Moving Pains & Successes!

8 March 2017

Dear Family,

I can’t miss the opportunity to write about February.  I loved your letters, Julie, and Susan’s family!  It seems that Felsteds are on the move.  

Scott wasn’t very sure about his new job with Vanity Fair but his colleagues are wonderful and he has discovered that he has a “World Class Job.”  Great benefits, great bosses, great opportunities to travel and do what he loves best—train employees in the warehouses by working alongside them.  He is excited to travel to Belgium, Prague, California, and Canada.  I am SO glad he likes his job!  It certainly makes it easier to move!

Emily and Steve are moving after 7 years in Philadelphia.  Steve will be stationed in the Spokane (?) area as a Family Practitioner for about 3 years.  Emily has been looking forward to getting out of Philly and having a bit more housing options.  Turns out they are moving to a very expensive housing market so it looks like more of the same!  

Sterling is enjoying his actuary job which allows him to travel a bit.  He is taking Jennifer with him on his next business trip to New York and I get to babysit!  Well, at least part of the time.  Jennifer’s mother is too kind to let me take them the whole time, but I will have some precious one on one time with them!  Ethan, their eldest, is being baptized this Saturday, March 11.

Liz and David are living about an hour away and we get to see them on a fairly regular basis, for which I am grateful.  Her pregnancy is going well and David is working full time ++ at a pool company.  He was so excited to tell me, “I get 50 hours a week right now and soon it will be 70!  In the summer I will get 80 hours a week!”  Oh, how grateful I am he is young and willing!

Ruth is still living at home and has been a real asset.  She is generally pleasant and helpful, is working for H&R Block as a receptionist and takes our handicapped neighbor grocery shopping and cooks for her.  

Ruth, Caroline, and I went to Greensboro, NC, for a few days to house hunt.  We had planned on making it a mini-vacation by staying in a hotel with a pool but Scott’s hostess in his B&B was so excited to have us stay with her.  She had set up a blow-up mattress for Caroline in the bedroom with one twin, which Ruth slept in.  Scott and I luxuriated in our double bed.  Ruth, Caroline, and I were disappointed about the hotel so I found tickets to the oldest dinner-theater in the US, the Dinner Barn.  “Kitchen Witches,” a comedy, was playing and the food was a buffet. How could we miss?  As we drove in the parking lot we saw many older couples and several pre-teens, along with middle aged couples.  I thought, Looks like it will be appropriate.  The food was fine (typical Southern fare; mac and cheese, baked chicken, pork, roast beef, collard greens, biscuits, lots of veggies, peach cobbler, vanilla ice cream).  The host was fun and interacted with the crowd before the performance, acknowledging anniversaries and birthdays.  The play began fun but quickly turned inappropriate.  So, we had to get up and leave before very long.  What is the matter with people?  Why do even older folk tolerate/enjoy this garbage?  I was actually pretty happy that both my girls were uncomfortable and wanted to leave.

The trip was  mostly to school hunt for Caroline.  Over the course of three days we toured two public high schools, two charter schools, and two colleges in the mornings and house hunted in the afternoon.  Caroline had her heart set on dual enrollment, which is what we have here in Fayetteville, but that arrangement is not an offered there.  Each school was pretty disappointing.  The third day Caroline sobbed as we drove with the realtor.  “Is she okay?  Should we stop?” queried the kind, timid, southern belle realtor.  Ruth and I assured her that leaving Caroline alone would be best.  Drive on, Realtor!  That night I could hardly get a distraught Caroline off the bed and into the car to attend an informational meeting about the last charter school on my list. Piedmont Classical High School has about 50 students per class (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior).  This is their first year in existence but they explained their responsible fiscal plan for growth, their pairing with a 150 year old all-male military academy  for sports, behavior code (“no one is forcing you to come to this school but if you will not act appropriately you will not be allowed to stay”), limited technology (“Students may use their phones before school, during lunch, and after school”, “Students who choose to take a class online because we do not offer it, may check out a computer to use for that class time and then turn it in.”), 9^th and 10^th graders are required to write assignments and papers in cursive, they teach 3 ways to take notes and allow the students to choose the one they like best—but they are required to take notes, they must take one year of Latin (language, culture, history, and mythology), one year of Logic, and one year of Rhetoric.  They have no facilities for cooking classes but have a cooking club which meets at bakeries and restaurants and has the baker or chef make food with them.  They also have a history club and a swim team which Caroline wants to join.  There were only six families at this informational meeting; two white, two black, and two Asian.  I’m in.  At the end of the presentation the principal asked if there were any more questions.  “When can I start?” was Caroline’s question.  I am hopeful she will enjoy this challenging, engaging educational opportunity.  I plan on volunteering for at least one full day a week.  So, the trip was a success!  

It is true that well-begun is half-done.  Ruth’s enthusiastic house clearing was followed by deck treating, carpet replacement, paint touch up, and yard work.  Boy!  Did we work hard!  But, Boy!  Does it look good!  The sign went up in the yard this morning and we are listed.  Now, to keep it clean until it sells.

Life is good with plenty of challenges at our house.  I have reason to believe it is thus with each of you.  I am not exactly jealous of Sue, Jean, and Carole, but I would like to pop in on Aunt Marlene and her family, or Aunt Margaret and her family.  And to be able (even shortly) to be with each other!  That is great!  I would like to have more of my children closer so I could see and succor them more often but they do a great job succoring each other.  I am blessed and just need to remember that each journey is unique and just what they (I) need!

Thanks for reading and thank you for loving me and mine!

Chris and Scott