Central Pennsylvania is made up of unique small communities all tucked neatly away in the Pennsylvania forests known as The Allegheny Mountains. I grew up in this area, raised my family, and now enjoying my grandchildren.
My name is Patricia but everybody calls me Patty. I was named after St. Patrick stemming from my dad's Irish heritage. My parents owned a small mom and pop fruit market in the heart of a small railroad city called Altoona. I was taught early a family business means the entire family works hard and long hours.
I was born after WWII at the height of the baby boomers. My timing couldn't have been more of a hardship on my parents, although they never let me know that. I was also one of those kids always getting into trouble, always getting hurt. When I was about 5 years old I ran out in front of a car and was hospitalized for a very long time. After many months of recovery and several bouts of pneumonia along with typical childhood diseases, it seemed much of my childhood was spent indoors.
Everything changed during my teenage years. Staying indoors was torture for me, I was always outdoors. This was when I fell in love with the Allegheny Mountains and all the unique attractions.
My summers became priceless adventures of discovering Pennsylvania festivals, fairs, amusement parks and Pennsylvania State Parks with long sandy beaches, lakes, camping, hiking and wildlife. To this day I can't imagine anybody complaining about being bored in Central Pennsylvania.
Here's a couple of photo's of me with my youngest son and two of my grandsons. We stumbled upon a Pennsylvania State Park in Huntingdon County one day while traveling into the mountains and picking an old mountain road to explore. You'd be amazed at how many wonderful attractions you can find by just allowing yourself to get creative and explore.
As you can see from this photo we decided to take a refreshing dip in the lake, clothes and all. The people on the beach couldn't believe their eyes. The picture was taken right before I went into the lake and completely dunked myself and everybody else.
I have to confess the last couple of years haven't been as active and carefree for me. One careless step out of a bathtub onto a tile floor changed my exploring days and my life. After extensive tests the diagnosis was bad but my prognosis was worse. I was told I had a latoral tear in my right hip. I was given two options, injections that could possibly give me temporary pain relief, or travel a couple hundred miles away to get operated on. The injury is so rare that there really isn't many surgeons in the U.S. that has the experience, and even then there were no guarantees that the operation would be successful.
At first I had visions of getting myself a walker or one of those handy little motorized scooters to get myself around on. Then I thought about that old saying "when handed lemons you make lemonade." That's exactly what I did.
Here's how a latoral tear in my right hip changed my life and now is making my new goals and dreams come true.
A Temporary Disability Leads to Surprising Benefits
What do you do when your life and dreams change drastically and suddenly?
It was one of my darkest hours, especially after working 15 years as a Chiropractic assistant, I loved my work but it was physically demanding and required me to be on my feet 10 hours a day, 4 days a week.
Besides working I was also traveling once a month over a 100 miles to attend holistic classes with high hopes of one day becoming a Natural Health Practitioner. My dreams were, as a Holistic Healer I could work through my retirement years while practicing something I loved doing and had strong beliefs in.
It seemed all my dreams were suddenly gone. To make matters worse, my husband and I were looking at retirement in less than 5 years.
Even though we both worked full time we still had very little money left over between paychecks to contribute to any retirement investments. After all, we just got done raising 6 children with our youngest son just starting college.
When Handed a Lemon Make Lemonade!
Of course I was feeling sorry for myself. I did my share of pouting before I noticed I suddenly found something I haven't had in a long time. I actually found free time!
What I wanted: more than anything at this time in my life was a home business. A business here in Central Pennsylvania that I could build from scratch and call my own.
What I needed: more than anything at this time in my life was to choose my own hours. Do something I'm passionate about. And most of all, my temporary disability wouldn't be a hardship.
Even though I didn't know much about computers, except sending email and playing solitaire, I knew if I took the time to actually get to know my way around a computer and the online community I could figure out a home business.
Since eBay was the new craze I thought I'd give it a try. I was more than willing to get rid of a lot of stuff around we had stored in our attic and basement. With my disability getting ready for a huge yard sale was out of the question. I bought the book "eBay for Dummies" and after a few attempts at publishing an ad I finally had my first item up for auction.
After about 4 months of selling various items, packaging them up and sending them off to the post office I started to get burned out and a bit bored with the process. I came to the realization that even though I was making some extra money on eBay and getting rid of a lot of clutter around my house, once the auction ended so did my home business, until I wrote another ad and started the whole process over again. It was a great experience and taught me a lot about building an ad and how to sell online, but it was time to move on.
