1. I've now been at my new job for two full weeks, and so far it's great. The people are across the board lovely (so much so that sometimes I find myself wondering what the heck I'm doing there, but maybe that's one of God's plans in this - get me to be better! I guess that's his plan in most things, in the end). The job will certainly be interesting once we get into it. There are five of us newbies starting together, which is nice to have. I imagine our training sessions would be awkward and weird if they only hired one person. They have an extensive training program - I won't actually be starting on my own for probably another month, I think. I might start emails before that, but not answering phones. Either way, I'm extreeeeeemely grateful for the opportunity to be trained well before jumping into the thick of things.
2. The weather has been awful all month. And when I saw awful, I mean mostly 70s and sunny, which I hear is what normal people call "nice." Sure, it's nice, when it's in spring or summer, or even early fall. But we only have a week left in October, and aside from it dipping ALLLL the way into the upper 50s early next week, there's not much proper autumn weather in sight. We had that one teeny "snow" on September 12, but haven't had anything remotely close since then, to my recollection. I know I'm alone in this, but I find it unacceptable. Bad form, October.
3. Back in August I finished and shipped off a baby blanket for my pregnant cousin, due early September. Shipped on a Friday, delivered on Monday (as the tracking number showed), but then I oddly didn't hear anything from this cousin regarding the blanket. Unusual for her, but I figured she was busy with baby prep and then, eventually, having a baby and all that jazz. But then at the very beginning of October I found out she had moved a couple of months prior to the package being shipped, and I had put her previous address on there. So I asked her if she got it, and she said no. Sad, sad day for me. The post office should have forwarded it, but obviously didn't for some unknown reason, and there was no way of knowing if the people at the previous address still had it, or had thrown it out, or had returned it to the post office. I contacted the post office (both through email and phone calls), and my last contact was last Saturday after I sent a second email, expressing my annoyance that my previous email had gone unanswered and the phone call I made, which had resulted in them telling me someone would call me back the next day, hadn't followed through with their promise to call back after more than a week had passed. The guy who called me following the email basically told me I had to contact the local post office where the package would have gone through before being delivered, and that they'd probably end up just reimbursing me the $50 it had been insured for since they didn't forward mail that should have been, and he told me I'd have to look up their number. Well. There were three or four possibilities of what post office it could be, based on the zip code, and I had no way of knowing. So I was preparing myself for giving up a lunch hour so I could call all these POs to see which one had last handled the package. But then, yesterday, my cousin texted me a picture of the delivered box, with a "forwarded" sticker dated Wednesday. Who knows where the box was hanging out in the two months between the original "delivered" and that forward, but at least now it's where it should be, a month+ old baby has a new handknit blanket to keep her warm, and things are a little bit more right with the world.
4. I currently have another blanket on the needles. On my lap. It's a middle-out blanket (it will be square in the end, but the pattern starts at the very middle, and builds out from there) and is HUUUUUGE. Much larger than I was anticipating. I hope baby blankets can't be too big...not having had a baby ever, I don't really know these things. But I assume large blankets are acceptable. I mean, babies don't stay tiny forever, right? And if it's going to be huge, at least it's really pretty, too. And soft. Lovely. As soon as I finish this one (fingers crossed, this weekend), it'll be right back to throwing another one on the needles. There are lots of babies around lately.
5. I'm finally (FINALLY) down 10 pounds officially. I don't like how long it took to get here, but I'm hoping that persevering and taking it slowly (as, apparently, my body wants to do) I'll be able to get into good lifelong habits rather than just a quick fix kind of thing that I won't really keep up with once I hit my goal. If I ever hit my goal. (Maybe my body really can't lose that much weight. It's not really that much, but, who knows. I have lots of squishy places that could stand to lose some inches, I think. I just need to tell my body that.)
