Die Buchwalds

MERRY CHRISTMAS
Greetings from the south east corner of Butler County!! It’s been a long year and yet again we have lots of good news to share. In our last edition, we promised an update when we moved, but life had other plans for us.
HOME IS WHERE THE COOKIES ARE
After just about two years in Grove City, the cookies are in Sarver. We began our home shopping adventure in February & what started as, “Let’s look at one house for fun,” quickly became, “Let’s keep looking.” We had originally wanted to move by Easter but we first had to figure out that we were looking for houses in the wrong places. After that, it wasn’t long before we found our house. We closed on May 31 and moved in on June 25, after about a month of sanding, staining and painting.
ENGINEERING ELECTRICITY
Matt has had a busy first year working at I2T. It’s been challenging and he’s learning new things all the time, which will hopefully be helpful as he finally writes his graduate paper in 2007. The best and worst part of the year was probably his three-week trip to West Virginia for a project start-up. The timing of the trip left Amy and Ratzi in charge of unpacking the house, which, of course, meant that there was still plenty of unpacking left for Matt to help with!
… AND ENGINEERING DOMESTICITY
Living closer to Matt’s job meant moving farther away from Amy’s, so we took a good look at our budget, making sure to account for all the bills and a healthy dose of sanity, and decided that a career change was in order. Amy’s last day at USIS was June 22 and now she spends her time working in our home. While it was a hard decision to make, the benefits definitely outweigh the sacrifices. Amy is even learning to cook and bake!! Eventually, she might even be good at it J
TWO WEDDINGS AND A ROAD TRIP
When Matt got back from West Virginia, we spent a few days in Ocean City, Maryland, with Matt’s mom, grandma and sister. It was nice to be able to relax at the beach together after so much time apart. For Amy, the trip was a welcome break from unpacking and for Matt it was thrilling to have a better variety of choices for eating out.
On the way back from the beach, we took a small detour to attend the wedding of Bethany Hescox and Shane Pepe, two of Amy’s college classmates. It was easy to tell that Bethany had been planning for their wedding day for a long, long time. Bethany was also one of the most organized brides we’ve ever met.
In October, we attended the wedding of another Setonian, Demetra Chengelis, and Matt Czegan. It was a perfect fall day for a fabulously orange wedding. Their wedding was the first time Matt had been back to the Seton Hill campus since Amy graduated, and Amy’s first visit in over a year. It has definitely changed over the last few years!
RATZI IS A BIG BROTHER
We welcomed Linus into the family at the end of September. He was born at the beginning of August and was being raised by Brian Hirth’s parents, who wanted to find a new home for him because they already had their own little zoo. Brian & his wife Laura knew we wanted another cat so that Ratzi would have a friend, so Laura emailed some pictures to Amy and it was love at first sight. The Hirths had named him Igde, short for Idgedgula-de, which means “little one” but we decided to rename him so that he would “match” Ratzi.
Both cats are doing well after a few days of adjusting to each other. Ratzi is convinced that Linus is a very dirty kitten and is always tackling him for a good washing. Linus tolerates the tackling fairly well – he doesn’t have much choice – Ratzi is about three times his size!
UNTIL NEXT YEAR…
We hope that 2007 brings everyone happiness and many blessings. Please stay in touch & let us know how life is in your neck of the woods – especially if we haven’t had a chance to see each other recently. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!
Love,
Matt, Amy, Ratzi & Linus Buchwald

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That’s pretty cool.

Thesis is switching gears to a graduation paper. That should go well after my first big project startup for work is finished (starts sometime in mid-june, goes until sometime). Yum.

I also don’t have a white picket fence, but the house is in existence, so theoretically this is possible. Speaking of theoretical. We have fifty theoretical babies. We train them in our imaginarium where they are learning the Jedi arts. Pretty soon Mr. Palpatine is gonna know not to mess with us.

Occasionally, I am filled with rich chocolatey goo. That’s not quite the same as being rich, unless you eat me during one of those times. But please do not eat me. That would make me unhappy.

Not sure how I’ve helped the poor. I’m a big slacker. Though more money has gone to charitable causes this year. Theoretically I may have indirectly helped the poor. Which would be nice.

