2008 in Review

2008: More Change and Catching up with Life!

January-March

Sarabeth is in Wisconsin dealing with one of the WORST winters the Milwaukee area had seen in 20years and without a husband or a snowblower. For those of you who don’t know, Joe took a great job opportunity in IL and moved back in with his parents September of 2007. Thank goodness our wonderful neighbors in Whitefish Bay (4600 Block!!WOOHOO) rallied around Sarabeth and got her through! By the end of winter the Milwaukee area almost broke the record of 110 inches of snow in one season.

April-June

Every weekend Joe went to visit his wife and dog (Cayman) in Whitefish Bay to work on the house to get ready to sell. He did a great job because they sold their house in 70 days in a tumbling real estate market.

July

This was a BIG month, Sarabeth’s little brother Dave married the love of his life Stephanie Williams and Sarabeth was privileged to not only stand-up in the wedding but participate in the ceremony. This was also the month that we closed on he sale of our house, Sarabeth finished her masters in Instructional Technology, went to Jimmy Buffett , Sarabeth moved in with her parents and then we went to Door County for one of Sarabeth’s best-friends wedding. It was a whirlwind! Sarabeth also got into networking and job search mode, trying to get back into business.

August

Up in Door County Sarabeth was reunited with an old friend, Jamie PR, from Accenture (previous business position) who was working in Chicago for a small company, Healthy Interactions. During our reunion she realized that my background could be a fit for the company she worked for. After meeting other employees and interviewing I was hired at the end of the August and started on Sept 2.

September-October-November-December

Joe and Sarabeth living with Joe’s parents with their dog, who tore a ligment and is still not healed ☹ Sarabeth started commuting to Chicago via the Metra and loves it – along with her job. There is some travel but so far it has only taken her to London, England and Toledo, OH. We bought a house (the market actually really helped us get our DREAM house) in Frankfort, IL and we are loving living together and being a real married couple again.

The year has brought a lot of good fortune and we are very grateful. There are friends and family who have not been as blessed as us so we are praying for you to get through your hard times and we will support you where you need us.

We are looking forward to reconnecting with friends and family in 2009!

To buy, or not to buy - that should be the question.

Happy Holidays!

I know it is the season of giving..stuff. So why am I irritated? Why do we need so much stuff? Here are a couple of observations: It seems that people over buy - especially for kids! I mean, lots of time I have witnessed a child open a bunch of gifts and then just play with one. Or the really little ones just want to play with the paper, or the box it came in - hmmm... what about putting all that money into a savings account for the child? I know why - because people don't really have the money, they are using credit. Doesn't that seem like a problem? But our government does it? Spends more then they have, then others have to pay for it. This year I did not get a lot of stuff, almost everything I got I will use frequently - and it felt great! Being a financially responsible family we decided to scale back on the amount of gifts to purchase, how smart is that? How did we figure that out? Basic high school consumer economics, sign your child up for Consumer Economics or better yet - Financing.

Goal for 2009!

I just wanted to say that I am going to make more of an effort to update our blog at least a couple times a month.