Ricky’s Move to Morgantown 29 July 2006
We have a new Stapleton Mansion Under Contract
Greetings & Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers.
Just thought I would drop a quick entry to let you know that we have completed negotiations on a new Stapleton Mansion. We have been offering and counter offering for the past couple of days and to be honest, Jess was the one that came up with the magic number. I just told her that I was getting way too Alpha-Male on this, just give me a number! This is the last offer we are going to make. The house is exactly what we wanted and exactly where we wanted it and the best part is the price was waaaaayyyyy below what we wanted to pay. It just makes my cheap little heart go pitter patter. (I sense a God thing going on here) So since we were already pre-approved we are at the home inspection phase that could still scuttle the deal. We really won’t know for sure about the house until the first week of August.
The house is located on Broadmoor Drive off of East Pea Ridge Road. The house has an attached garage and will be (before we move in) 3 beds 2 full baths and a big family room in the basement. The lot is rolling and with a flat piece at the top of the lot where the house is and a not so gentle slope down to the bottom part of the lot which is flat also. But compared to what Petey is used to, he will need a golf cart to do a complete patrol of the yard.
The house is about 3 minutes from the interstate I think it will cut about 10 minutes off of my commute. In addition to that, it is very close to Church and 3 roads and several hillsides away from my mother-in-law (yesssss)! Can’t get much better than that! Well we will keep you all informed. Have a good one.
Boy have I let the Blog go stale!
Greetings & Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers!
Sorry it has been a while since an update but Jess & I have been busier than a one legged person in a butt kicking contest in need of a hip replacement!
Since the last blog entry, I have been working on site with a lot of customers. In fact since my last entry I have driven 6386 miles and only left the state once! That is just wrong! Jess has been equally busy, most weeks having her 40 hours in by Thursday. To be honest, I have spent so much time in Elkins lately that I think I have a property tax bill here from Randolph county somewhere. Well at least all the hard work seems to be paying off. Since the last, entry Jess & I both received 2 very good reviews at work.
We have also begun house hunting. We have looked at 16 houses and drove by countless others and the only thing that I can say is that people are very proud of their property. We are looking at property that is 3 times the cost of our starter house and we have yet to find anything as nice. People are flipping nuts out there! No updates since the 60’s (one house even had a fuse box) and yet they want 130K to 150K for it! But we are still continuing to look. It takes a lot of time out of our week, but I would like to have something lined up to where I can have about 30 days to work on what ever we buy before we move in. Our lease is up at the end of September but it rolls to month to month after that so we are fortunate to have a lot of fleixibility in our purchasing decision.
Last weekend was Jess’s 10 year high school reunion. Overall, not a bad evening. There was only one rule that I was given and that was “I am not going to my 10 year high school reunion in a Buick!” Hence we had to drive the Camry. We tend to take the Buick everywhere to save Jess’s car since mine can not avoid the high mileage. The evening was pretty entertaining from my standpoint anyway.
Jess & I have also been working on our part for the 40 Days of CommUNITY campaign at church. The meetings and website work for the campaign havw been keeping us busy also. I wish I could say that we have been doing more but that is just about it. We have just been busy and if we find a house I do not see the rat race getting any easier until about Christmas and we all know how much fun that time of year is. I would like to plan a cruise during the winter to decompress from the last year but we will see. I hope this entry finds everyone well. We will catch up with you all later.
Uncle Sam has gone home to rest
Greetings & Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers
I am writing today to let you all know that Uncle Sam has passed away. He went home to be with Aunt Nancy on Fathers Day Morning about 7:00.
As I sit back and think about this I have some mixed emotions. I am of course sad that I won’t get to see or talk with him again in this life time, but I am more happy than anything. Uncle Sam always wanted to do for himself, he never wanted to be old and in need of help. As his breathing problems became worse he increasingly had to rely on his son Andy & his wife Laura who were always at his side ready to help. But I really think there has been such a weight on his heart since Aunt Nancy died that he really has just longed to be reunited with her again.
You see Uncle Sam & Aunt Nancy were more grandparents to me than anything else. Bobba (that’s what we called my dad’s mom) was 75 years older than me. Although we could talk and I visited with her regularly, I never spent a lot of time with her like my other siblings. I came along so late in life that my other siblings were there to babysit me. My Grandfather on dad’s side of the family died back in the 1940’s way before I came along. On my mom’s side I never knew my grandmother she died in the 60’s. Pawpaw (mom’s dad) lived about an 1 1/2 hours away and although we went to visit I never really spent a lot of time with him I was young and had cousins to play with. Since I had siblings to watch me I never went up and stayed with him like my brother and sisters. Pawpaw died when I was in the 8th grade.
So that brings us back to Uncle Sam & Aunt Nancy they were just right. Just old enough to be grandparents and up on current events enough to be fun! When I think about it that is what they really were to me. Going to their house was always free entertainment if you came out of the house not knowing where you stood with them or where they stood that was your own fault. If you did not know what they were thinking it was your own fault! If you ever left the house hungry that was most definitely your own fault! It was a house of hospitality that was always open, honest, & generally hysterical. Uncle Sam was always tinkering with something that was fun to help out with or just to watch. The man had more tools than most small governments.
I will always have fond memories of spending time up there. But I am happiest that Uncle Sam & Aunt Nancy are together again. I am glad they are both at rest and I am looking forward to seeing them again one day.