I have invented time travel. Sort of. See, my job had a long commute, so while travelling to and from work, I was tending to go faster throughout the day then most people. Therefore, thanks to time-dilation, I was getting slowly younger than most of the people I know. Pretty soon I should be able to harness this power to fight crime, where I can form my alter-ego: time man! (Bitten by a radioactive time, with all the powers of a time).

Goals for next Marriage Year
1. Finish Master’s Degree.
2. Develop Mutant Powers; Form an Elite World-Saving Team
3. Help the poor
4. Learn how to construct stairs
5. Produce offspring, thus ensuring I will not have to mow the lawn forever

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A year ago today, I let my husband sleep in. This year, I made him get up & return a floor sander to a location about an hour away from our apartment. I’m a big ol’ meanie. When he gets back, though, we’re going to eat donuts & watch The Princess Bride. Hopefully that’ll make up for the floor sander.
Since last year, we have acquired a kitten, a job for Matt and a house. I’d say we did pretty well. We also saw a lot of really awesome people get married and some others have babies. They’ve done pretty well, too.

Recap of last year’s goals…
(my goals)
1. I did a little better with cooking after Matt got his job, but he still does most of it.
2. Matt has a job, so I think this goal was accomplished.
3. The scrapbooks are better, but still far from caught up.
4. Going to the Y has pretty much stopped. Matt’s never around enough to use the membership and I haven’t been to class since I found out I was going to have surgery on my foot. It was kind of a wasted membership for the past few months and we’ll be cancelling it because we’re moving, but when we did use it I was really glad to have it. If you ever find yourself at the Y in my town, take Susan’s classes. She’s the best.
5. Still haven’t seen Gone with the Wind
6. I *did* finish Paul’s book. I wrote about it here.
7. We taught 8th grade religious education. That was an adventure… I loved every minute of it.
(“us” goals)
1. DONE
2. DONE
3. Will be DONE in July
4. Still working on it.

Goals for this year…
1. Fix my thyroid: This should be pretty self-explanatory :)
2. Find a part time job closer to the house: My current job is too far from our new house and with all the running around I’m going to be doing in the coming weeks & months for goal #1, it’ll be easier to work part time.
3. Encourage Matt to write his thesis/grad paper/whatever he’s calling it these days: Also self-explanatory.
4. Many goals for our new house: This is a whole separate post… we’ll get to it later today, maybe.
5. Find a friend for Ratzi: He needs company & someone to run around the new house with so he doesn’t get fat.
6. Top Secret Special Project: If I told you, I’d have to kill you ;)

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We sent this text* in our Christmas cards. It sums up the year pretty well…

