Before and After

Hello Everyone,
It is hard to beleive that after a few months Devon's beloved hole in the group is now part of the house.
Sadly, the only people that get to enjoy the house are the cats and the construction crews.

We are expecting to be in for the first of December and that would be a good thing as we are tired of apartment style living. I am positive the people to the left and right of us will not miss Devon and Morgan yelling at each other in the morning getting ready for school. They will be glad to ride the bus again. I was told that I am not as nice as the bus driver.

Most of all I cannot wait to use my new kitchen. It turned out to be bigger than we thought and seems to be the center piece of the house. I am not sure that is a good thing given my current hobby of culturing by pot belly.

I hope that eveyone had a good Thanksgiving. Jane and Marion came down to my parents house for the holiday. Marion was not feeling good so I am sure that this lessend the experience that is Thanksgiving with my family.

Hope everyone is well, talk to you later.

Is it something in the water......?

Hi all!
I'm sure you have all heard about the double homicide and abduction that occurred here yesterday. It actually occurred about a mile from our house. In fact 2 doors down from the murder scene is where Principal Troop (our Elementary School Principal) lives. This was the 2nd major thing to happen in Lititz this week. Last Tuesday the Warwick Police pulled over a man for a traffic violation and he opened fire on the officer. The officer is currently in fair condition and the idiot who opened fire was gunned down in Quarryville (dead) Tuesday afternoon.
As a Lititz resident I am baffled at these recent events. Nothing ever happens here....its smaller than Lawrenceville. A real "closet Christian" community. As I'm sure you know all of Lititz is abuzz with speculations about what happened. The thing that really sticks out for me is that the Ludwig kid was home-schooled. I swear home-school kids have no concept of reality.

On a happier note.... we are in the final stages of our home construction. The flooring guys are there today laying the hard surface floors. The painter will be done this week. The electrician installs all of the lighting later on this week (when the painter is done). The kitchen is set to be installed next week. Dave will be installing the cabinets in the laundry room next week as well...I'm not sure he has figured that into his plans. Ha Ha. The flooring people are back to install carpet on the 28th. We should have clearance to move back in the weekend of Dec 4th.
If we can't move in on the 4th you may be hearing about another fatal shooting in Lititz, Pa.
Dave has had to deal with all of this construction hassle and it has been a huge hassle. I'm just so glad that I haven't really had to do much except pick out furniture an colors ect. Dave calls our foreman "Brain-dead Ray" and swears that he'll have a month of special projects to fix what wasn't done right. Everything looks fine to me so far. Dave is handling all of this wonderfully if you ask me......I would have flipped out long ago. He's way more calm and rational than me when it comes to this stuff.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!!! Don't forget to pick up a centerpiece at you local florist. Lori......if you find a piece of pumpkin pie under your bed sometime mid-December it wasn't me.
Sue

I guess there has been some speculation regarding my reaction to Lori and Brad's announcement of their plans to sell the homestead.

While yes, I have shed several tears about this (you all know I am quite the sap) ... I am also a realist.

(1) The house is Lori's and Brad's. They are free to do with it what they wish. This is what it is!

(2) I know, first hand, the loneliness of growing up sans friends. Donny Smith was my closest neighbor, and I guess it was his religion, or whatever, that didn't allow for a ton of interaction. I'm not complaining now, nor did I then. But, I can certainly understand the whole "we don't have any friends" thing.

(3) Gravel roads - I've always said, if you can run 100 mph on a gravel road, you can "drive". Trust me, I've done it. That training provided me with the opportunity to run 157 mph (average) in Germany, no sweat. And heck, even Sandi knows "driving on gravel" LOL

(4) While I would love to say I would love to come back to Lawrence County, I think at this point we all need to be "real". There are no businesses there that would be able to afford me. I'm not saying this snobbishly ... just speaking the truth. I sometimes think running for Governor might pay about the same, but again ... I can't do it. I'm too conservative. "Upstate" would never support me, and I know I could never get Eric's support to try to sway some of the swing votes up there. I do have some local support from the South Side, here from CT ... but he is a White Sox fan. I'm not counting on it happening.

(5) While we're on it, I KNOW there are no businesses in Lawrence County that could afford Janice.

(6) Neither Janice nor I are ready for retirement ... and to be honest, I've never thought of Lawrence County as a "retirement spot". But, let's get real here once again ... I'll retire when someone plants me in a grave. That will be about the time I will be "ready for retirement." If we were to retire, after having won the Powerball, we would probably end up buying a yacht and cruising around the world ... just like anyone else in this family would do.

I know this sounds very weird, but last and by very no means the least ...

I talked with Lori this evening and while speaking with her, I heard Mom in her, talking about who would get the house. Sitting here, afterward, I felt that Mom says it is okay. Dad even chimed in (I felt Dad sitting here, and could smell his having some popcorn) ... as did Granddad. Hearing Granddad was pretty "strong", and his only word was "Yes". When Dad chimed in, I just felt him look at me, he sort of cocked his head a little bit and simply said with a grin, sort of maybe tossing something of a reference to Granddad ... "Well?" ... but I have this almost overwhelming feeling, right now, that Mom and Dad are saying to all of us, "We love you, and we know you love us."

I am not going to wait, until perhaps it is too late (we never know) before offering this:

I love you all.

We Had Trick-or-Treaters

At least we had three, and I was surprised by that. Imagine a city-block-sized mill, converted to nearly two hundred up-scale apartments, all with interior hallways, no dauntingly chilly weather to deal with, and you would imagine it would be a trick-or-treater's dream, right? So would I ... back in the day, I might have hit this place with a pillowcase in hand.

Alas, we had three little girls (sisters, I think) probably ranging in age from 8 to 12 who showed up at our door, escorted by their mama. Janice tricked them, by telling them they had to tell us one thing they had learned at school today, before they got any treats. The little one dressed as a princess blurted out first "Today I learned it was the night we go out and people give us candy!" (At least she was honest.)

Her mama scolded her and said "Now tell the nice lady what you really learned at school." So the littlest one thought for a moment and said "We learned about lions today." The next youngest said she learned about something in math that day. Then the oldest one, dressed up pretty authentically as Cleopatra, said she had learned about George Washington Carver that day.

I think she went mostly for the Reese's "Nutrageous" candy bars.