Getting to know us ~ Getting to know you!

[Smile*Lee]

Even though some of us are familiar with both groups, there are new faces and a lot of time has past since we've fellowshipped together. I thought it might help with some introductions.

[Smile*Lee]

I joined Webforums around 2000 where I cut my internet teeth. I loved Lady Maverick's Paper Taming thread. Harriet was the "Apron Lady" and introduced me to T-Tapp.

I grew up in Michigan and Florida. Lived some of my younger adult life in Indiana. helia grew up in the town Illinois town where I've lived for 30 years.

We've been going to North Carolina over 30 years hiking and camping. Bought property last 2 years ago in SW North Carolina and now building a house. Not sure if we're going to move there yet, but it's started.

That's the short story. I might add more as time goes on.

[Lady Maverick]

I love to reconnect with SHE friends and meet new ones.

I started on SHE boards over 2 decades ago. WOW! SHE friends have enriched my life in countless ways and I consider each one to be priceless treasures.

Facts about me - I love numbers, so here are some numbers about my life.
69 years old.
52 years married to my best friend.
2 children (51 and 48 years old)
6 Grandchildren. (29, 27, 18, 16, 14, 13 years old) Adopted 2 of them (16 & 13 years old)
7 Great Grandchildren (10, 9, 8, 7, 4, 2, 1 years old)
35 years career (retired) GIS Manager
9th year of homeschooling. Only one more year of homeschooling to go!
75 will be my age when our youngest graduates' public school.
1000 people live in my town.
20 lbs to lose. Come join us in the Health & Fitness thread if you want.
115 plants being babied while waiting for warmer temps. 11 raised bed gardens bring me joy.

[CathyS]

Smile Lee this is a wonderful idea!

I used to be Cabby, but I retired from that in 2015. I also married my high school sweetheart in 2015 after being apart 35 years. Together we bought a house in the rural area near Niagara Falls, Ontario. I found the boards in January 2000. My dd was 14 at the time and I was with husband #2, the musician. Now dd is 38! She lives in Toronto and works behind the camera in the film industry as a grip/key grip/best boy.

[Ramblinrose]

Smile*lee…

I was Cowinkie on the other board 20+ years ago.

Born in NJ, went to University of Tennessee, lived 4 years in Orlando, FL… I was a Navy wife. From there have lived in Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville..all in Tennessee.
Also Birmingham, Orange Beach, Atmore and Mobile… all Alabama. Can’t forget New Orleans, LA and 21 years in AZ before I moved back to FL. Phew!!!

My husband, who lived next door to me growing up, and then moved away when I was 15… and I reconnected 25 years ago and I have been with him ever since. We’ve Ben married for15 years. He has Alzheimer’s and that is the reason we moved to FL where my only child, my son lives. He wanted us to move here so he could help me with my husband when the time comes that I need help.

I grow sun flowers, read, hike when I can, worked with wild horses when in AZ and was a Special Ed Jr High teacher for 25 years.

[Lauralind]

Good morning. I like this idea too. Must have been 20 years ago when I started with flylady routines. A couple years later I found flylady forum. Then switched to sheforums when that one closed.

I live in northern bc. Canada. I have been married to dh for almost 30 years now. We've had an eventful few years in our family. Kids growing up and parents getting older is good and hard at the same time. Both ds 26 and dd24 got married in spring last year. Ds 15 is doing well but we're now mid waiting and procrastinated once with autism testing. He's thriving but very different from the other 2.

Last summer was brain surgery for mom hoping to slow down the dimensia progress and friday 2 days ago was open heart surgery for dad.

There's a grandbaby now too. 3 weeks old friday. So weddings. Babies and tons of challenges and I'm here trying to keep some sort of order for my life. Unsuccessful most days.

Oh well here we go. Good to meet you all.

[Twins' Mom]

Hi to all! I've always been Twins' Mom - the twins are now 32 and I think I started posting and being active when they were in first or second grade. I was around before then too.

I'm now 69, I retired from public accounting after the 2013 tax season, when my sister was in a nursing home and I was her guardian. Also, dmom was getting older too. They, and my brother, have all passed away.

I'm into genealogy big time and my board friends cheered me on when I became a Certified Genealogist a couple of year ago. I had to submit a portfolio of work which was evaluated by three judges. My claim to fame: My portfolio case study was published last year in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

I also do a lot of paper crafting - making cards mostly. Dh is retiring in June and my room upstairs - with genealogy desk and crafting desk - is going to be my refuge, lol.

I remember so many names! I don't know if you guys know, Indiana passed away several years ago, Dee Clutter and her dh died last year, or was it year before? Harmony - I don't think she was on the older board - has had a stroke and hasn't been able to join us.