6. One thing I'm still finding tough, after nearly two months of it, is waking up at 5:30 to get in some exercise before work. No matter how hard I try (and, I know, it's really just a self-discipline thing, but I am and always have been awful at that, but I really need to be better), I can't make myself get to bed at an hour decent enough to get me the sleep I need. There's so much knitting to be done! (I'm pretty sure that, after nearly a decade of knitting, I have lost more hours of sleep to it than I ever did to homework. And believe me - that's saying something.) Sometimes I think I could go to sleep at 9:30, as in, my body would probably let me, but the rest of me is saying "9:30! That's entirely too early. Go put on another episode of Gilmore Girls or the West Wing or Parks and Recreation." It's dumb. I'm dumb. I'm my own worst enemy. And I need to stop. The good news is that once I am actually in the nitty-gritty of my job and out of training, I'll be working 9-6, so getting up at 5:30 won't be necessary. But for now, I need to get there at 8, which is really hard when I had gotten myself in a routine to get myself somewhere by 8:30. Going from no routine to any routine is easy, but going from an established routine to one half an hour earlier is somehow much more difficult.
7. I am so happy. It's been a long time since I've been able to say that with no qualms. Not that everything is perfect (I'm still waiting for the day when I can say I'm ok with being single, or content, or whatever, but I'm not sure if that's ever in the cards for me, even if I live to be 100 and never get married in that time. Right now it feels like something that will always be there, that pain in my side that I can live with but never really forget is there), but I am happy. It's wonderful to be living in the Springs again, and to be with Nutmeg, and to see my family all the time, and to have been able to enjoy the full fall season, watching each individual tree change one by one at different times and getting to enjoy them all. (Also, quick take within a quick take: I realized why summer is my least favorite season. All the other seasons have these specific characteristics that are generally over fairly quickly - spring flowers only last a little while, winter snows in Colorado tend to be short-lived and quickly melted, autumn leaves only have a short window in which they're lovely. Summer? Summer is just summer. I suppose there are the flowers that all have their own specific blooming season, and I do love the flowers. But. Meh.) Life is good. Things are well. It is good.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
Seven Quick Takes: I'm Back! Edition
It's been over 7 months since I last published a post here, apparently. Not that lots haven't been partially written in those seven months, but none finished enough to merit hitting that "publish" button. So, in honor of seven, here's my Seven Quick Takes containing seven things that have happened in the last seven months.
1. I finished my first (and possibly only, though I'm not committing to that) year of teaching. Great experience wherein I met (and also lived with!) great people, and I'm grateful for opportunities it lent me.
2. I went to the Grand Canyon and camped there for two nights with my roommates. It was beautiful and lovely and also contained an extremely difficult hike wherein I was nearly certain I was going to have to end up living there on the trail rather than finish the hike because I actually reached a point where I was convinced I couldn't go another step. I've never had a hike reduce me to tears, but this one came drastically close. (The trouble with hiking at the Grand Canyon is that you go downhill first, and use up some muscles there, and then you have to hike UP once you're already tired. Also, it's really hot. Also, I missed the mountains. I'm a mountain girl, through and through. The way my heart felt upon our return into Colorado and specifically the mountainous region is indescribable but very much...home.)
3. I moved back to the Springs, wherein I now once again live with my parents. Ideally will be temporary; may be a little longer than planned because it would be nice to save something while also paying off more than the minimum of at least a few of my loans. The desire to have my own space (and my own kitchen) is pretty strong, though, so we'll see what happens in a few months.
4. I took a trip out to Illinois to visit college friends (whose wedding was the first non-family wedding I was in, whom I hadn't seen since the wedding - five years ago - and who now have three kids), wherein most of the first full day I was there I was felled by a migraine. A three-vomiter, too, which was lots of fun. Grateful to have them as friends, though. Other than that it was a lovely trip and lovely to spend time with them.
5. My brother got married/family came to visit/I was a bridesmaid for a sixth time. (I also managed to get some sort of bizarre 24-hour bug thing which never happens, wherein the entirety of the day after the wedding was spent trying rather unsuccessfully to keep anything down. The last...unpleasantness occurred almost exactly 24 hours after the first unpleasantness.) It was a great, simple wedding, and great to see family, and just great things all around.
6. I applied for LOOOOOOOOTS of jobs and had a few interviews, and also served jury duty for the first time (wherein I was hoping it'd just be a few hours of dedicated knitting time while waiting around, but instead I was one of the 12 that they called in right after we all got there, from which they chose some smaller number I can't remember because I was thankfully not ultimately chosen. But I did have the fun experience of getting to tell all 12 potential jurors, plus the witnesses there, the lawyers, the judge, and the defendant, that I was unemployed, single, and childless, since we all had to introduce ourselves and tell them spouses etc. Nothing quite like unexpectedly needing to fight back tears after hearing your own voice tell a room of strangers how currently outwardly pathetic your life sort of is. I think that's why they didn't pick me). Eventually had an interview that turned quickly into a job, which turned out to be not a great fit, but also had another interview that turned into another job offer which I am starting on Monday. More on that later.
