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December 16, 2007
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February 9, 2008. It's been far too long since my last update. All is well, for the most part. I have not been keeping a good correspondence with anyone, but have been intensly involved with family stuff and history research, as well as several projects mostly sewing and scrapbooking, and I have read a lot these last few months.
I felt pretty bad that I couldn't get Christmas cards sent out. It has been a long time since I've been in touch with many of my distant friends and family. I was immersed in many memories of friends and family while I worked on 10 years of photo scrapbooks. My sister Alison mocks my scrapbooking hobby - I guess it's too "suburban" but I really have come to enjoy it. I've been making more cards and generally enjoying the creative process.
In an effort to document and share the fun of some of my projects and life in general, I have been keeping two blogs. They are:
- Gossamer Threads - where I share general crafts, news, family events.
- Memory Lane - whose tagline reads: A journal of my adventures in archiving and family history research - and the technology and resources I use to pursue them.
I have not been writing very regularly on either one lately, but I'm glad to have them, and I have been doing a better job at keeping a journal online than I have ever been previously. (I've had several diaries in life that started off with a bang in January only to fizzle out a few weeks later, but I've had my Gossamer Threads blog since January of 2005!) I made a seperate one for the archiving stuff because I wanted it to be more strictly informational, rather than personal.
The biggest project we have in the works is that I have been planning and hoping for major move to Asheville, NC, with luck maybe even as soon as the end of the school year in June. I fell in love with Asheville, NC when we visited there in Spring of 2006. After coming home and realizing that we aren't happy with our current living and working situations, and thinking long and hard about our hopes for the future, our dream is to move to Asheville and work together in our own business. I'm still figuring out a lot of the details, but our business will generally be a professional organizing business, heavily directed towards helping people deal with family photos. Trip would primarily do the digital work, while I would get out to meet and greet as well as doing computer work. I will go out to people's homes and help them organize, sort, and label their photos, then I will bring them home to make them into movie slideshows for DVD or scrapbooks and other media they can share. I will branch into organizing many other parts of people's households, and even help with researching the family history and writing people's personal memoirs. Obviously this is work I already do and enjoy. Right now I am still in the process of writing up our business plan so that we can make it all official.
Work: Trip is the Production Manager at SmartMoney Magazine. Some months ago, we learned that within the next two years they are planning to eliminate his department, let some people go, and incorporate others from his department into the Art Department. Since that time, we have had no news about this big change. For now nothing has changed, although Trip has far less patience with the commute, and the job can be very trying at times. However, it's a good job for now, and we are fortunate.
I have been working for Frank still, once a week in the office and a little
by phone. Last year I had a job taking care of a little boy, just a few months older than Nathan. This year, I have been doing more computer lessons, and several organizaing jobs, doing things like basement cleanouts and file organizing. I also had a good run of sales on ebay, and still plan to so some more things to sell. The work I am happiest about is my archiving work, and
several people in the family have sent money to support the site.
Family
 Elliot
- 9 years old. Elliot still LOVES Pokemon, Really likes Bionicles, loves
reading - (although I'd prefer he read more quality books, and fewer comic
books and video game guides). He is growing so fast! The top of his head reaches just below my chin now, and his voice is getting deeper. He has been on the High Honor Roll both marking periods this year, and is now in the POSE program for gifted students. He is planning to help me when I update his web page soon.
Alex
- 7 years old - Alex has also grown a lot in the last year. He has
quite a few of his big teeth in, though he is at a stage of growth that falls between his time using a retainer and getting braces to help
correct his underbite. Tomorrow we will find out about a Bracket for the in-between time. Alex is a new reader, and very eager, and he is proud of being the fastest runner in his class! He also has a "girlfriend" but we have had a lot of talks about this, and are trying to curb his amorousness. His greatest love is his calculator collection!
Nathan
- 4 1/2 years old - Nathan is my sweet baby boy - but no baby! He is a wonderful artist, and very imaginative. His favorite subjects are dinosaurs, dragons and monsters, and he probably knows the Walking With Dinosaurs DVD script by heart. He has a hard time finding a place in Elliot & Alex's big boy games, but he has several friends at his pre-school that he loves. He wants a baby sister very much, and every where we go he finds babies and makes it his personal mission to entertain and protect them.
My baby sister Eden is 19 and a
sophomore at Montclair University, having transferred from my alma mater, University of Arizona in Tucson. She is living with her mom in Nutley, enjoying
her classes and doing well, and has a good job with a family as a baby sitter. Alison has just moved into a new apartment in San Francisco and is working for Williams Sonoma again. We were sad that she couldn't come home this Christmas, but maybe soon we can have a visit when it's not so busy. My mom comes down to visit me regularly and we have had a lot of fun. She often helps me with all the work of preparing for the boys birthday parties, and we love being able to go out shopping together. Jim has an article coming out in the Asbury Park Press about a show of his paintings coming up this spring, and has also gotten a new job. Mommy is still working in Nursing Administration, but plans to retire in a year or so.
Mom & Dad Mitchell had a wonderful second summer season
as Tenters in Ocean Grove. (See
pics here) they took a nice trip to Arizona to visit Jean's sister Ann this past fall. We are planning to take a trip to Disney World next November with Mom and Dad, staying at their time share in Disney.
Genealogical
News: (Click to view the list of updates to several family lines. Many of these lines have not yet been updated on the website, as it requires a complete overwrite of the entire site. But as always, if you need an update, or have news to share, please contact me and I will do what I can to keep everything current.
I'm opposed to the war in Iraq, I was from the beginning, but I certainly
believe we owe it to our military families and soldiers to protect them,
support them and bring them home safely. A military career is one I considered
for myself at one point, and I hope and pray that the thousands who joined
in the hopes of finding opportunities that they just couldn't find at
home can come home whole and quickly!
Updated February 10, 2008
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