~ Sept 11, 2001 ~
We're trying to plan a summer trip to Japan for Jenny and Patty, since Patty loves everything about the country and Jenny has friends from UC who are studying abroad for a while, plus she met two guys from Japan who have been studying at UC and will be back in their home country by summer. What better time to visit a place than when you have lots of connections there? I would go too but would rather spend my money on a trip to Egypt. But the best time to go to Egypt is in the winter and I'm not focused enough these days to plan something as soon as this winter.
Work has been slow, so I've been spending the time trying to add to my family history knowledge and organizing what I've got.
The kids want me to watch a movie with them, and they can't wait. So, I'll write more later.
Last night, Patty, Jenny and I went to downtown Cincinnati to see "Stomp" at the theater. It was just incredible. I had seen bits of the show on TV and thought it looked really interesting, so when I saw an ad that they were performing nearby, I decided we'd go see them. Well, I had no idea that besides the amazing sound and athleticism, they were funny, too. I had tears in my eyes, I was laughing so hard. I had to talk Patty into going, and now she says she can't wait to see them again.
Thansgiving weekend was our fourth annual getaway to Hueston Woods State Park, where we rent a "family cottage" for the night, play games, watch movies, eat, talk and laugh. I wonder if Mohican park has cabins, because I don't expect to be in Trenton at this time next year.
Next week is fall quarter finals for Jenny, and she'll have just three more quarters to go, to get her degree. Kerry has been working at Bob Evans for about a year and a half now and picked up some additional hours, now that she's out of school. Patty worked as farm labor a little over the summer at Barn N Bunk Farm Market about a mile away from us. Several of her friends worked there too, and the owner's daughter is in Patty's class.
That's all for tonight. If we don't see you, have a wonderful Christmas and a healthy, prosperous 2009.
Haven't felt up to updating the page lately but got the urge to do something with it today. A lot has gone on since my last post in February. My beloved Uncle Bob died at the end of March, then my dad nearly died but ended up recovering. As if the stress from those events wasn't enough, DHL decided it wants to give all its flying business to UPS, which would eliminate the need for AStar, which meant Jeff would lose his job. Even though numerous groups are fighting the move, Jeff decided enough was enough, and he started looking for another job. He also decided that when he left for his new job, he was going alone. So now he is in Greensboro, NC, and the girls and I are still in Trenton. The house is up for sale and I'm still trying to figure out what my next step is. I want to move back to Columbus but I also need to find a full-time job. Patty and Kerry really don't want to leave here, and I will hate to be further from Jenny, but there's not much for me in Trenton. I can substitute teach in Columbus, it's just a matter of finding the time and place to move.
First I have to congratulate Patty for winning the Edgewood Middle School spelling bee last week. Each class had a bee, then the top 25 students competed against each other, and Patty was the last one standing. She gets to go to the regional bee in Cincinnati next month.
AStar pilots and management finally agreed on a contract this week, with a pay increase and retro pay back to the expiration of the former contract, among other things, so I guess it has worked out for the best - for now - that Jeff didn't find a new job yet. It should be a nice little windfall, so we can make some headway on that second mortgage which paid for our addition to the house and the renovations. That debt has really been weighing on Jeff's mind, and this will bring him some relief.
January was slow for me at school, but I've been called in to work every day but one this month. Lots and lots of people are out sick. So far our family hasn't been hit, and we hope you are all well, too.
Time to catch you up on the latest news, if I can get the cat to stop head-butting me, in his bid for attention and a scratch under the chin. Jeff has had about all he can stand of AStar/DHL and is looking for a new job, preferably one for which we don't have to move. It's not so much that we want to stay in Trenton, as that we don't want to move right now. Kerry is in the middle of her senior year, and Jenny still needs our help now and then, which is easier to do from nearby. Patty has lived in Trenton about 90% of her life, so she really doesn't want to move. Jenny and Kerry had moved around a lot already by the time they were Patty's age, and while they were young they found it exciting, and they weren't quite as attached to their friends as Patty is.
In other news, we're trying to finish up the house renovations that went untouched all summer (during motorcycle riding weather, that is), reinstalling the door trim and baseboards, etc., touching up paint, and the like. Jeff also decided to split the "sun porch" into two separate rooms. One side will be for laundry and storage, the other will become a sort of sitting room or den or whatever you want to call it.