[helia]

I feel like everyone here knows me pretty well. I'm helia/ helian, an acronym of the first letters of my 3 kids' first names.

I grew up in Central Illinois, the town where Smile lives! I met dh there in grad school. We've been married for almost 35 years! Dh and I moved to Binghamton, NY for 1 year -- and then we lived in Austin, TX for 8 years where our 3 children were born. Then, in 2001, we moved to SE Michigan where we currently reside.

After an 18 year hiatus raising young children, I returned to payroll work in 2015 and have loved working part time outside of the home! Sometimes, it feels more like full time -- but I adore the people I work with as well as the students. I teach ESL and work on curriculum development for the school as well.

I am 57, almost 58, and dh is 61 -- and has no plans to retire! He loves his job and is quite energized by it.

Kiddos: Ds is almost 31 (!) and lives in Bellevue, WA. He married F 1.5 years ago -- and they just told us they're expecting!!! It's extremely early, and I'm not supposed to tell anyone -- but most of you don't know me irl. Dd29 bought a house about a mile from ours and she lives there now with dd26. Between the two of them, they have a small menagerie: Lily the cat is still around + dd29 has 3 pet rats, and dd26 got a labrador retriever puppy last fall. Fable, the puppy, is almost 6 months old - and is as exuberant and energetic as a lab puppy can be.

I am in the process of moving my mom from her nursing home in Central Illinois to one in our city here in Michigan.

I mention the Cs a lot; R(C) and S(C) are good friends, more like family, who live about 2 blocks from us with their DD J11yo. J11yo is into competitive swimming and is quite good, making it onto our state's team for multi-state meets.

We are also renting out a room to M, a young woman who works for the same religious org dd29 and SC work for; affordable housing is difficult to find here, so we offered her a room.

[Lauralind]

Eeks helian. I saw your news. Congratulations on the coming baby.. I was wondering if you were going to get to be grandma soon. How exciting .

[Kittykatt]

This thread is an excellent idea , Smilelee, thank you!

Congratulations, Helian!

I first discovered the concept of decluttering for an easier life in a reader's Digest article way back in 1990. But I think I first discovered Flylady and especially the idea of routines and actually doing jobs regularly amtd on a particular day, not just "when I felt like it" when I read her book (2002?). From there I found the Flylady forum, and, like Laura, switched to sheforums when that one closed.

I'm 58, and I've been married to DH, who is 61, for nearly 35 years. I grew up in Bournemouth, which is right on the south coast of England, and which in the 1960s and 70s was idyllic , with its quaint "genteel" feel and its miles of sandy beaches. My best friend's house when I was about 10 was in easy walking distance of the beach. We used to turn right from her house, then right again to walk down the chine, and about 10 minutes or so later we arrived on the promenade. It's all changed substantially since then, however, and unfortunately not for the better, so I don't go back any more.

I moved to Devon for university, and stayed! I met DH (who is a local lad!) and we married in 1990. DH currently works in IT for NHS England, but as our current government has recently decided to abolish NHS England and merge it with something else , we don't
know how much longer he will be working there, but it will be at least a year, maybe two. If his team do end up losing their jobs, as they're all about the same age, they're planning to take redundancy and early retirement, so we'll be ok.

I've had a succession of jobs, but finally started my own cleaning business(!) in 2007. That jogged along nicely until the pandemic brought an end to it, so now I'm very happy being a housewife / homemaker and getting more involved in our church.

We have three rescue cats, Freddie, who will be 12 in July, we rescued as a five month old kitten from an abusive household, where the toddler there was squeezing poor Freddie like a tube of toothpaste and carrying him round by his neck. Unsurprisingly, Freddie still doesn't like children! He doesn't like the vet either, which is somewhat unfortunate as he is currently receiving injections every 4 weeks for his arthritis (he has hip displasia), which are very successful at improving his mobility.

Jude will be 7 this year, and we adopted her from Blue Cross when she was about a year old. She's a very sweet natured timid cat, but can also be very strong minded!

Finally we adopted Matilda from Romania back in May 2023. She was rescued from the streets of Bucharest as a small kitten by a very kind lady who devotes herself to rescuing cats and dogs over there. She's very outgoing and friendly towards everyone, and was evidently very well socialised when she was in foster care. She will be 4 years old in July.

My passion is my garden -it's definitely my "happy space". I grow mostly roses, which seems to like the clay soil.

My latest project is renovating a 1950s dolls house - originally it was to give me something productive and enjoyable to do while the winter weather meant it was too wet to get out in the garden much, but, like many projects, it seems to have grown!