Various and Sundry Items ....

Sigh ... it's the middle of March here in the 'ville, and winter is still sticking around for a little while longer. Lauren (aka Cheshirewoodgie) is feeling a little bit tummy-ish this evening after lunch at the local Italian restaurant (the food was as excellent as always, but there may have been a bit too much garlic in the oil which came with the excellent bread rolls, so she's sacked out early). It's okay; she needs the rest, especially after the road trip down to Savannah (MO) to pick up a couple of rotten hay bales she picked up off of Freecycle in order to do some root gardening.

We also looked at a nice house which is up for sale near Savannah, as we've been discussing what to do in the long-term for housing space. We've both realized that when Lauren bought our house, she didn't have concerns about the amount of living space: she was the only person living in it, and she had 3 cats, one of whom was an outdoor cat that spent a lot of her days outside. Now that I've moved in with my stuff, we've realized that it's cozy, and certainly comfortable for the most part (thanks to the house's amazing TARDIS-like qualities), but we're a little cramped in a few ways with two people and four indoor cats, we're short on storage space, feeling the pinch of a small kitchen, and wishing that we had more space for hobbies or additional bedroom space so we could put family up on visits. I think we both looked at the situation and realized that while a move to the house we were looking at would save me a half hour each way (or an hour a day) on the commute, the prospect of owning a 5-bedroom, 4-bath house is a bit daunting. So now we're making up a list of things we'd like to do to this house in terms of expansion (now if we only had the money!)

Meanwhile, Lauren's back to bed now, and that leaves me with a little time this evening to blog. A few highlights from the last couple of weeks going into April:

1. I finished my semi-annual review (my first) at my new job. The managers are pretty pleased with me so far, and it looks promising from here. As I noted to Cheshirewoodgie, I'm VERY relieved to get past this milestone.
2. It's banquet season at the college. Last Wednesday was the faculty HR banquet, with tenure awards. Cheshirewoodgie got a very nice ice cream and cake spoon and turner set with the Northwest logo (it's apparently a standard) for 10 years of service. Tomorrow afternoon, one of the sororities has put her up for a teaching award, and there is a reception after church for this. Then Wednesday, it's the departmental banquet. In addition, there were two annual student dinners: the annual international student banquet and the annual foreign language department/club banquet. Then today, we discovered that Lauren has won another service award, the Tower Award that has eluded her for the last few years, so we'll have yet another banquet on April 1st when she is presented with that. The challenge through all of this? Enjoying the food without letting it go to our waists.
   
3. We're heading into the last month of the Spring semester, and by mid-May, Lauren will probably be recuperating from what that entails, including finals week. And then the road-trips begin.
   

Not Much of Anything Going On ...

Looking back on the last couple of posts, you're probably thinking: "don't these people do ANYTHING?" To be honest, there have been a couple of things getting in the way of that as of late:

1. Both of us are working now: last year about this time, we had time to go do things, because despite the effort involved in getting ready for the wedding, we had time to go do things as I wasn't employed until April, and even after that, my shift work ended at 3, meaning I could rest after work, clean up, and we still had most of an evening left if we wanted to go somewhere. Now, I'm lucky if I get home between 6:30 and 7:00, so the commute means that I not only have less time to do things, but I have even less time to blog than usual.

2. The weather: I hate to admit it, but I used to love winter. Last year wasn't that bad, and despite the zinger of a late frost that almost killed off Lauren's roses and a lot of our outdoor plants and trees, we were still able to start gardening by now. After this past winter, with two ice storms, one of which about finished off our lawn, and more below zero days than I can count, my love of the season has greatly diminished. Now, I'd say that I like fall better.

Today has been a good change of pace. Due to the weather and the roads, I worked from home, which means I'm now home and comfy on the couch (with the kittehs all curled up next to me) at the decent hour of 5:00 rather than the usual, where I would just now be leaving KC with a near-2 hour commute ahead of me. EDIT: Now it's a little later, and Lauren has joined me, but she's feeling a little bit wug, so she's heading back to bed.

That now leaves me time to actually surf the interwebs and write a blog post.

Happy Birthday To You! And Other Events ....

Okay, we know that we haven't posted in a long while, but it's been pretty crazy-busy, between work (mid-term time for Lauren), and work (ramp-up to being productive after training). Between dodging the winter weather and bad drivers, it's been a challenge simply getting up in the morning to make the near-2 hour commute down to KC and back. But it's been worth it; the new job is going wonderfully, and it's nice to finally be with a company that appreciates my skills.

So, in the meantime, what's happening with us? Well, we're planning to travel and simply do things, because March will bring with it our one year wedding anniversary. Hard to believe that a year ago, we were ramping up to March 17th, planning, sending invites, picking colors, setting up the hotel and venues. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

Anyway, we're not going very far, unlike a certain fellow friend and blogger who is going to India for 3 weeks. No, our trips will be a bit shorter this year: in April, we are looking at a weekend trip to Kirksville, MO for an SCA event (we're not members, but we thought it sounded cool to go to, so we're going), and then in May, we plan on heading up to Illinois around Memorial Day, where we'll do an outdoor memorial (now that it's warmer) for Pat, Lauren's mom. Somewhere in there, we hope to spend a weekend in KC to celebrate our anniversary.

