Die Buchwalds

This whole past year can be summarized in one word: hoagies. Of course, that doesn’t really tell you a whole lot, now does it? We’ve been busy busy busy selling hoagies and assorted other fundraiser items in preparation for our trip to Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day. It really hasn’t left us much time for anything else, so we’ve spent some time reorganizing.

With a little help from some new friends, we discovered that we do in fact have a YMCA 10 minutes from our house, so we finally signed up there & I’ve been going to aerobics classes for about three months now. Knowing that I need to leave the house on certain days at a certain time has helped me learn to get my housework done more efficiently.

I taught CCD again this year. This class was probably my most challenging, but we made it through and I haven’t given up. I was asked to serve on Pastoral Council so I’ll be teaching an earlier class next year but it’ll still be 5th grade. In addition, we’ve also been chaperoning Youth Group nights more regularly. It’s been great getting to know some of the teens from our parish and the community in general. It’s been especially nice having an opportunity outside of hoagie making to get to know the ones who will be joining us in Sydney.

We went on the March for Life again this year (that makes 13 trips for me). Our parish actually didn’t have a bus this year (our involvement with WYD made me reconsider wanting to organize a bus) so we went with the parish where my cousins go to school. Next year, I really do think I’ll organize a bus for our parish because I’ll have a lot less going on.

The cats continue to grow by leaps & bounds. Ratzi’s got his weight back under control but Linus is a porker. They’re cute & we think we’ll keep them :)

We didn’t acquire any new pets this year, but we did acquire some godchildren. John Jordan and Mary Elizabeth are the children of our good friends, Brian & Laura. They’re cute & we think we’ll keep them, too :)

Reviewing last year’s goals:
1. We had to pay some money out of pocket for our trip but I think we did manage to raise more than we expected to, so I’d call this goal a success.
2. I think I might have been more organized. Maybe.
3. The house is still standing, but we really haven’t done any work to improve it.
4. I absolutely failed to start scrapbooking again.
5. The photo gallery is mostly caught up.
6. The care replacement fund continues to grow slowly
7. PMI is GONE as of the end of May :)
8. DONE
9. We have some money ready to invest for retirement, we just have to actually invest it.
10. Paper’s still not done.
11. I planted a few seeds… we’ll see what happens.
12. We’re still working on the walking.
13. On hiatus.

Goals for Year 5:
1. Have fewer goals ;)
2. Get our Roth IRAs started.
3. Survive trip to Australia
4. Plan & execute a successful trip to the March For Life.
5. Continue to encourage Matt to finish his graduate paper.
6. Get back to scrapbooking. For real this time!

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This year seemed to go fast!

As such, there isn’t too much new for me to report. Work’s going well. The wheel-dresser project I mentioned last year has been successful, resulting in two new orders for the same thing. I also got to install a new motion sequence to the aluminum furnace I did right after moving in to our current house, and from feedback, the operators and the company itself love it, so much so that they want the unload car rolls fixed. Hoorah! Presently I’m working on a big project for the same company, along with other coworkers, and am learning a lot about C# as a result. I love event-driven programming so much.

Other than that, I feel like I am more busy! I somehow ended up chaperoning at Youth Group along with Amy, and it’s been fun getting to know the kids and help them grow in fellowship and spirituality. However, this has lead to me being more tired, as we get back after our bedtimes. But mostly just the endless hoagie fund raising has kept us busy. Soon World Youth Day will be upon us and hoagies will be but a thing of the past. I will watch out for night snakes (No I will not explain that).

Amy continues to be a wonderful wife, and seems content to continue to be a wonderful wife. I foresee this continuing in the future, because she is a wonderful wife. Sharing life with her helps me grow and I will always smile when I think of the wonders she brings to me.

Since I’d like to stick around longer (okay, okay, I think Amy came up with the idea), and in addition help us prepare for the rigors of low sleep and lots of walking in Australia, we got a membership at the local YMCA. As far as weight training goes, I have made more progress than I did while at the Grove City Y, but not as much on cardio. Why is running so dang hard? Totally unfair.

For my goals this year, I hope to grow in faith, grow in love, and finally develop the ability to fire lasers out of my eyes. With luck, two out of three of those will be met.

Cheers!

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