I was born in Southern California on November 8, 1963 (I'm a Scorpio), moved to Arizona at age 3, and then we moved to Alaska when I was 6 years old, and that's where I spent the next 19 years of my life. We lived in Anchorage for 5 years, then moved to Fairbanks, where I stayed until 1989 when David and I left for parts unknown, ending up in Western New York. As of June 1998, I'm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and loving it.
I have one sister, Sarah, who is 6 years younger than I am and still lives in Alaska. She's married to Ken and has a dog Molly and 2 little girls, Genevieve Grace (click here for the photo album), who was born 4/23/98, and Bonnie Kate born 1/11/2000. Genevieve thinks that Bonnie is a big doll that Mom brought home just for her. My parents are Terry and Penny, they also still live in Alaska. They are both retired, and spend a LOT of their time traveling.
I went to West Valley High School, graduating in 1981, and then on to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, graduating with a BBA in Accounting in 1986. My parents and sister moved back to Anchorage in 1981 right after I graduated from high school.
I worked for the UAF Alumni Association for 3 years, till July 1989 when we left Fairbanks. When we arrived in Western New York, I found a job at Niagara University and worked there until we left WNY in June 1998. For the first 7 years I was there, I was a staff accountant, and for the last two years, I was a budget analyst. Now I have a good job at Tecan US, which is part of a worldwide company that sells robotic sample processing laboratory equipment. I was the Senior Staff Accountant there, one of 3 accountants for the first year or so, and now I'm the Database Administrator/User Support Specialist. It's a small company, and it's a very nice place to work. The people are great and I really enjoy working there.
My husband David has attained his MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) certificate, which is QUITE an accomplishment. David had been accepted into the PhD program in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he started school in August 1998. However, things didn't work out as planned.
I'm a member of Mensa which means that I took their IQ test and ranked in the top 2% of scores. It doesn't mean I'm a genius or an intellectual snob. But my mom's pretty proud of me. :)
I met my husband David in 1987 in Fairbanks, and we got married in 1989 right before we left Fairbanks. We stayed in Iowa at his parents' house for about 2 months, then we went to Western New York, and lived there for almost 9 years. We learned everything from the people there that we could, and when he got accepted at UNC, we knew it was time to get out of there and get started on the final report. We haven't finished it yet, and we've been gone for over 2 years.
We had three cats before we moved to NC, but we only brought one of them with us. We placed Digit and George with some friends who will love them and take care of them. They were a lot of fun, and definitely cute. They are still collectively known as "the tiny buttheads". Digit, the large black one, was living with our friends Lynn and Michael, and was doing very well. However, they found out that their daughter Sam is allergic to everything, so Digit has gone to live with George, the orange one, who lives with Jennifer and Savannah, the daughter and granddaughter of his "girlfriend" Bonnie (who was our cleaning lady).
We also collect bears.... .the white fuzzy kind. We have Bomba and Bob in the house, Bitty (he's very small and came in a mug with flowers), and Boo (from the Phantom of the Opera). We gave Bubba (a HUGE bear from Sams Club) to the day care center at NCCC before we left New York. And someday Barry might come live with us. His brother Bow arrived around my birthday. And a tiny bear, Blue, lives here now too.
We had a hottub which we loved to relax in every evening after Jeopardy, but we had to sell it. (sigh) We figured we wouldn't need a hottub in North Carolina. The hottub is what kept me sane the last couple years in New York in the wintertime. Even when it was below zero, we went out. The only time we didn't is when it was really cold AND windy, or over 74 degrees at 8pm.
In October 1997 I had laser eye surgery (LASIK) and now I don't have to wear glasses or contacts or anything. It's pretty cool. However (3/2001) I am noticing some degradation in my vision, and I'm not sure whether it's related to the surgery or my MS or simply age.
In July 1997 I had an episode of blurry vision and after seeing my primary doctor, an ophthamologist, and a neurologist, having a CAT scan, lumbar puncture, and MRI, got a preliminary diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In December 1998 I had a episode of tingling feet and numb spots on my toes, and went to a neurologist here in Chapel Hill, who had me get another MRI and said that it's almost definitely MS. I then had some intravenous steroids to get rid of the blurry vision and the numbness/tingling in my feet, which worked very well. In mid-February 1999 I started taking Avonex which is a once-a-week intramuscular injection. A friend of ours who is a nurse comes over Friday evenings to give me the shot. The purpose of taking the Avonex is to delay onset of disability and reduce the frequency of symptoms. For more information about MS, click here.
Our old guest book died! Here's the new one.
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