I just took a look at your blog.......read about 10 or so entries.  You do a wonderful job.  Congrats.I love it!!!

I have thought of you and Mr. Gordon often through the years.  I guess I did kinda throw myself at you two.  Sorry about that.  I really did enjoy my time working there, and being with both of you.

Yes, I did move to Michigan right after Michael and I married.  We rented a small house on the lake, and within a year bought a different house on the lake.  I had considered going on to grad school, but never did.  Instead, (and should I blame this on you because maybe you helped to put "retail" in my blood? - just kidding) I went to work for JCPenney.  I spent 10 years working for them.  During that time, we had our 2 girls.  Well, we didn't have Erin until we had been married 7 years, and we didn't have Kelly until we had been married 10 years.  Almost a year after we had Kelly, we bought an 1880 farmhouse.  They're neat, but also a lot of work.  But we bought it so that we could have both a bigger house and a bigger yard for the girls (lake living is expensive).  I quit Penneys and went to work at a local print shop doing accounts payable/receivable, typesetting and bindery. (It was a small shop.)  I also worked for our personal accountant part time - in addition to working at the print shop.  During that time Michael went back to college full time for 3 and a half years straight - no breaks for summer.  We worked our schedules around not having to use daycare, so we could afford to let him return to school.  He graduated with honors.

General Motors had transferred Michael around to different plants in Michigan, which had all been within a 50 mile radius of where we lived, but in 1996 they decided to move him to Minnesota, which was definitely not commutable.  So, off we went to Minnesota.  We lived bout 20 minutes from Mall of America.  As Michael said, 'it's a whole different meaning of 'can we go to the mall" when they're referring to mall of America'.  Around 2004 GM decided to move his job to Wisconsin, but he commuted it daily because it was 53 miles each way, and Kelly was in high school and Erin was being seen by specialists in St. Paul.

Which brings us to why Erin was seeing specialists.  On Dec. 30, 2001, when Erin was 16 and we were still in Minnesota, she was snowboarding, wiped out, and got a closed head brain injury, cracked ribs, a partially collapsed lung, was knocked unconscious for a few minutes, and lacerated her spleen.  Because she was only 16 they decided to keep her spleen.  On Dec. 12, 2002, when she was 17, I had a County Sheriff come into my work (I worked at JoAnn Fabrics for 13 years) and tell me that my daughter was in a helicopter on her way to a St. Paul hospital.  (Yes, it was a different St. Paul hospital than the one she was transported to with the snowboarding wipeout.)  She had either hit black ice or had a blowout, they're not sure which, and had rolled the car down a hill and was thrown about 25 feet from it.  She suffered 2 brain fractures, a fracture in her ear so that she now is partially deaf in one ear, they removed her spleen, and she was unconscious and on life support for 6 days.  They didn't expect her to live and, in fact, had commented that she had died on the way in the ambulance to the first hospital.  She had to relearn everything, but she managed to walk with her graduating class 5 and a half months after the accident.  We then enrolled her in  a post graduate transition school for 3 years.  It's a school designed to help disabled youth learn to be a little more independent. 

Kelly writes her own blog, like you do.  She is thinking of starting her own business of soapmaking and/or nail polish making.  She loves reading.

Back to Michael - In October 2008 GM decided to get rid of Michael's position throughout the corporation, so he was forced to take an early retirement which also means a lesser retirement package.  After being "unemployed" for 2 years, he went to work for Cargill. Even though their world headquarters is about 20 minutes from where we lived in Minnesota, they put him in Texas.  The city is in the middle of nowhere.  OK, maybe not that bad, but seriously it is situated 50 miles north of Lubbock and 75 miles south of Amarillo.  If you want to shop, you take your pick of how far you want to drive.  After 2 and a half years, Cargill closed that plant due to the drought that Texas has been in for about 8 years, so Michael went to work for Leprino.  Even though Leprino's world headquarters is in Denver, they put Michael in Roswell, NM.  Yes, Roswell.  Home of the aliens.  So we lived there for a year and a half.  It's not the worst place to live, but, like where we lived in Texas, it's in the deset mountains and hot and dry.  

While we were in Texas (actually Michael was in Texas and the girls and I were still in Minnesota, getting the house ready to put on the market), Michael's father unexpectedly passed away.  Being 1500 miles away from family at a time like that is difficult.  Michael is in the Patriot Guard, and his father wanted him to have Michael lead a Patriot Guard procession for his funeral, so Michael rode his motorcycle the 1500 miles (a 3 day trip) from Texas to PA to lead the procession.  It was then that we started to think about how far away we really were.  We also learned a few months after Dad (Michael's father) died that Mom (his mother) had Alzheimer's for 3 years and Dad hadn't let anyone know.  

Anyway, we moved to Roswell and Mom started going downhill faster.  We knew we really needed to get closer to PA.  Michael accepted a position from Mauser (whose world headquarter's in Germany).  So now we live in Ohio, about an hour east of Columbus.  We're 3 and a half hours from home now.  Mom is in Stage 6 of Alzheimer's.  But we know we can get home any time we need to now.  Of course, we're readapting to winter weather.  There is something to be said about living in the south during the winter.

I've been getting into genealogy the past few years.  And I still do crafts.  We also have 2 "puppies".  We call them our Pittsburgh Puppies.  They're 3 years old.  M'Hija is a 78 pound black lab, and Luna is a 55 pound yellow lab.  Yes.....little, teeny, tiny puppies.  :)

Well, better go. 

Talk to you later,

Debbie