling, but we decided to live in an even smaller town called Clayton, because that put us in a ward instead of a branch (hoping that it would help me make friends).

So, Ben worked about 15 minutes away in Mt. Sterling, building a food processing plant for DOT Foods.  We were in the Quincy Ward, which was about 35 minutes away.  The closest grocery store was a small over-priced place about 10 minutes from us, so we also made regular trips to Quincy for groceries and such.  We were in the Nauvoo Temple District, and the temple was just over an hour from our house.

Clayton was an interesting place to be.  It was definitely the smallest town I've ever lived in.  It was so small that the mail wasn't delivered to individual houses, but that was good because it gave Cat and me an excuse to get out of the house - in the freezing cold Illinois winter - and walk to the post office for the mail.  (While walking the two blocks to the post office I would pass a beauty parlor and I always thought that getting a haircut in a little beauty parlor in a small town might not be a good idea.  But right before we moved I got my hair cut there, and it was a fantastic haircut.  So of course I was kicking myself for waiting so long, haha.)  There were lots of boarded-up homes and businesses.  So many, in fact, that I found myself having thoughts similar to Sally's in "Cars." I really wished I could have seen it in its heyday.

Life was significantly slower for us in Clayton.  Ben worked a lot, and Cat was young enough to be nursing and napping multiple times a day, and I had no friends nearby (aside from Esther the Librarian), and it was COLD, so we spent a lot of time at home.  We played.  I cooked. I took many, many pictures of Cat.  When Cat was napping, I did a lot of scrapbooking.  Sometimes we would drive over to the job site and visit Ben, and we even made friends with the guys he was working with.  Cat and I drove to Quincy and met up with some of the young moms in the ward a few times.  We had a few dinners with the other rural families in the ward, who tended to be older, retired couples, and enjoyed getting to know them.  Life was so slow for me that I even tried my hand at composing, writing a song for a Visiting Teaching conference and performing it with a woman in the ward.

One thing we didn't know about when we made plans to live in Clayton was that it was known for two things: the work camp, and drugs.  There is a minimum security prison in Clayton, which is probably responsible for a significant percentage of the advertised population of 890.  And I was told that there were several drug houses in the town.  I never investigated this, but after our next-door neighbors came over to offer us some of their drug of choice, I had no trouble believing it.

Illegal substances aside, living in Clayton was a great experience.  Not only did we meet many great people - I'm serious about my friend Esther in the library across the street, which shared a small building with a dental office - but I learned a lot as a person, and it was a great experience for Ben and I to have as a young couple.  I was thinking as I started preparing this that maybe things would have been easier if I'd stayed home in Jacksonville with Cat while Ben went to Illinois on his own, but I'm glad that we were all there together.

Visiting Daddy at work.

Welcome to Clayton!

Village of Clayton Municipal Office

Town Hall

Post Office, American Legion, Fire Department

Our house is in the middle, the friendly druggies' house is on the left side of the picture.

The dental office is on the left, the library is on the right.

The edge of town.

One of my favorites of the five bajillion pictures I took of Cat.
Give or take...

Another aspect of this adventure that we really enjoyed was the opportunity to see new places in Illinois.  We gained a greater appreciation for the city of Quincy and the role it played in Church history (read about it HERE).  We spent a weekend in Nauvoo, and it was extra special because it happened that we were there the same weekend as a lifelong friend of mine, who had brought her family to Nauvoo from Wisconsin.  What a blessing!  (Note to self: write a blog post about Janean one of these TBTs.)

We took a day trip to Springfield to go to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which was a memorable experience.  I still remember the harrowing graphics describing the vast numbers of casualties during the Civil War in one of the exhibits.

Rubbing Abe's nose for luck at his tomb.

My Mom came out to visit us in March and we took the train to Chicago for the weekend.  We saw some of the big tourist attractions and at least one smaller one (are you already familiar with Hull House?) and saw my actress cousin performing in a play.  We were crazy-cold all weekend, but the adventure was thrilling.

And that's our stint in Illinois in a nutshell.