MERRY CHRISTMAS
Welcome to the first annual Buchwald Family newsletter. Last year, our only news was that we were finally married. This year is a completely different story. 2005 brought a lot of wonderful news to share with everyone. The BEST news first:
MATT HAS A JOB
In July, Brian helped Matt get in contact with a company called Integrated Industrial Technologies. In September, after two interviews, Matt was offered a job! He began on October 3rd. At his job, he attempts to conquer the world while building an army of gnome-soldiers. More seriously, he finally gets to use his engineering knowledge while working on projects involving motion control.
AMY STILL HAS A JOB
This isn’t really news, and it’s definitely not as exciting as Matt finally having a job. Amy just completed her second year at her job. She’s now been in her department for over half of its existence. There was some talk about moving everybody underground, but the Powers That Be have changed their minds. While we still live here, Amy loves the location of her job. Onward to more exciting things…
MATT JOINED THE CLUB
Matt finally became Catholic at Easter Vigil. His journey started in September 2004 when he joined the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults class at Beloved Disciple. He received the sacraments of initiation at St. Matthias with Father Ritzert. Matt chose Ferdinand as his Confirmation name. St. Ferdinand III of Castile is the patron saint of engineers.
WE MET MICKEY
In April, we spent a week at Disney World. The highlights of our trip included meeting Mickey Mouse and having breakfast with Cinderella and her friends. Matt tried to pull the sword out of the stone, spent some time on a Viking ship in Norway and drank a liter of beer in Germany. Amy spent the whole week trying to convince Matt that he really could ride the Teacups, but she never succeeded. Amy hopes that none of her children get motion sickness because she REALLY wants to ride the Teacups the next time we go to Disney World. The real reason we went, of course, had nothing to do with Disney. We were there to see Amy’s cousins, Beth and Samantha, and the rest of their marching band. They were the pre-parade entertainment on Friday afternoon.
OUR FUR-ST BABY
In June, we went to a picnic-reunion for Matt’s RCIA class at a farm belonging to one of the other families. While Amy was busy talking about babies, Matt snuck off to the barn with the kids and fell in love. We brought our little bundle of fluff home about two weeks later. He was born in early April, right around the time that Pope John Paul II passed away, so we tried to call him JP, but it just didn’t fit. Instead, we named him Ratzi after Pope Benedict XVI. Coincidentally, the Pope loves cats. Having a cat has been a learning experience. Ratzi has taught us all sorts of “child-proofing” techniques, especially regarding the toilet seat!
WEDDING MANIA
We spent a lot of time at weddings in 2005. At the beginning of April, Amy’s co-workers, Dawn and Cory, were married. In September, Amy’s sister, Lisa, got married. Then the real fun began. We attended three weddings in three weeks in October. First, Steve, a friend from high school, married Courtney. We both enjoyed getting to see people we went to school with, some of whom we hadn’t seen in about six years. Next, another of Amy’s co-workers, Ambuer, married Josh. Josh’s uncle, Tim, was in Amy’s parents’ wedding WAY back in 1979. It really is a small, small world. Finally, we traveled to Rhode Island where Matt’s college friend, Matt, married Diana. In our brief stay in Rhode Island, we’re pretty sure we saw the whole state.
WHERE WOULD JOHNNY DAMON GO?**
While we were in New England for Matt & Diana’s wedding, we took a day trip up to Boston to visit Bill. We followed the red brick line along the Freedom Trail tour and saw Paul Revere’s grave and a lot of other really old stuff. We also took a tour of Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. It was cold and rainy, but we went to the top of the Green Monster anyway.
A LOOK AHEAD
We’re headed back “home” to the Evans City area in order to split the difference between our jobs. As of this writing, we’re hoping to move before Easter. We’re glad to be moving closer to our families, but we’re definitely going to miss Grove City. We’re going to miss a lot of things about living up here: Amy’s going to miss her four-mile commute, we’re both going to miss the YMCA and of course the people we’ve met here.
UNTIL NEXT YEAR…
We hope that 2006 brings everyone happiness and many blessings. Please stay in touch & let us know how life is in your neck of the woods – especially if we haven’t had a chance to see each other recently. We’ll be sure to send out an update when we know where we’re headed next. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!
Love,
Matt, Amy and Ratzi Buchwald

*this version is edited because, well, this is the Internet.
**apparently, Johnny Damon would ditch Boston & sign with the Yankees. Boo to him. :-p

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Benig married for one year is pretty awesome. I imagine being married for around 75+ more will be pretty awesome too. I could say a lot of things about what has happened this year, but Amy said more of them, so you are going to get this little jig instead. *dances a jig* No, kidding. I suppose I can find something else to say.

Job hunting is less than fun. I’ve run into a few problems, which I shall list. There are a lack of “local” companies that I’ve found on the whole. There are also a lack of “non-local” companies that seem willing to look for candidates who aren’t “local.” I’m also fairly convinced that my degree program sucks because it doesn’t give me my BS degree until I’ve completed both it and the MS. Apparently I have a company in Monroeville that was interested in me, except that I didn’t technically have the BS yet. The job would help me flesh out and smooth out the thesis, and the thesis seems now required to get a job. It’s a vicious cycle, but it’s probably the only thing that’s really annoying in life.

So far this year I’ve learned how to cook various foods correctly, though I sure could expand my horizons. Along with this, Amy has gotten to enjoy the food, though I’m still working on the green beans and the rice. Someday I fear our kids will be doomed to eating nothing. I kind of enjoy cooking, though many times I don’t feel like doing it at all.

Working out at the Y has been quite cool, and I’m glad to have someone (Amy) who also has been going and trying to get in better shape, because it helps me to want to go. I think that’s the key of marriage: doing things together. And we’re pretty good at that, while still being able to do our own thing now and again.

I was going to post goal lists here, but Amy did that, and mine would sound something like: 1. Get this bloody thesis done so that I have a degree so that someone gives me a job so that we can have a white picket fence and eat a lot of yummy food and have fifty babies. 2. Have fifty babies. 3. Be rich. 4. Help the poor. 5. Invent time travel.

You have to admit, that would be pretty cool, right?

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