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A massively massive, hugely huge, enormously enormous congratulations to my lovely wife and walking brain box Mrs. Jessica Stapleton.
She found out early this morning that she passed the last part of her Praxis test and now can be officially certified to teach. So with a hire recommendation already in place she will begin teaching in the Cabell Country public school system this fall in her own room.
Congratulations sweets I am very proud and love you very much.
Greetings and Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers
This is a “crap I have let the blog go stale again entry”. I must admit since I am online everyday and I communicate with most of you using Facebook and Twitter that updating the blog has become a back burner issue for me. But none the less I still have some troglodyte relatives and friends who need to be updated via the blog. So let’s see what has been going on since the last meaty entry.
I have been working and on the road quite a bit as usual. This is shaping up to be a busy travel year again so far this year; I have had 24 overnights. This pace should put me well below the 77 nights that I had last year (with any luck). Work continues to go well and I am blessed to have a job that I enjoy and a company that appreciates my work. (I am not going to say that every day is filled with roses but overall CSI is a great place to work, and my customers do seem to appreciate me) Most of March and April were very quiet more or less.
In April we had a birthday party for mom she was 206. (Ok 76)
But that was about it.
As the weather started getting nicer I started work on the outside of the house. (It’s the only thing we have left from the remodel to complete) I am already deep into my first round of freaking poison ivy for the year. That would not bother me so much if I could figure out where I was getting it in the back yard. I thought last year I had eradicated it all.
The house has been pressure washed, vents have been painted, and the brick wall has been repaired.
I took about an hour last Sunday afternoon and painted both ends of the house only to determine that the color Jess and I picked out does not work. Her mission this week is to pick out a new color and have a new gallon of paint ready for me when I get home. Besides my outdoor projects and helping out mom and Sandy on their houses it has been pretty much work and sleep for me. Jess and I are still planning a vacation/10th anniversary trip of some sort this year in August. Probably the week of my birthday.
I will have to say that 35 snuck up on me a little (According to some life expectancy charts I am getting ready to finish the first half of my life). I can say that I really do not feel old; tired sometimes but never old.
However there are some conundrums that I have observed:
But enough about me I could talk about myself all night and I sure you could too. How about an update on Jess?
As some of you may have heard Jess graduated in May with a perfect 4.0 in her Master’s program. (Can’t remember if I have told everyone how proud I am of her!) She continues to do well after the wreck although she is still experiencing intense sets of migraines that we are trying to get addressed. Jess continues to look for work now that she is out of school (she only has 1 more Praxis test to take). In fact she has already had an interview for a teaching position in Cabell County. But with the school system it may be August before we know if she has a position. So she continues to explore all of her options. It is my only wish that she finds a job that will use the gifts that she has been given to work with the special needs population. She can do things that I never will be able to do and she does it while helping others that cannot help themselves. To say I am proud would be an understatement.
That brings up to here (No really right here. Both in a typographical and metaphorical way.) we are at the beginning of June 2009 with a busy summer ahead of work projects, exterior house projects, a wedding, a milestone anniversary, and whatever else life throws at us. I hope this entry finds everyone doing well.
Take Care.
That’s the news and I am outta here!
As some of you may have heard Jess Graduated on Saturday with her Masters of Arts in Special Education with an Autism emphasis. She graduated Summa Cum Laude which is a fancy way of saying 4.0 GPA.
To say that I am proud of her would be an understatement. She completed the bulk of this degree while working full time and in the last few semesters recovering from the wreck and an unplanned surgery. At no point during this degree did she even get a B!
I am very proud of you sweets.
In an effort to offset some of the student loan expense DVD’s and Prints will be available in the gift shop for the rock bottom price of $199.95.
Autographed copies are just $299.95.
It is my pleasure to present to you my summa cum laude wife Mrs. Jessica R. Stapleton.
Greetings and Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers
It has been a slow winter and spring for blogable happenings so this will be another short entry just to catch everyone up. (I could spend a bunch of time blogging about work but that would bore everyone and get me fired.)
Since my last entry we moved Nana up to Sandy’s house. Ricky, Jess, Sandy & I moved Nana on the February 21st into her newly completed Dungeon.
The only thing we need to get done in her room is install the closet door. Just have not had the time to get over there to do it. Besides that the dungeon is nicely fished out including two of Sandy’s flying monkeys standing guard on the other side of that door.
Jess has continued to do well since her surgery. She completed all her incomplete work from her Gall Bladder adventure and earned another A. If she pulls off another 4.0 semester this time she will have a perfect 4.0 average for her entire Masters program. (No pressure sweetheart) My walking brain box also aced the first part of her Praxis exam with minimal effort, she will take the second section later this month. Jess has also applied and been approved for graduation in the May. (Please no gifts unless they are $1000 or over) She will graduate with a MA in Special Education with an Autism emphasis, and also be considered “highly qualified” per no child left behind. We are currently exploring several avenues of employment for her including full time teaching.
In other Jessica news she has been released from her therapy and pain management regimen from the wreck. She is getting along very well and is managing on Advil only as needed. Her “pin-prick” migraine headaches from the wreck are still with us (they seem to come and go in sets) but not at the frequency that she has been dealing with for the past year.
In Jake news not much has been going on besides working a whole lot. The disaster put me behind on several things. That in addition to working very intensely with one of my customers (in the middle of no where) lately has left me pretty pooped out. My only major home project lately has been to send Comcast packing again. I signed up for their Cable internet service (we are a Direct TV family) because I needed the extra speed for work. The service then proceeded to go down 7 times in 60 days one time for 30 hours!
This is not just and ISP service this is my livelihood. I work out of a home office and my phone is VOIP so when I loose my internet I loose everything. I had Verizon DSL for 19 months and they never went down; it was slow but never went down. This is addition to at night when my cable node was full of users it actually got slower than my DSL. So I called Verizon and got my service back for $15 less a month then I was paying before I left so it did work out. I heard from an undisclosed secure source that FIOS may be coming to Huntington this year. Believe me if it would help I would string the Fiber to the house myself to get this service. We will just have to see what happens.
To relax in my free time I have been making frequent updates to Opinions by Jake (it really is cheaper than therapy) and I also have been making my own Video on Demand system. I have been taking all my DVD’s and converting them to an MP4 format and cataloging them in iTunes. That way when Jess buys me my Apple TV (hint number #573 honey) it will just all flow to what ever TV I wish in the house. This also has the added benefit of me being able to take several seasons of television and many many movies with me on the road on my work laptop with nothing else to carry. I know this is geeky but it really is relaxing to me.
That wraps up this short update from the Stapleton Mansion. Good Night and God Bless.
PS: Forgot to mention Jess killed her 8th DVD player in March. Believe me finding a 9th victim for the serial killer was no easy task.