Just for Fun and Keeping in Touch.
We have a few blogs for various business related activities but we wanted a place to post about our travels, really really deep insights (cough cough!), funny or inspiring stuff, and things we know we hope others might find of interest.
If You Don’t Already Know Us.
Ruth grew up in Moncton NB (that’s New Brunswick on the Canadian east coast in case you are a typically geographically-challenged US citizen) and went to Gordon College (north of Boston) where she ran into Richard, a recent graduate from the same school living in the area. Richard grew up in different towns (Scarsdale, NY; Walpole, MA; Westwood, MA) but graduated from Barnstable High on Cape Cod.
We were married and raised three super daughters all of who have given us grandchildren that we think are pretty special. We have lived in Manchester, MA all our life together.
Ruth taught elementary school and has worked with special needs children. She spent quite a few years babysitting for young children in our home. Richard taught high school history and psychology for 15 years before starting Cape Ann Academy, a small private school for middle school students. The Academy was a lot of fun but it used up all our savings including any retirement money.
When the school closed, Richard got a job in the semiconductor industry as a training manager, thanks to a friend who was Director of Customer Service. During these eight years, Richard learned a lot about training; surprisingly, “teaching” and “training” are different, even though they both require similar skills. After a “lay-off” in 1992, Richard leveraged his education and training background by starting a consulting business that focused on helping other high tech companies improve their training.
Always interested in promoting the wellness of our family, Ruth became interested in the unique nutritional products of a network marketing business. This began our involvement in a third home business (if you consider the in-home babysitting and the office of Richard-the-traveling-train-the-trainer). To this day, we both remain passionate about the quality and value of those products. But, as so often happens with network marketing, when you “run out” of friends and family, and some customers stop buying, what then? We found that “traditional network marketing” was not working for us and have turned to other means.
FYI.
If you are inclined to track down more about us, here’s a quick reference list:
- All kinds of links, pictures, and miscellaneous stuff for the Goutal-curious at www.RGoutal.com
- Where we try to help others learn to market their own home business (or traditional small business) at Fitting-the-Pieces.com
- Richard’s Facebook pages
Some of Our Favorite Things:
- Keeping up with our three daughters and their families! Two of these families live quite some distance, so that brings up the next thing…
Ruth and Richard on Trip to Utah
- We both like traveling. But Ruth is especially good at researching the details of a trip, finding the bargains, the special places to see, and the background information. Ruth is a great tour guide! (Need travel tips? – Contact her!)Favorite destinations include, among others, Yellowstone National Park, Utah canyons and arches, Yosemite, Venice, many treasured spots in the Alps, the English “Lake District,” the White Mountains, and more …
- We both enjoy trains for reasons of convenience, scenery, and nostalgia. Since trains are largely inconvenient in the US (thanks to poor US policy decisions) we settle for nostalgia here and convenience in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere.
- Ruth is a fan of puzzles. We both like good table and card games.
- Richard is a fan of mystery books and writes about all that in a different blog.
- Photography! Ruth has a wonderful knack for finding awesome scenes and framing some great shots. We’ll get a gallery going soon.
Keep in Touch, eh?
Hey family! Hey friends near and dear! Hey friends from our dim dark past! Hey unknown visitor here that we haven’t met yet! Wouldn’t you love to get a friendly email telling you what we are doing delivered right to your email box (a couple times a month)? Good excuse not to read the really junkie mail, agreed? See, this is our substitute for not forwarding to you all manner of urban myths, jokes, hoaxes, political diatribes, and the like that we get from …. nevermind. So c’mon, you know you want to keep in touch with… well, at least with Ruth, right? [Hey- if you don't like it, you can easily cancel from a link in the emails.]
