July 8, 2018I arrived in Michigan…permanently?…on July 20, 1993. Major League Baseball’s All-Star game was on TV when I walked in the door of Melissa’s mom’s condo. My 1991 Nissan Sentra had brought me 2,000 miles from Mesa, Arizona to Northville, Michigan. In my head and in my heart, I felt like this was the right move and that it wouldn’t be permanent.  I planned to go home to Arizona even if I didn’t know when that would happen…

Lizette turned 26 this year. She got into Medical School this year.  She’ll move to Tennessee this year to chase (and realize) her dream.  She’s tying up the loose end that is her thesis defense and then it’s off to Harrogate, Tennessee and Lincoln Memorial’s DeBusk School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Cecile comes back from her trip to Sweden (and other parts of Europe) on Tuesday, July 10. She’s been gone since May 2. I’m not turning around looking for her any more since I finally got used to her not being just a text message away. I’m looking forward to the family being complete again…at least on the same continent and time zone.

Alexander’s been home for a few months. He works at Steve & Rocky’s. He seems to like it but food service always has a darker side.  Not dark as in evil (at least I hope not) but dark as in “Are you kidding me?”  As we plan the days between now and July 21 (when we take Lizette to Harrogate), we’ve got dinner plans for his place of work.  The food he’s brought home has been “to die for” (what an awful phrase) so we’re looking forward to getting it fresh out of the kitchen.

Phil is living with Sam in Holt. He’s between classes and research in his quest to become Dr. Phil of Finance. Sam’s working on her master’s degree and working at a school in Holt. Phil gets home every week to play soccer with his former teammates. This afforded us the opportunity to have dinner with parents and kids and Coaches Mike Ciolfi and Jim Taylor on June 27 after one of their games.  Two days later, Nick Lesnau (also a soccer teammate) got married.  I’d dreaded the ceremony and reception because I didn’t think we’d know anybody. It ended up being another reunion with parents and “kids” that we hadn’t seen in a long time. I actually dreaded leaving the reception.

Melissa finished work at the middle school. She is the heart of the kitchen there. They keep the kids fed while being consistently short-handed and micro-managed by a company that would like to make a profit from a perennially underfunded school system.  Welcome to education in today’s United States! Novi actually has a great school system but “we the people” are still struggling with how to pay for it in a way that is fair to everyone. She works with people who are dedicated to their jobs as well as people who aren’t. She might not go back next fall. The upsides to her job are considerable though.  It’s 2 miles away. She’s done by 2:30 pm (although she starts at 6:00 am).  She has 2 1/2 months and Christmas off.  She makes decent money but the work is hard.

I’m finishing up my first year as a Customer Success Manager at Microsoft. It was a good year. I’m working with a great team. It’s work therefore it can’t be perfect and it isn’t.  Regardless of any complaints that I have, it is a pretty good job and Microsoft is still treating us well.

I’m still taking pictures but not at the rate that I used to.  It will change next weekend as we make our annual trek to Traverse City.  We’re heading to Harrogate shortly after that.  Change is coming…