Week 19 - Who do you Miss?

A month ago if I was asked this question, I would have answered my father, Eli and my grand parents, and my ex-husband Bill. I hadn't lived with any of the above people for many years. So the feeling of loss was dampened by time and distance.

But today my loss is acute. On Tuesday January 7th, my husband and best friend died of lung cancer. Burt had been my companion since the fall of 1990.  I will write Burt's story on my genealogy blog in the near future. Today I'm writing the story of Burt and Margaret.

I first met Burt in 1987. We were both employees of Martin Marietta assigned to a software modernization project. The project scope was huge, and included an MRP system written by Arthur Anderson and an off-the-shelf Shop Floor Control System, both of which were modified to work with other Martin Marietta written software including Work Measurement System, Financials, Operator Instructions, etc.

Burt was assigned to work the interface between the MPR system and the financial systems. He was responsible to ensure the final design met government compliance rules. I was assigned to the implementation team by the Industrial Engineering department - I had a much smaller scope of work.

In the fall of 1987, the team was struggling to find a way to capture and pass operator clockings from the Shop Floor Control Systems to the Payroll and Work Measurement Systems. At this time, I was bored and didn't have enough work to keep me busy. I asked if I could take a stab at the task and successfully found a way to capture the data.

In January of 1988 my then husband Bill suffered a brain hemorrhage. As a result, I was on family leave when the final software testing was done. My friend and coworker Cathy performed the software testing with Burt in my place. Later that year when I had my performance appraisal report (PAR), I asked Burt to submit an input to the PAR, which he did. He rated me average - and for those who know me, I'm NOT average. 

Around 1989 Burt and Cathy were working on a project and were co-located with Information Systems at a different site. While attending a meeting at that site, I made arrangements to have lunch with Cathy. She asked Burt to come with us. Burt got tied up in a meeting and after waiting quite awhile for him my toes were tapping with my need to get to lunch so I could get back to work. When Burt finally got free, we jumped in my car and drove to a diner across the street. After driving once around the parking lot, Burt commented, "Are you ever going to park this car?". After I parked the car and got out, I said to Burt, "You know Burt, I'm NEVER going to have lunch with you again." It would later become our private joke.

In 1990 my marriage to Bill was over and I was struggling to put my life back together. Burt came into my cube one day to see Cathy who was then my cube-mate. I noticed that the seam of his slacks near the pocket was coming unsewn. I suggested that he might want his wife repair the seam. He replied sadly that he didn't know if he had a wife. I then told him "If you ever need to talk, give me call". Never in my wildest dreams did I believe he would call, but several weeks later on a Saturday morning, my phone rang.

Our first real date was to Light Up Orlando 1990. Accompanying us were my step children, Mary & Jim Sasser. Jim was living in Cocoa Beach at the time. Mary was living in Kansas. She was in Florida to visit her father Bill who was flying in to Orlando on the following day. This would set the tone for our relationship for years. Burt made room in our relationship for Bill and for Bill's kids.

Since I wasn't yet ready to make any commitments, I kept pushing Burt away. We kept up the push/pull relationship until 1992. In January 1992, Burt was went to Chicago for 6 months on the temporary duty assignment. While he was gone, I realized just how much he had wormed his way into my life. When he returned in June, he moved in with me.

We lived together in Orlando until 1994. In 1994 Martin Marietta transferred me to the Ocala plant. For the first month, I tried driving back and forth, but 3 hours on the road a day was more that I could take. So I asked one of my coworkers if I could rent a room from her. So for about a year I drove up to Ocala on Monday morning and drove home to Orlando on Friday afternoon. It was during this period that Burt and I decided that we wanted to make a long term commitment to each other.

On May 26th, 1995 Burt and I were married in Orlando, Florida. It was the third marriage for both us.

Using our marriage as leverage, Burt was able to persuade Martin Marietta to assign him an office in Ocala. In the spring of 1996 we moved into our home, a 4 bedroom 2 bath home we had built on a vacant lot in the southeastern part of Ocala.

In 2000, Burt retired at the age of 55. I continued to work full time for a year or so before I went part time and began working 4 days a week.

In 2003 Bill's sister Betty was feeling overwhelmed; with the death of their mother, Betty became the primary care taker of her twin brother Bill.  I volunteered to assume his care. I moved Bill to Ocala and placed him in an assisted living facility that was located 7 minutes from the house. I also went to court and became Bill's guardian. Although we had a few bumps in our relationship when I assumed Bill's care, Burt made room in our relationship for Bill.

In 2006 Burt was diagnosed with Congestive Heart failure. One day when I came home from work Burt told me he thought he had a heart attack earlier in the day. I took him to the ER and 2 days later he was the proud owner of an ICD (implantable cardioverted-defibrillator) or to the common person a pacemaker with a built in defibrillator. The device saved his life at least twice that we know of.

In January 2012 I retired from Lockheed Martin. At the request of Bill's children in the summer of 2012, I moved Bill to Hendersonville, North Carolina. Bill's son Jim became Bill's primary guardian.

In December 2012, the battery of Burt's ICD was wearing out, so in an outpatient procedure the ICD was replaced with a newer model. Within a couple of weeks the device detected some abnormal rhythms and twice it shocked his heart back into a normal rhythm.

Burt was referred to another cardiologist who specialized in arrhythmias. He was prescribed two different prescription drugs, one of which was Amiodarone. 5 % of patients taking Amiodarone develop adverse lung problems; Burt was one of the 5%. He was referred to a pulmonologist who treated the Amiodarone toxicity with steroids, his lung problems didn't improve. Further tests revealed Burt had incurable lung cancer.

