mstangl711
 
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Fat To Fit
Fat To Fit
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Birthday: October 7
Gender: Female
Religion: Christian/Catholic
Location:
BELLEVUE, Washington
United States
School:
Kuemper High School
University of Notre Dame
Creighton University
Work:
Lucent Technologies
Bell Laboratories
Morgan Stanley
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Hometown(s):
Dedham/Coon Rapids, Iowa
Omaha, Nebraska
South Bend, Indiana
Aurora, Illinois
Lebanon, New Jersey
Bradley Beach, New Jersey
Brooklyn, New York
Bellevue, Washington
Quote:
I retired during 2009, and I am enjoying my new life with many hobbies - travel, music, photography, writing, knitting, sewing, reading, and much more!
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About Me

I have recently retired, and I am thoroughly enjoying my additional free time. When people ask me what I plan to do in my retirement, I find it difficult to put some much into a few words!

Interests:
Irish traditional music, classical music, volunteer tutoring in physics, Irish set dancing, travel, cooking, sewing, needlepoint, knitting, gardening, yoga, crosswords, writing and reading
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Christmas Letter 2009

Welcome to my Christmas letter!  

First, I want you to realize why I am sending this letter. It is because you are important to me, and I want to keep in touch with you and let you know about the year’s events for my family and me. It is that simple. And that complicated. How can I possibly sum up an entire year’s happenings in just a few paragraphs? Do you really want to know ALL the “stuff?” I hope that you will at least skim the news, but most importantly, I hope that for one brief moment you will know that you are loved and wished the best for the holiday season. The rest is just icing on the cake!  

My biggest news of the year is that I retired! I had been looking forward to retirement for so long, and now that it is here, I have to say that it is even better than I thought it would be. I feel as though I am one of the luckiest people in the world. Maybe you have heard that old expression “healthy, wealthy and wise.” We have health, enough wealth, and enough wisdom to be satisfied with our good fortune. Who could ever ask for more?  

We traveled a lot this year, all within the United States and mostly by air, although we drove several hundred miles, too. We made it to many states – Oregon, California, New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Alaska, to places within Washington, and also to Washington DC. I started doing travel journals early in the year, but I just could not keep up with all of it. Maybe someday I will at least finish the summaries. Frank also went to Pennsylvania and Maryland without me, so he is still the travel winner! More importantly, we visited so many friends and relatives that the list would be much too long for this letter. I thoroughly enjoyed every trip, and we are so grateful to have been able to see everyone. We did miss a few important people and locations, so we are planning more travel for next year. In particular, we are hoping to spend some significant time on what we call the “I-States Tour” – Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Whoops! How did that W state get in there? Also, we would like to get out of the country at least once. Stay tuned.  

What else did I do in my first year of retirement? I knitted sweaters, cooked and baked some delicious food, started a project to transcribe family videos, played the Bach Double in a concert with the Aurora Suzuki Violins, sewed a dress shirt for my son, tutored high school students in math and physics, and grew some vegetables.  I also had some incredibly valuable help from my friend Jim to remodel the kitchen, and from Jim and my son to lay some new flooring, among many other home improvement projects. Lately I have trained to become a tax pro, and I’ll be doing seasonal work with H&R Block throughout the next tax season. I actually like working on someone else’s taxes, although I’m sure I will never enjoy doing my own!  

Of course, there were many things that I had intended to do that somehow never got finished, like cleaning out the closets and cupboards. Maybe I should just give up thinking that will ever happen.  

My children are all doing fine. Michael is still working for Apollo insurance in Des Plaines, Illinois, as their lead software developer. This year he set up a home office where his team works three days a week.  This saves them all commuting time and lets them get more work done without office distractions. Amanda is continuing to make progress on her doctorate in linguistics and is planning to complete another master’s degree in May, a major milestone! She also took a really great trip to Europe last summer. Diana graduated from high school and just had an awesome first semester at BellevueCollege. She is currently planning to complete a Transfer Associate Degree there and then move to a university. She has not completely settled on a major yet, but she is considering some really interesting careers. Stay tuned! She is also continuing to make incredibly beautiful crocheted pieces and is looking for an outlet to market them. 

One warning – I have made one resolution for the New Year, which is to make more phone calls to friends and family. You may be hearing from me!  

In the space that remains, I am going to add a few pictures from the year. Enjoy!  

Love,  

Marilyn

 

Added: December 22, 2009
Views: 65 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0
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  Comments (1)  
RuthHope
RuthHope says:

Congratulations on your 10lb success! AND thank you for encouraging us all to stay firm in our striving for a healthy lifestyle!!

I love the journal -- such an interesting read! I have yet to explore this part of the USA and need to!

yours, Ruth
Posted: May 9, 2009 4:05AM EDT
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