Finally, in July, we are planning to go out to Blacksburg, VA, as a longtime friend of Lauren's is celebrating her 60th birthday and possibly (she should know by then) getting tenure from Virginia Tech, her current college. That will mean a trip out and back; due to the smaller size of the nearest airport at Roanoke, 3/4ths of it will be on regional jet (cramped, but reasonably priced). Still, it will be worth it; we hope to do some historical sightseeing and some local winery research, as well as the birthday and tenure celebration.

Speaking of birthdays, it was almost a year ago that we adopted Snowball, following the demise of Kitty. Here's a pic taken the day after we adopted her:










She has grown considerably, so we thought we would post a picture of her now:















The concensus is that she's a little odd looking in some ways, but she's still the sweetest kitteh we've owned in a long time.

OMG, Not AGAIN!!!!

To say that this week has been "interesting" to say the least, is to do the classic Chinese quote on the subject some justice.

Life is getting back to normal after Monday. Realize that I've only been at my new job since late October/early November. Realize also that I've also been through a long stretch where I went unemployed for about a year, living on unemployment insurance and my severance package from my last company. So, when I got into work on Monday morning and checked my e-mail, only to realize that we were going through a company-wide "right-sizing" effort, that cold icy ball o' fear that my job was on the chopping block materialized.

My team's meeting was late that afternoon, so I had the whole day to focus, to think about what-ifs. I knew that I had a job to fall back on, should the worst come to the worst. But still, it was hard to focus on work.

Suffice it to say that the worst fears weren't realized, I am still employed, and I'm still enjoying the benefit of being able to work from home, as I did today due to the winter roads.

But as I told my teammates: "this time, we dodged a bullet. Next time, I don't want to even be near it."

Coming to a Standstill (aka, Snow Day!)

Tomorrow's going to be a first: both Lauren and I are going to be working from home tomorrow. Due to the upcoming severe weather (possible winter storm, possible ice storm), the administration closed the campus during the day - the first time Lauren can recall this happening, and she's been here for 10 years - and adjusted the finals schedule, while I will forsake the drive in to KC and work from the warmth of indoors.

Fortunately, we're well-stocked on food, we have plenty of flashlights and candles, and both our auxiliary heater and stove are gas-powered, so even if the power goes out, we'll be okay for the short-term. We might be a little bored without Internet access or access to media (though now that I think about it, we will have both iPods, the laptops while on battery which we could use to play DVDs and CDs with, and we'll also have our smartphones for Internet access ... we're covered), but we could also catch up on our reading, too. And if for some reason we really desperately need to go outside, we have matching sets of snowshoes to strap on.

However, all told, I think staying indoors will be the order of the day tomorrow. Supposedly, the interior contractor is supposed to be here tomorrow as well to start the drywall repairs from last month ... we'll be amazed if he even shows up, given the weather.

Endings and Beginnings

Today was one of those days marking endings and beginnings:

On the plus side for beginnings, the contractor has promised to finally start work on the exterior of the house next week. We hope that the interior gets worked on next week, too.

Also, today marked the end of my formal role-training at work and the beginning of my actual work without having my role coach looking over my shoulder. Now I just have to make sure I'm ready for it.

The next one marks an ending ... but also a beginning as well. We learned today that our minister, Pastor Mike Kyle, will be leaving our church for a new position near West Plains, MO. It's a little bittersweet because of the reason for the move (in part to make a long-distance relationship a little bit shorter), but we hope that the people in West Plains appreciate that they are getting a wonderful minister ... and it's our loss. Still, we have heard that there is a tradition of good ministers coming to our tiny rural Episcopal church; we hope that the tradition continues and brings with it a new beginning as well.

Work

Today was my first experience with manufacturing work: a local temp firm held a cattle call for the local Energizer battery factory, and I made the cut to start tomorrow morning on 1st shift. Yes, I'm glad, because it's work, even though it's part-time and temporary (in other words, it will last as long as the work is there). I do hope to find something better for the long-term, and I am still looking, but at least the job drought is broken.

My initial impressions:

1)Discomfort: We stood outside in the cold, damp, and drizzly air and froze outside the employee entrance to the plant for about 20 minutes, because they started the orientation 12 minutes late.
2)Fear: like it or not, it's manufacturing work, and despite the facility's near-perfect safety record, there are a lot of ways to get hurt there. And there's a little bit of fear of failure, too: I don't want to fail, but I've never done manufacturing work before; I'll do the best I can with it, but I'm not sure how well I'll do.

It is a bit of a rude shock going from white-collar down to blue, and Lauren is sorry that I have to take work that isn't that desirable. But at this point, we don't have much of a choice: starting this month, it's costing us an extra $600.00 a month to put me on Lauren's health insurance. While it's very good coverage, the expense is really eating a chunk out of our monthly finances for now, and anything that can help toward that is welcome. Still, it's not the ideal job, and because it's temp work, it probably pays nowhere near what I'm used to making.

But at least it's something until something better comes along.