We were able to make our third annual post-Thanksgiving rental of a cabin in Hueston Woods State Park, about a half hour drive from home. The cabins are so warm and homey, with a gas fireplace and equipped kitchen and nice decor. We take a bunch of games to play, and the kids each get to take a friend, and we have a great time. This year's main games were Dance Dance Revolution (Gordie's feet are a blur when he gets his turn!), Apples to Apples (we laugh til we snort!) and Scattergories (another favorite). Our guests were Jenny's boyfriend, Gordie McPhee; Kerry's best bud, Justin Isaacs; and Patty's long-time friend, Sammie Fletcher. See photos on our photo page.
Let's see, what's going on this fall? I am part of a group of Trenton residents who got together through the city web forums and started planning ways to make our city a better place to live. Our "ringleader" is working on getting us non-profit status so we can collect donations legally for some projects we have in mind, like finishing the ampitheater at the city park. Through our meetings and working with City Council, Kathy decided to RUN for council! I don't think I could ever do that. But I am enjoying making new friends, outside of school for once. And if we ever get this non-profit thing going, we will start up an online newsletter - and hopefully a print version - which will be headed by yours truly.
Jenny is now in her third year at University of Cincinnati, and still disappointed by the quality of instruction in a couple of her classes, among other things. It irks me that she has to pay so much tuition and isn't getting her money's worth. She has a nicer apartment this year, though, in a building with better security. She just got a new job, at PicturePeople, a portrait studio in the mall. Not only will she make a little more money than she was at Victoria's Secret, but she'll get some great photography experience to put on her resume.
Kerry is a senior in high school this year, and still working at Bob Evans. She's doing well in school and gets lots of compliments at work, so we're very proud of her. I wish she would spend more time at home with her family, but I guess that is part of growing up, to want to go out on her own.
Patty is in middle school now - 6th grade - and loving it. She has joined the drama club with her friend, Sami. She wants to play on the basketball league again - aaaggghhh! I forgot - today was the sign-up day! Darn! Well, they let her join late, last year, and I can still call the coordinator, and I think we will be okay.
Part of the reason I forgot about basketball sign-ups was because of the other things going on today. In the morning, I went to the city park to help clean up trash, and the afternoon was spent with Uncle Bob, who is on his annual visit from Florida. He always comes up and spends several days, taking the kids and me shopping and out to dinner. In fact, I had three very nice dinners out this week, at Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, and Texas Roadhouse. Thanks, Uncle Bob! Although he is only related to us by marriage (he married my dad's sister, who died in 2000), he couldn't be nicer to us if he were blood. He told us on Friday that he is going to help Jenny with tuition costs, and he is already putting money aside for the other kids' education. Well, he never had kids of his own, and worked 30-some years as a NASA engineer, and is still working (now as a contractor for an aerospace company), although he's 75 years old. Well, he can certainly afford to help us out, but he has absolutely zero obligation to do so, and we are extremely grateful to him.
Finally!!!! I switched to AVG AntiVirus plus Firewall, and am able to access my GeoCities again! Yay! I had a suspicion the problem was in my old firewall, and it seems I was right. But I didn't have the money to pay for new firewall software, so I left things alone. Then I saw AVG was having a free trial of their software, so I downloaded and installed it, and here we are. I haven't checked out the price on it yet; I hope it's not too much, because I sure would like to work on my web pages again.
It hasn't been the busiest summer, but Kerry, Patty and I just got back from Warren, where we helped host a 50th wedding anniversary party for my parents. Congrats again, Mom and Dad! We had a nice turnout and a fun time. Got to see lots of old friends and relatives - Uncle Bob even came up from Florida for the occasion - and Mom and Dad made out like bandits in the gift department!
Jenny is having a great time visiting Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with her boyfriend and his family. They are from Calgary, so they have relatives to stay with to defray the cost. They're at the Calgary Stampede today, and have been enjoying eating out at nice restaurants, hiking and horseback riding in the wilderness near Banff.
Kerry is now working at the same Bob Evans restaurant that Jenny worked at, and seems to be having as much success as Jenny did.
We're all excited about going out tomorrow night to see the latest Harry Potter movie. I bought tickets in advance, to make sure we could get in. Can't wait!
Okay, that's it for this evening. Gotta get on the photo editor and resize some photos from the anniversary party to post here. Back soon.
Okay, I had to download the Netscape brower so I could use my Yahoo pagebuilder again. Couldn't figure out how to make Internet Explorer let it work.
The summer is going okay but the heat has kept us from doing much. No one wants to go out in it. Well, Kerry has been eager to go shopping for new school clothes, but that's about it. We haven't even had as much company of neighborhood kids lately, so I guess they've all been staying in too.
