Glad to hear that you're feeling better Mr. Forester. It's always nice to have your other half there at your side.
I'm not sure of how to "boast" about being deserving of your extremely generous offer, but here's my shot.
If it's one thing I've always kept with me from my role model (my grandfather that passed away in 1998) is that a positive attitude and a helping hand are all you need in life. That's how I live everyday. Sure I may only be 28 (just turned it last week) but I have traveled a lot physically and mentally in those years.
Long story short, my grandfather worked his entire life at Telephone Pioneers of America - NY Telephone, which then became: The Bell System - Bell Atlantic and eventually ended up as Verizon. Simply put, he told me as a kid that he lived every day and worked his hardest at what he did so that my grandmother would never have to worry about anything for the rest of her life if he passed before her (which happened 18 years ago last October). Ever since then it has been my goal to focus less on myself and make a difference in other people.
Went to college, got the degree. Moved out of state with a part-time job and a relationship to start my life. The job world job world wasn't that great at the time, made the best of it and worked my tail off. Got engaged, had it in my mind to work my tail off for that special person. Renovated her parent's home for free and a home cooked meal, treated her right, and then it went down. Got laid off, fiance in grad school. She then tells me after 2 months of no luck, that she doesn't see me going anywhere and breaks it off. Worst part is, I caught her soon after leaving a friends apartment at Ohio State.
So I made the best of it. I had been doing work for free on the side getting a friends VW/Audi performance shop up and running. I did get paid in parts that I needed, but everything else was free. Never asked for a thing because I believed in my friends vision. I kept his business going, and he kept my mind going, which is all I could ask for.
Figured I'd also take a shot and try to move towards another passion of mine, teaching. Taught kids for years how to ski and have fin with it, and since my degree was in fine art, I went back into the world of debt and worked towards my master's degree. Met a new fantastic woman in my program, but it wasn't easy. I did all my work in 1 academic year. 6 classes one semester, also shadowing teachers. Next semester, 16 weeks of full time student teaching with 3 classes in the evenings and 1 weekend class. Not to mention that in order to pay the bills I had also picked up a restaurant job on friday-sunday nights. This meant stretching myself between school, relationship, work, helping support a friend's business (and traveling out of state) and job hunting for the future. In the midst, lady's car gets smashed, she had no idea to do, but my first intuition was to fix it no questions asked (because it was the right thing to do in my mind).
So I graduated, right when the education job market was heading downhill. Kept my head up, kept waiting tables and wrenching after I got out at 11pm each night, keeping up the relationship (most important part to me) and job hunting, sleeping about 5 hours a day.
Tough decision time. I now have a masters and can legally teach Pre-K - 12th grade visual art. No jobs in Ohio, but offered a part-time position in my hometown two states away (Central NY). Relationship was serious, lady had been badly burned before and so had I. Decision time, promising her I would take care of her and anything we needed to do to stay afloat and happy, and asking her to move with me. Her decision: yes. So 2 days and a lot of fire escape stairs the U-haul is packed, full of tools from my nights of turning the wrench and all of our belongings. The hardest thing for me was packing all of my garage gear up from my buddies shop, knowing that he wanted nothing but to be able to pay me to stay around. Alas, a 6 1/2 hour drive with the dog and a truck with no radio I made it to our new apartment.
Teaching, really made me realize what I wanted to do, in the first year I got such a kick of teaching kids a passion of mine. Made me realize that all of my hard work was putting me right where I wanted to be. Decided to pop the question to my every patient and amazing lady and that worked. SO now I'm engaged (for the second time). Excellent way to start the second half of my first year. Then the bad news. Grandfather #2 is lost, lived down the street from him for my entire childhood. Grandmother with dementia becomes a priority since I live the closest, and I also have to head up closing my grandfather's business. Then get the news that my job is being scaled down, huge pay cut, huge road block. Still have to plan a wedding, close a business for my family (volunteered to do so) and take care of my grandmother and take care of my life. Yay for being 27!
Stretch everything thing, big stress for everyone. Fiance working three jobs, me with two, and still treading water. Manage to keep a level head and get the business closed when my grandmother takes a turn for the worst and goes to be with my grandfather. The whole time I remember my Grandpa Milo (who passed in 98) reminding me to be persistent and do unto others. We decide to move into my grandparents house, which brings us to the present. With the soon-to-be-wife working like crazy, and myself working until 11pm every night to clean out their house, have an estate sale and move all of our possessions in a small van to the house, the mental stress is huge. On top of my car breaking down and having to fix that as well, I still manage to help out my old apartment neighbor fix his VW (before I fixed my own) for free since he couldn't afford a shop to help him out and his family only had one car.
Moved, everything peachy at the moment. Until my uncle lies behind my back to my parents about what I have been doing, saying I'm trying to bleed my grandparents assests dry. Great news after almost a year of busing my rump for helping out my family. Finally get him quieted down and assess the house I'm in.
Not good. House sank 6 1/2 inches in the back. Quoted 50K + to just fix the foundation (even though I could rebuild the entire inside, which I plan to do, I can't do this). So now I'm stuck. I'm cut down on my teaching job, planning and paying for a wedding myself, working odd jobs on the side (which is where a toolbox comes in) just to keep a falling roof over my head. But I keep in my mind all the time what I'm doing for my kids at school, my neighbors that are also stretched thin, and ensuring that my future wife will have the dream wedding she deserves and a life without worry, like my grandpa Milo did for my other grandma (who is 87 and still kicking life's ****!). I work hard for what I have and put my individual wants/needs last because I need to give back to others, and I plan to do it until the day I can't lift a pinky, the whole time teaching my children to pay it forward as well.
I know this might not seem as worthwhile as some of the other users on here, but I've worked a lot and been burned a lot, but I keep going because of my need to make a difference.
I'd love to have one of those boxes, but since I picked up the HF unit I now have no need for the Snap-On. Please remove me from the list of entrants.
