I have to start with my wonderful wife Dorothy who encourages me to do things I normally wouldn't do like dress up for halloween or participate in zombie walks . I'm naturally introverted (or as she prefers to call it "stick in the mud"). She also keeps me in check about spending money on stupid crap that I regret shortly thereafter. She doesn't always win those discussions but it works both ways. It's only because we have worked together that we were able to escape the maryland winters and move to sunny Arizona. And also because of Dorothy, who encouraged me to put 20% of my salary into the company 401k, we now have a nice nest egg for retirement.
I have a mom and dad still living but getting mighty old! Mom is in Tacoma WA. and dad is in Pickerington OH. I'd send you links to what they do online, but they don't have anything. Dad has facebook but doesn't use it much, and mom doesn't even have (or want) email.
I also have two sons (Sean and Zack) and a stepson (Alex). I'll put facebook links here eventually, but I don't do facebook myself. I have one brother (Dave) who lives in Washington state a few miles away from my mom. I have no idea whether he uses facebook or not...
Dorothy and I are empty nesters as of about 10 years ago. When I met her she had a dalmatian, and we've had some form of dalmatian or mix ever since. We volunteered, fostered dogs for and adopted dogs from Chocolate Chip Dalmatian Assistance League when we lived in Maryland, and I still host their web site on my AWS stack.
Since moving to Arizona we now volunteer, foster and have adopted from Lucky Dog Rescue who used to handle dalmatians but now handle many different breeds.
We currently have 3 dogs. Wilma was a failed foster from Lucky Dog (in other words we were fostering her but ended up adopting her ourselves).
Gilbert was adopted directly from Maricopa County's pound as a result of Dorothy going to check him out for taking him into Lucky Dog. After some confusion, bad info and a really tragic story, we adopted him immediately instead of putting him into Lucky Dog.
Jackson is a long-term foster who is recovering from Valley Fever that he got when he was very young and wandering around in the desert. Lucky Dog is paying for his medicine and when he is clear of valley fever they will decide whether he needs a knee replacement. We've had him for about two years so I'm sure he thinks he's part of the family. He is, but just not officially.
I mentioned vegan cooking on the hobby page, so you probably already know about that. It's part of a strange mix of approaches to life that I've assembled over the years. I like to do things myself, or at least know how to so I can in a pinch.
We've saved lots of money on home improvements because both Dorothy and I split the DIY efforts. I've put down hardwood floors in our old house in MD and upstairs in our new house in AZ. I've also re-done electrical outlets and switches, installed laundry room sinks, redone some drainage plumbing, wired both houses with network connections jacks (because WiFi just doesn't perform as well, yet). I've replaced garbage disposals in both houses, and toilets a few times. Dorothy has done tiling both on the floors, bathrooms and kitchen splashes.
We also do not pay for cable TV. About 10 years ago I bought a Tivo Premiere for $99 and paid for a lifetime subscription for updates and the channel guides ($299 because I had a coupon). In the old MD house I installed an antenna in the attic. When we moved to AZ it's a simpler situation in that all the broadcasters are on one hilltop ("south mountain"). So I installed a UHF and a VFH antenna in the attic and a combiner/amplifier. We get about 20 channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CW, PBS and a few small independent stations). My total monthly TV bill is ZERO except for Netflix and Amazon prime video.