Timeline

• Mother falls and breaks hip, has hip replacement, has heart attack, gets pneumonia, Blacksburg, Virginia, January 2006
• Put house on the market, Tampa, Florida, January 2006
• Finish master’s degree in counseling, July 2006
• Leave Tampa home of twenty-three years to move to Blacksburg, July 2006
• In lockdown with eighth graders while fellow Blacksburg High School graduate escapes from prison and kills two, August 2006
• Called to a meeting to learn that fellow teacher and family friend has been arrested for molesting children for 30 years, September 2006
• Meet nice guy on my 48th birthday, December 30, 2006
• Eighth grade student at new school in school system of which I am a graduate enters my classroom after the lesson has begun, walks by me, and pushes me, February, 2007
• In lockdown for approximately eight hours with approximately twenty eighth grade students at a school a few miles from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, while a fellow Hokie shoots fellow Hokies and their teachers and himself, April 16, 2007
• A champion of love and truth, denying darkness, nice guy asks me to marry him, April 16, 2007
• Electricity goes out so parents come to my house for water and warmth, mother bathes, falls in bathtub, rips open leg wound, April 17, 2007
• Marry nice guy, June 16, 2007
• Eighth grade student positions himself so only I can see and hear, looks me straight in the eye, and says in a very low voice, “I’m going to shoot you,” September, 2007
• Leave quarter century teaching career, November 7, 2007
• Start writing blog for VT KnowledgeWorks, November 30, 2007
• First sprint triathlon, May, 2008
• Start Handshake 2.0, July 28, 2008
• Start company, Handshake Media, Incorporated, August, 2008
• Nice guy’s father dies, April, 2009
• Feel as if I am reading my own and my town’s autobiography in Wally Lamb’s novel about Columbine, The Hour I First Believed, March 2009
• Parotid surgery, February, 2010
• Step-grandmother dies, April 2010
• Start new company with big dreams and a team, September, 2010
• Put beloved cat to sleep, November 20, 2010
• Get new cat, May 2011
• Learn new cat has incurable, auto-immune disorder, May 2011
• Last sprint triathlon, June, 2011
• Mother dies, August 27, 2011
• Female surgery, September 13, 2011
• Mentor of five years tells me she has cancer, September, 2011
• Read writing on the wall at start-up company competition, October 15, 2011
• End new company with dashed dreams and farewell to team, October, 2011
• Do nothing at all for four days for the first time in half a century, St. Petersburg Beach, November, 2011
• Shooting at Virginia Tech, Thursday, December 8, 2011
• Retinal hemorrhage, Monday, December 12, 2011
• Grandmother dies, Tuesday, December 13, 2011
• Mentor survives cancer surgery, Tuesday, December 13, 2011
• Progressive vision challenge named as possibility by eye specialist, Wednesday, December 14, 2011
• Close The Anne Show, Thursday, December 15, 2011
• Write this timeline, Friday, December 16, 2011