7. I turned 29; I watched a very dear friend get married in one of my favorite places (Estes Park) - wherein I was also a bridesmaid for a seventh time, AND caught the bouquet for a sixth time; I joined the choir at church (and am planning to register there, the first time I've ever registered myself at a parish, once I manage to print off the registration page); I started dedicatingly trying to lose weight. (My goal is 30 pounds. I'm...nearly three months in, I think, and I haven't quite hit the ten pound mark yet, which is disappointing but I just need to keep sticking with it.) It's been an interesting few months, that's for sure.
And now, starting Monday, a whole new adventure which I hope will yield some great things and wonderful new opportunities. Wheeeee.
Aaaaaand here we go...Publish!
1. I finished my first (and possibly only, though I'm not committing to that) year of teaching. Great experience wherein I met (and also lived with!) great people, and I'm grateful for opportunities it lent me.
2. I went to the Grand Canyon and camped there for two nights with my roommates. It was beautiful and lovely and also contained an extremely difficult hike wherein I was nearly certain I was going to have to end up living there on the trail rather than finish the hike because I actually reached a point where I was convinced I couldn't go another step. I've never had a hike reduce me to tears, but this one came drastically close. (The trouble with hiking at the Grand Canyon is that you go downhill first, and use up some muscles there, and then you have to hike UP once you're already tired. Also, it's really hot. Also, I missed the mountains. I'm a mountain girl, through and through. The way my heart felt upon our return into Colorado and specifically the mountainous region is indescribable but very much...home.)
3. I moved back to the Springs, wherein I now once again live with my parents. Ideally will be temporary; may be a little longer than planned because it would be nice to save something while also paying off more than the minimum of at least a few of my loans. The desire to have my own space (and my own kitchen) is pretty strong, though, so we'll see what happens in a few months.
4. I took a trip out to Illinois to visit college friends (whose wedding was the first non-family wedding I was in, whom I hadn't seen since the wedding - five years ago - and who now have three kids), wherein most of the first full day I was there I was felled by a migraine. A three-vomiter, too, which was lots of fun. Grateful to have them as friends, though. Other than that it was a lovely trip and lovely to spend time with them.
5. My brother got married/family came to visit/I was a bridesmaid for a sixth time. (I also managed to get some sort of bizarre 24-hour bug thing which never happens, wherein the entirety of the day after the wedding was spent trying rather unsuccessfully to keep anything down. The last...unpleasantness occurred almost exactly 24 hours after the first unpleasantness.) It was a great, simple wedding, and great to see family, and just great things all around.
6. I applied for LOOOOOOOOTS of jobs and had a few interviews, and also served jury duty for the first time (wherein I was hoping it'd just be a few hours of dedicated knitting time while waiting around, but instead I was one of the 12 that they called in right after we all got there, from which they chose some smaller number I can't remember because I was thankfully not ultimately chosen. But I did have the fun experience of getting to tell all 12 potential jurors, plus the witnesses there, the lawyers, the judge, and the defendant, that I was unemployed, single, and childless, since we all had to introduce ourselves and tell them spouses etc. Nothing quite like unexpectedly needing to fight back tears after hearing your own voice tell a room of strangers how currently outwardly pathetic your life sort of is. I think that's why they didn't pick me). Eventually had an interview that turned quickly into a job, which turned out to be not a great fit, but also had another interview that turned into another job offer which I am starting on Monday. More on that later.
7. I turned 29; I watched a very dear friend get married in one of my favorite places (Estes Park) - wherein I was also a bridesmaid for a seventh time, AND caught the bouquet for a sixth time; I joined the choir at church (and am planning to register there, the first time I've ever registered myself at a parish, once I manage to print off the registration page); I started dedicatingly trying to lose weight. (My goal is 30 pounds. I'm...nearly three months in, I think, and I haven't quite hit the ten pound mark yet, which is disappointing but I just need to keep sticking with it.) It's been an interesting few months, that's for sure.
And now, starting Monday, a whole new adventure which I hope will yield some great things and wonderful new opportunities. Wheeeee.
Aaaaaand here we go...Publish!
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