Better Living Homes Skippack

Andy Holder goes the distance as a man of steel

&Ldquo;I tell them, ‘The only thing you can control is your attitude. Constantly train yourself to have a positive attitude, even about little things. Then when something big is thrown your way, you’re prepared for it. It causes a chain reaction of seeing the positive in what others might see as negative. Before you know it you’re opening yourself up, doing extraordinary things, inspiring people. (A positive attitude) feeds the engine.’ So he shared with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation his plan to use his own journey to an ironman competition as a platform to raise money and awareness for diabetes. They loved it and asked Holder to help support the Philadelphia chapter’s fundraising efforts by sharing his story with corporate sponsors and asking them to rally around diabetes efforts. “Learning how to swim at 36 is no small task,” Holder said with a laugh. “There’s a difference between a couple laps at the Y and swimming 2.4 miles, in open water, with a bunch of people around you. There’s also a steep learning curve for biking and running a marathon. It’s a lot of training and hard work. There were days I felt like throwing in the towel. “The swim takes anywhere from an hour and 10 to an hour and 30 minutes. I can’t check when I’m swimming and would otherwise never exercise that long without checking. So I get up early, have a big pre-race meal and give myself a small percentage of insulin, because I don’t want to be back down to normal before swimming; I want to be high. Holder races in triathlons at a variety of distances. He’s completed an impressive seven full ironmans. He ran in the Philadelphia Triathlon last month and is currently training for the Cleveland Triathlon - Olympic distance in August. After that he has three half-ironmans, one in Georgia, one in the Poconos and another in Texas, and then the Philadelphia Marathon in November. “I tell them, ‘The only thing you can control is your attitude. Constantly train yourself to have a positive attitude, even about little things. Then when something big is thrown your way, you’re prepared for it. It causes a chain reaction of seeing the positive in what others might see as negative. Before you know it you’re opening yourself up, doing extraordinary things, inspiring people. (A positive attitude) feeds the engine.

Biltmore Estates is Back: My Hood Has a Revival | I Love Skippack ...

After we selected our home in Biltmore Estates , my wife Debby and I would visit Skippack to watch the workers build our future residence. We spent many happy hours watching groups of men skilled at different trades, each crew making its special contribution.

When it came time for workers to craft the brick exterior, we noticed a lovely young woman mixing cement, operating a forklift, and spreading mortar, along with the rest of the crew. She worked with the calm self-possession characteristic of a lovely young woman set at any task. I wanted to find out who she was, but felt reluctant to interrupt her work and didn’t want to make her feel self-conscious or singled out because she was a woman.

Later I would learn: She was Tiffany Heller, the daughter of Paul David Heller (he goes by David), owner of Heller Masonry of North Wales, PA; contracted by our builder TH Properties to work on the multiple unit dwellings in Biltmore Estates.

Our house was built. We moved in July 2008, and began to enjoy the great blessing of living in Skippack Village. Then on April 20, 2009 everything changed: Our builder TH Properties ceased operations. Trouble in paradise.

Next came long months of stillness and incompleteness. No longer did I see Tiffany driving her forklift. Unfinished structures stood as if frozen in time. Tyvek sheets fluttered in the breeze.

This season of bankruptcy was a time of richness for me. I became involved with my homeowner’s association. I went to Skippack Township Meetings and even began talking to local reporters. Most of all, my friendships with many neighbors deepened as we pulled together to weather the storm.

I learned to love the neighborhood even more, just as I love my friends and family more when they experience adversity and, as a result, develop greater wisdom, humility and compassion. So too my beautiful home, so too my troubled neighborhood.

My neighborhood was scarred but she was not abandoned. TH Properties fought to come back and complete Biltmore Estates. The builder, Bank of America, and other parties entered into long months of meetings, negotiations, proposals, rejection of proposals, court filings, court hearings, agreement then withdrawal from agreement then inability to reach agreement then agreement again, then modification of terms and so on and so on.

By late summer 2010, we began to see improvements in the community. On the common property, trees and shrubs were planted, turning a dull landscape into a foreshadow of a lush, suburban paradise. One morning, we looked outside our kitchen window, and there stood a beautiful Victorian-style white gazebo, reminding me of a line from one of my favorite poems by William Butler Yeats: “We the great gazebo built.

Christian living

Grammy Hunsberger's family (Abram Detweiler Family) still has its reunion at the Skippack School- house. Fern's presence was significant because she ...

History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

They have ah" a house of worship at Grater's Ford, two miles distant. The ancient village of Skippack, though better known asSkippackville, is situated near ...

The Lord's Supper in the Reformed Church in America, tradition in transformation

Some of these new settlers found better living conditions in William Penn's woods; ... in the Pennsylvania territories of Neshaminy, Skippack, White Marsh, ...

Sartain's union magazine of literature and art

"It's home-made, Captain," said Alio way ; " good old rye — tastes just as well, to my notion, when better is not to be had." " Bessy," said the Captain ...

Minutes and letters of the Coetus of the German reformed congregations in Pennsylvania, 1747-1792

Skippack. — A log church has also been built there, ten years ago when Do. ... together for one to make a living by it (except Philadelphia and Germantown, ...