You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.
Norman Vincent Peale
I joined a forum that was promising to teach me how to build a home business online. It was supposed to be free but it quickly turned into a "Get Rick Quick Scheme" and I wasn't the one getting rich quick! I met a woman in that forum from the other side of the world, Australia to be exact. We started emailing each other and before I knew it, we became friends. Through this new friend I discovered SBI (Site Build It).
She told me about her new website and how she loved getting out of bed in the morning to work on it. We talked about her passion for Outback Australia and how she wanted to introduce it to the world, through her eyes. I told her my passion has always been Central Pennsylvania and the many unique attractions. I wanted to tell the world what a great place the Allegheny Mountains are to live in and raise a family. I wanted people to see pictures and feel comfortable bringing their family here to visit or vacation. It seemed we had a lot in common for two women on opposite sides of the world.
That conversation took place in the summer of 2005. By that fall I started building my first website through Site Build It. I now have three websites. I'm finally able to travel through the Central Pennsylvania Mountains again. My right hip has been healing while I'm getting regular physical therapy. Everyday I do what I love to do, thanks to SBI.
You can read about my E-business and what SBI has done for me, just click on the link below.
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. Henry Ford
Anybody will tell you starting a business of any kind these days takes guts along with meeting the right people, the right timing, and the right location.
When starting your e-business through SBI you will meet the right people, the timing is now for any online business and instead of location, you need good information. It's that simple, with the right tools, books and support, which SBI provides, you'll have your home business up and running within a few months.
You'll never worry again about your job security, gas prices to get to work, the weather or your retirement. You'll learn to make multiple streams of income even when you're unable to work for a period of time.
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
Hello! I am Patricia's youngest son, Matthew. The same youngest son you saw in one of the pictures above (it's a very old photo from almost 20 years ago). I am saddened to report that Patricia passed away on March 8, 2021 after battling various health problems for years. Due to her health problems, Patricia was unable to work on her website as she had before. In September 2020, Patricia made her wishes known to me that I take over her websites for her, continuing the hard work she put into these sites for years. As of April 2021, I am now the owner of my mother's websites, including this, her flagship site.
I will do my best to attempt to continue the legacy of Patricia with my continuation of these websites and will continue to do these in her style, but with my own personal touch as well. I understand that I have big shoes to fill and I hope that I can do her proud. I will be doing my best to continue the amazing legacy of this website and my knowledge of what she has taught me and apply it to continuing to build this website, which was truly a labor of love for Patricia.
I graduated from the Altoona Area High School in 2003 and from the Pennsylvania State University in 2009 with a degree in business communications. I have used this knowledge to bring more people into downtown Altoona and central Pennsylvania in general, working with the local city council to find new ways to attract new visitors. I am also a musician and have incorporated my love of preserving and showcasing the heritage of central Pennsylvania into my YouTube channel, and hope to integrate that aspect of my YouTube channel into these websites in order to add unique visual references.
In the same way Patricia did, I have lived my whole life in the city of Altoona in these wonderful mountains that I call home and I hope to continue bringing new information in while updating the old information. This website inspired and influenced my YouTube channel (I even designed the artwork for my music videos based on Pennsylvania's mountain communities and small towns). I hope that I can continue my mother's legacy in a way that truly does it justice and will do my best to do so.
Click on the link below and read about all the success stories from people just like you and me. All they needed was a passion and a dream. By the way, read about B. Bradtke that's the woman from Australia I mention above.
Would you like to check out Solo Build It for yourself? Just click on the link below.
Here's a couple of photo's of me with my youngest son and two of my grandsons. We stumbled upon a Pennsylvania State Park in Huntingdon County one day while traveling into the mountains and picking an old mountain road to explore. You'd be amazed at how many wonderful attractions you can find by just allowing yourself to get creative and explore. 
I have to confess the last couple of years haven't been as active and carefree for me. One careless step out of a bathtub onto a tile floor changed my exploring days and my life. After extensive tests the diagnosis was bad but my prognosis was worse. I was told I had a latoral tear in my right hip. I was given two options, injections that could possibly give me temporary pain relief, or travel a couple hundred miles away to get operated on. The injury is so rare that there really isn't many surgeons in the U.S. that has the experience, and even then there were no guarantees that the operation would be successful.