The oncologist said the mean survival for Burt's type of cancer was 4 months. I had hoped for a longer time as the PET scan showed it wasn't yet in his major organs. We had a mere two months to say of lifetime of goodbyes - I would have liked a bit more time. Burt told me he would be waiting when my time comes.

I am an optimist - We had more than 20 years together. That's a great outcome for a pair of two time losers.

Week 20 - The Feeling of Home

I'm not much of a touchy feely kind of person, I deal more in facts. When I first saw this topic, I thought I'd write not about the "Feeling of Home" but about my current home.

It is a nice home, my husband Burt and I contracted with a builder in 1995 to custom build a house on a treed lot in Ocala, Florida. According to the tax office it is a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2275 square foot house on a third of an acre of land. It was completed in the Spring of 1996 and we moved in. I have lived there every since.

So what make this a home instead of a house? When I travel, I often can't wait to return to my own home. So it must have the "Feeling of Home" for me. Is it the things I have filled the house with? Or is it the person who lives there with me?

Since I'm recently widowed I must change the tense and say was it the person who lived there with me? Now the only occupants are my dog Foxy and myself and we both are missing Burt. The house feels lonely - way too big and full of stuff that is now meaningless.

I'm in the process of going thru the stuff, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I will be selling the house later this year. I plan on finding a smaller home that Foxy and I will learn to call home.

Week 21 - Hobbies

     

Stamp Collecting

My mother was a stamp collector. When I was young, she got my siblings and I started on collecting stamps. My mother was a working mother, and she didn't spend much time on her stamp collection. Papa Reppel would buy her nice expensive stamps for her collection. She would put them in the desk. Later after she retired she worked her collection. Before I moved to Florida in 1985, I went to several local stamp shows with my mom.

My stamp collection is rather like my mom's was when I was young. It has been years since I placed any stamps in an album or organized my collection, but I seem unable to stop my practice of putting stamps aside for my collection.When I go to the post office to buy stamps, I also look for a attractive multi-design collection and buy enough to use for mailing and to keep some for my collection. The stamps below are the most recent ones I bought for my collection. I have 2 stamps on the otherside to use before these get put back with the "collection" stamps.

Sewing

When I was around 6th grade, my school required all girls to take home economics. In this class we spent half the year learning to cook and half the year learning to sew. I took to sewing and was soon making nearly all my own clothes. When I was about 8th grade, my mother bought me a singer sewing machine for my birthday. I had this machine for years before it finally gave up the ghost and I had to replace it.

When I moved to Ocala in 1994, I didn't have a place to keep my machine out. Out to sight, out of mind. I basically didn't sew for years. When I retired in January 2012, I wanted to start working on some crafts. So I carved out a space in my laundry room and started doing craft projects and a few sewing projects. My first project was a bag that I made using an old pillow case for the lining. My next project was making a purse from an old pair of blue jeans. Here are pictures of the final product.

Christmas Ornaments

One of my favorite crafts is making Christmas ornaments for my family and friends. I have made them on and off for many years. I like making them because they are inexpensive enough that I can make one for everyone, Aunts, Siblings, Nieces & Nephew, and Friends. Here are a few of my favorites from over the years.

Week 18 - Memorable Gifts

     

This weeks prompt was First Gift or Present. I have no idea what my first present was. So I'm going to talk about memorable gifts from my childhood.

When I was young, money was tight and Santa only brought one toy for each of my siblings and I. One of the first Christmas gifts that I remember receiving was a doll buggy. Later that same day, someone fell on the doll buggy and the frame collapsed and that was the end of my doll buggy. My mom felt bad about it but there was nothing else to be had.

One Christmas when I was still young, my Aunt Edie made everyone had made pillows.  My pillow was a humpty dumpty pillow. It didn't take long before it became by crying pillow. A few years ago, I was telling my Aunt Edie just how much I had loved that pillow. She laughed and told the following story.

The pillows were a bigger project than she imagined they were. She was running behind, so she was working on them like crazy and there was material and stuffing everywhere. Without warning her ahead of time, Uncle Tom brought some people home for dinner and the house was just a mess.  They made the best of it and after they left, Aunt Edie promised that she would never let the house get into such a state again. Uncle Tom turned to her with a smile on his face and jokingly said "Well you'd better not".

Week 17 - Toys & Games

     

Being raise in the country, with no classmates within walking distance, my family spent many afternoons and evenings playing board games, cards, and working jigsaw puzzles. 

We had an assortment of board games to choose from including Sorry, Monopoly, Clue, Easy Money, Aggravation, Chinese Checkers, Game of the States, Scrabble and probably more. Our family favorites were Sorry and Aggravation. We also played Yatzee and Scrabble. We also played card games including Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Gin Rummy, Spades, Canasta and Solitare. Shirley and I played double solitare by the hour during our summer vacations.

When I was about 4th grade, my parents taught me to play Pinochle. All the Reppel family loved the game. I remember playing it with Papa Reppel and Aunt Bobbie. We would play 4 handed, 5 handed and 6 handed depending on who was available to play.

My Dad loved to play games. He was a big man, but he would get down on the floor and play solitare. When Patrick was just old enough to learn his numbers, he and Dad would play solitare together. When we would get together with Dad and Alma, we would get out some game and play. Often we played Mexican Train Dominos. We would match up to dominos and create the largest train possible. Once Daddy had his all lined up except he had made a matching error to his detriment. We laughed about it. After that when ever anyone screwed up their train, we called it an "Eli".