Well, Jeff and I did go on a couple nice motorcycle rides. He bought a used Goldwing, because it's much more comfortable for long rides, and we rode it down to North Carolina in June. Spent the night and then rode the Tail of the Dragon on the way home - man, that was fun! The Tail is a stretch of highway that has 318 curves in 11 miles, so it's almost constant turning. It's supposed to be one of the best motorcycle roads in the U.S. You can see about it here:
www.tailofthedragon.com.
Jenny got a new job, with her boyfriend, at the Totes/Isotoner glove factory. They package gloves to ship to stores. Because Gordie lives quite a bit closer to the factory than we do, Jenny's been staying at his place (Gordie's mom keeps an eye on them) so she can just go to work with him. Jen and Gordie are supposed to be doing some landscaping for us, to earn some extra college money, but haven't gotten much done so far.
I've been staying busy with trying to gather my high school classmates together for a "virtual reunion." We haven't had a reunion since 1996, and I wasn't able to go to that one. I've managed to get back in touch with a couple dozen people now, and that's been fun.
Wow, the end of the school year has been much busier than I would have expected, and much busier than any other time this year. During the last pay period, I worked 9 1/2 days out of 10! I've never gotten that close to working the entire pay period before. Two of the days were pretty easy, too, like at the Babeck library on Friday. One class was on a field trip and the fifth graders were on their annual bike ride, so I had only three classes all day, and their only lesson plan was to watch a video. It's too late in the year to let them check out any more books, so there was nothing else to do. In my spare time I organized some of the shelves, because a lot of the books were out of order. I have three days in the Bloomfield library coming up this week, and the kids will watch videos there, too. In my spare time there, I'll get to "weed" books, taking out old, outdated or damaged books.
Saturday I had to go down to UC and take Jenny shopping for some art supplies for her last project of the school year. Hard to believe her freshman year is just about over! She got good grades and passed her end-of-the-year portfolio review, so all is well. She said that about 30 of the 130 freshmen did NOT pass their reviews, which seems like an awfully large number, doesn't it?
The trip to Phoenix for Spring Break, was so nice and relaxing. We enjoyed Sallie's birthday party, and she, Kris and I went to Las Vegas for a day and a night. Stayed at the cool Excalibur Casino, and visited many of the others, like the Luxor, and New York New York. I quit gambling after I lost $100, but Sallie lost about $1000! I could never feel OK with throwing away that much money! Even the 5-hour drive up and back wasn't too bad - we stopped to take pictures at the Hoover Dam, which was certainly not what I expected. And you had to pass through security checkpoints, to make sure you weren't going to blow the place up! See additional photos on my page.
Patty had a potentially dangerous bicycle accident a couple weeks ago. She snuck over to a steep hill road in the neighborhood behind ours and rode her bike down it. The local kids call it "Suicide Hill" if that helps paint the picture for you. Well, she tried to slow down near the end of the ride, put on her brakes too hard and went over the handlebars. Some people who were working in their yard later told us they wouldn't be surprised if she'd been going 40 mph! Her friend who had tagged along called us from her cell phone and said an ambulance was on the way! We thought she was seriously hurt, but when we got to her we found she just was really scraped up and a little bruised. She wasn't even bleeding badly, but did have a fair amount of asphalt buried in her skin. Yuck!
The most exciting news for me this week is that Jeff got on the Dell website and bought me a new computer! Sometime after it arrives, we will get Road Runner internet service, which will be so nice. Everything on this nearly-six-year-old computer takes forever, and it barely has enough RAM to handle the PageBuilder software that lets me create this website. Updating will be so much easier and faster once we have the new comp. Jeff also intends to get a wireless router and buy himself a minimal CPU for his workshop - and that will make six computers in the family! Besides my soon-to-arrive Dell and the other planned purchase, Jeff and Jenny each have a laptop; we'll keep my old computer for Patty; and Kerry has been using a friend's computer that they're letting her keep since they bought a new one.
Jenny is home for Spring Break, working back at Bob Evans, and cluttering up the house with all her laundry and art supplies. Not that that's entirely her fault: she has no space of her own here any more, especially with Jeff taking over the old "family room/spare bedroom/office" which he is remodeling into a workshop for his motorcycles. And everything that was in the old family room is scattered throughout the house so it would be out of the way until the room is finished. The old carpet, panelling, drop ceiling and fireplace are gone; the drywall is patched and all the painting done, and the new carpet was installed two weeks ago.