Can we start the week over?
Greetings & Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers!
What a week! Jess, Petey, & I have all been put through the paces this week. If it doesn’ t kill you the Lord will only use it to make you stronger in your faith.
Lets start with Monday
Monday started out great, the morning was going well not running late Jess & I put Petey up for the day and started down the stairs and then I hear her scream. She has fallen down the steps in the townhouse again. Unfortunately this time she really hurt herself. She came down on her left elbow and then bounced down about 10 steps on her right hip, bumping off the side walls as she was going down the steps. While all the time leaving me a convenient trail of milk that allowed me to find her eventual resting place. That’s my Gracie! So I got her back up on her one good foot and took her to the ER. Now a little side note the last 2 times she has been to the Cabell Huntington Hospital ER it has been for fall injuries and this makes the third time in a row. So now we’re getting all the battered wife questions. (Is he always at home when you fall?), (So he was behind you on the steps?), (You had just bought an expensive purse & shoes?) After Jess had been examined and irradiated it was good news is no broken bones! She did however sustain a couple of sprains and was and still is very sore. All this is addition to the fact that she now has several areas of her body that are roughly the color of Barney the dinosaur. So I took her home to rest and heal for a few days.
Tuesday
I worked out of the house most of this week to help take care of Jess and we noticed that Petey was becoming lethargic, having labored breathing, and just plain was not acting right. So I took him to the Vet on Tuesday they pulled some blood work and he had almost no red blood
cells. I asked the doctor was wrong and she gives me 3 answers Bone Cancer, Autoimmune Disease, or a Tick Born Disease. The last one being the only one that is really treatable in dogs. Petey is only 4 and this news about killed us. If you have not figured it out yet it would be better for something to happen to one of us than to Petey. So the Vet wants to keeps him overnight in the Dog ICU unit (yes they have one) and if his numbers do not come back up he may need a blood transfusion. The Vet starts trying to give me estimates of what it is going to cost and I looked her straight in the eye and told her, I only ask for pricing on my wife’s medical bills the dog gets whatever he needs just do it! So we take Petey’s pillow and blanket over to leave with him at the vet and we return home. About 11:00 that night the Vet calls and says that Petey has responded very well to the IV fluids and medication they will call and let us know more tomorrow.
Wednesday
Jess is still laid up in bed, my dog is in ICU, & I am working out of the house. We call the vet and they want us to come to visit Petey in the afternoon. We get to the Vet and his red blood cell count has gone from 17 to 45! That is in the lower 1/3 of normal for a dog and they let us bring him home. The vet tells us that the way he responded she does not think that it is Bone Cancer. We looked at his blood under the microscope and there are dots in his red blood cells that are not suppose to be there. The vet tells use that they are going to send his blood off to an outside lab for a more detailed analysis. But the results won’t be back for a few days so we will have to wait. So all 3 of us go home very happy to be together again.
Thursday
Jess very painfully goes back to work, Petey is feeling a lot better, & I have to call on a customer today. Things were starting to look up at the Stapleton household although some clouds are still hanging over Petey’s health. Then I get a call that Uncle Sam is in ICU with pneumonia, he is on a respirator and unresponsive. For those of you who do not know my Uncle Sam has only 17% lung capacity left so this news carries more then it’s normal weight for us. Then Jess returns to work and finds out that a co-worker of hers has blood clots in his lungs and is going to have surgery on Friday. So with this news in tow I left about 11:00 to go on my call. I had a good meeting but I did not get home until about 9:00 that night. I come home and Petey is staring to breathe a little harder and there is no change in Uncle Sam. Now to be honest by now anytime Petey sniffles we are ready to call in every vet for 500 miles & just give them the AMEX card. So we decide to take Petey back to the Vet on Friday for another blood pull to check on his progress and continue to pray for Uncle Sam.
Friday
I go back into the office, Jess goes to work, Uncle Sam is in ICU, Jess’s friend is being operated on, & Petey is sleeping on his temperpedic bed. My bad day starts before I even get to the office with my cell phone ringing. I work in Banking Technology & Jess is in Human Services so we can not give too many details about our bad days (sorry). But today my bad day was mostly my fault I had made a error that took me all day to get corrected and worked out for the customer. The fact that the problem was my fault irritated me even more. However on the bright side Jess got some awesome news at work about a client so we leveled each other out. Then I get home that evening to take Petey & Jess to the Vet. While we are at the Vet we are told that all the blood work is not back yet but we have enough of the results to learn that Petey does NOT have an Autoimmune Disease and at this point anything that is going to come back in the blood work is treatable! We pulled some more blood and his stats are level at 45, we ask the doctor some more questions and with our worries satisfied and Petey doing great for as sick as he is we go home. So it’s Friday night Jess & Petey are both getting better! But then I called to check on Uncle Sam and there is no change.
It’s Saturday morning now and things are all looking up except for Uncle Sam. I feel very fortunate that Jess & I got to visit with him for about an 1 1/2 hours last Sunday. To be honest I do not get up there as much as I should but it was nice that we visited with Uncle Sam on a good day. He was feeling well, very conversational, and just plain awnry. We are all hoping for the best for Uncle Sam and keeping him in our prayers. Well that’s the week thus far in the Stapleton household. Can we take a do over?