This has been a health and family focused year for us. We made positive, healthy changes to our diets (practically eliminating and modifying our vegetarian diets to better fit our personal physiologies), established regular aerobic exercise programs, joined a food co-op that specializes in organic foods, chosen a naturopatrefined sugar h/homeopath holistic health practitioner as our primary family physician, and spent much time with our families. We were motivated to place this positive emphasis on health and family by several unhappy events that occurred during the year. In January, Missy's maternal grandmother, Esther Nielsen, and her uncle, Ole Nielsen, died; her paternal grandmother, Margaret Leslie, had died the previous month. In the Fall, both Missy's and Curt's dads were diagnosed with cancer–the prognosis for both is positive. Other relatives have also had serious health problems in 1997. We more fully appreciate that the foundation for whatever we are or do in life is our health.
Eric is a very active five year-old. He enjoys playing with numbers, letters, and words and messing around on artistic projects with his parents, but he loves being physical. He is already better than his dad in biking and swimming and his climbing and tumbling are not limited to the local "little gym" but find expression throughout our house. Physical play isn't why he lost his two front teeth, his first adult teeth pushed them out. Eric is developing close friendships with people in the gym, his homeschooling group, and the neighborhood. He is often having one of his friends over to our house–his friends include kids of all ages and adults–to play with his toys or to participate in games in a fun ambiance. The enclosed photo shows us in front of a wall mural in the newly decorated guest room, a.k.a. "Moon room," a room in which people especially enjoy playing. Though being an astronaut is now Eric's future occupation of choice, being a race car driver is never far from his mind. This year he got to meet two of his favorite drivers, seven times Winston Cup stock car champion King Richard Petty, and one of the world's greatest stunt drivers, Tim Chitwood.
During the summer, Missy was asked to take a larger, organizational role in La Leche League (LLL) of North Carolina. She declined the opportunity preferring to spend her energies being involved as a Leader at the LLL grass-roots level and in other personal and family endeavors. Missy again organized and ran a very successful bookstore at the annual LLL of NC area conference in Greensboro, she attended the LLL International conference in Washington DC, and she is co-founding a new LLL group in neighboring Apex. She gets many calls from women seeking help with breastnurturing and is highly regarded as an informed and valued support person. In addition to her family and LLL, Missy shares her time with three other groups; her soccer team, book reading group, and homeschooling group. In her "private" time she typically reads, exercises, does crafts, or sews.
Curt spends nearly all of his evening and weekend time in family play. He and Missy accept the creative challenge of finding play activities original and interesting enough for them yet familiar enough for Eric. Curt especially likes to play in ways that produce an obvious, tangible result; such as a painting, a story, or a new or improved skill. "Play" and "results oriented effort" are typically incompatible, so their combination is often hard to achieve. Though he enjoyed his day-to-day work, Curt had a difficult year at IBM. The team of developers for which he's been team lead for more than a year was forced to change divisions. Curt conveyed the team's unanimous disdain for the idea of moving software developers from their home in the more profitable software division to the less career compatible and less profitable hardware division, but the driving manager was resolute–she wanted to move the mission and the people. After the move morale plummeted. This had been a highly motivated, high-performing, long-lived, stable team but by year's end, within six months of the move, over half the team will have left the organization (including leaving IBM) with most of the rest trying to leave as well. The mission of the disintegrating team is being moved to India. Curt resigned from his role as team leader and, for the first time in 15 years, updated his résumé. In January, he'll be back in the software division in a new job.
This year as last our home business, Alternate Healthier Choices, did not receive much of our attention. We gave a few classes and did one radio talk show on "Have the Wedding You Want for Less Than $500," but mostly our energies were directed elsewhere.
Our travels this year were heavily weighted towards spending time with
our families of origin. Early in the year we went to Tampa, Florida
to participate in memorial services for Missy's grandmothers and uncle.
In June we camped, swam, and boated with most of Missy's siblings, their
families, her parents, and her Uncle Rich and Aunt Julie at the Land Between
The Lakes in Kentucky. We were with Curt's family in Pennsylvania
in early July and with Missy's brothers Jim and Dan and their families
on the North Carolina beach in late July. Missy flew to Michigan
to be with her parents shortly after her father's cancer diagnosis–her
first solo trip since Eric was born–and we all drove to Michigan then Pennsylvania
in December. Family also visited us. Curt's folks came for
a week in the spring, our twin nephews Paul and Matt took turns gracing
our home in July and August, and Curt's brother Dan and his family also
stayed with us for a few days in August. We did some non-family vacationing.
We spent four days in Orlando, Florida, a couple of days in Tennessee (Oak
Ridge and Nashville), the Fourth of July weekend in Washington, DC, a weekend
at a North Carolina beach, and a weekend in Winston Salem, NC. We
attended Revolutionary and Civil War battle re-enactments and three airshows.
Fortunately, we only needed to travel down the road to Chapel Hill to hear
and meet one of our heroines, Jane Goodall.
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