Frank Weise Case

Much has happened in my life up to this point, some of it planned but much of it not as originally planned. I always planned to marry and have a family but never planned to divorce and re-marry. I always planned to have a close relationship with my family but did not plan to have older members of my family living in my home. I always planned to get an education and have a career but did not plan to wait until my current age to complete this process. I am currently trying to meet some of the goals I have had since I was younger. The goal I am going to work on first is getting my degree so I can pursue a new career. I am starting to work on meeting my personal and professional goals later then I originally hoped, but like my sister has told me several times, better late than never.

I was born in the city of Philadelphia in an inner city neighborhood called Kensington. The neighborhood was full of friendly people. The neighbors would watch the houses and cars on the block to ensure they were safe. I found an advantage growing up in the city was we were in walking distance of school, libraries, parks, and a large number of stores. There was ample exposure to museums, science centers, and theaters.

My family has always been a large, close knit family. As I grew up I was able to get to know my grandparents on both my mother and father's side of the family and my great-grandparents on my mother's side. We lived with my mother's family until I was three years old and then we moved to our own home approximately six city blocks away so we were able to walk and visit often. My family is loud, boisterous, and always involved in each other's lives. One advantage of having a close family is they are always there for support during stressful times of your life. My family members are the most important people in my life. When I was going through a bad divorce, my mom and my sister were there to help me with the stress and anxiety I was undergoing. It helped me to have my female family members support me and increased our closeness despite the negative reasoning for the time we spent together. Gender socialization has an influence on how adults respond to stressful situations. Men will most often respond with a "fight or flight" reaction and women will most often respond with a tendency to "tend and befriend" relying on others both family and friends for support (Witt & Mossler, 2010, p43). The experience of divorce taught me a great deal about men. I learned you cannot judge a book by its cover and how deceitful some people can be. That was a situation I would not like to go through again in my lifetime.

One of the benefits of living in a close community is you know everyone and they know you. When I moved into a house of my own in a different area I learned a lesson on big city living. The neighbors were not as friendly nor knew much about others on the block. One summer my family went on vacation and came home to find out one of our neighbors have been robbed during the day. This would not have occurred in my childhood neighborhood where we watched out for one another. So much had changed when I moved and learning to adjust to those changes took some time.

Crafts and hobbies have been a large part of my life off and on since I was young. We started doing crafts as a family when I was a child. My family had game nights often and once video games were introduced we had competitions on the weekends. As a means of finding time to spend together, my parents, sister, aunt, and uncle all competed on a bowling league together. My sister and I continued this tradition with my two sons when they were old enough. Spending time doing arts and crafts of any kind is a great way to relax, taking time to explore new arts and crafts means you get to be creative and have fun in any way you want (Saini, 2010). At various times of stress and trouble in my life my sister helped me deal with the situations by going with me to classes that would teach me different crafts. Over the years I have taken several different classes and my favorite crafts became ceramics and plastic canvas stitching. Being involved in hobbies helps me take time away