Family

My family is from Pennsylvania. My father hails from Meyersdale, in the southwest; my mother from Mifflinburg, to the southeast. My parents met while both were in grad school at Penn State. My father got his degree in architecture; my mother in education.

After graduation, they got married; my dad joined a local architectural firm and my mom taught high school art until I was born. Shortly thereafter my dad joined the Penn State Faculty in the Architectural Engineering Dept., where he worked till he retired a few years ago. Since retirement, he still designs, everything from houses to the restrooms for one of the local parks. He's also active on zoning committees, building code review boards, and similar stuff.

My mom stopped teaching fulltime after I was born but never stopped working. She's been planning, creating, and supervising the summer Arts & Crafts program for the Parks & Recreation dept. for nigh onto forever! She's also been a Brownie Troop leader since the year I was in third grade. It was supposed to be a temporary thing, just until my sister (4 years younger) finished Brownies. My mom got her 30-year pin a couple of years back... so much for temporary! She's also done substitute teaching, made posters for a local clothing shop, been active on the Girl Scout Council, worked briefly in a local gift shop...

I have a sister, not quite 4 years younger than myself. She got a B.S. in elementary education (at Penn State, of course), then taught first grade for a year in Maryland. Her first graders gave her the chicken pox. The school gave her hives (figuratively) and she decided she liked kids but didn't like the administration and politics of teaching.

After that, she moved to Oklahoma City and entered a graduate program in Arts Administration. There she met her future husband, graduated, and got married. They currently live in Kansas City, nope they moved to New York, that is to Chicago, hang on, Texas! They move around... She's been working in Human Resources in a large company; he's got his CPA and works for a huge insurance firm. My sister and her husband are part of Corporate America.

Both of my parents and my sister have backgrounds in things like Art and Education. I'm the technical one in the family. We don't quite know how that happened, but hey, you never know. A few years ago I got my folks a Mac and now my Mom & Dad send me regular email. My sister says she doesn't want a computer at home but I may convince her yet; I get email from her too. I even convinced her to start a weblog a few years ago.