I've Been Tagged

It's a Meme, an online game of tag. Answer the questions, tag someone else, that is how the game is played. LivingbyLearning was kind enough to tag me, so here goes.

Here are the questions and they pertain to the past week:

1. What did you accomplish?
2. Did anything not go as expected?
3. What was the highlight of your week?
4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?

1. What did you accomplish?

I accomplished NaNo, National Novel Writing Month. Wrote 50+K words. Major accomplishment!

2. Did anything not go as expected?

My van is STILL not running right. I took it back to the shop again this morning after picking it up Saturday afternoon. Check engine light keeps coming on, even when the shop says they have "repaired" the problem. First time they repaired a vacuum hose. Second time they replaced a sensor of some sort. Let's see what they come up with for the third time around!

3. What was the highlight of your week?

Completing NaNo! Definitely the highlight.

4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?

My daughter told me about their plans for the coming year. That was exciting and totally unexpected. I am not sure that her plans are quite set yet, so I will not post them here yet.

I am tagging:

1. Molly at Dark Oak Woman
2. Amy at Living, Learn, Knit
3. Teri at Martinis, Motherhood and Mayhem
4. Sam at Bunchberry Cottage
5. Diane at Popcorn and Sushi

Tut's Message

How does Tut know the correct message to send me? I received this one Tuesday morning and it pretty aptly summed up how I felt that morning.

Remember long, long ago, when you were considering living the "Potential Adventures of Karen Gibson," among an infinite array of other choices, how you suddenly turned to me and asked deadpan, "How much trouble could I get into, anyway?"

Do you?

Do you remember my reply, Karen?

I told you it would depend on a good number of factors, not the least of which would include climate change, geological pressures, celestial weather patterns, the star you're born under, political friction on the street, worthiness, luck, fate, or the mood I'm in.

At which point we both burst out laughing so hard we almost needed stitches.

Like a hyena,
The Universe

From www.tut.com

Day Twelve

I did not write quite as much yesterday. I only managed 4235 words, which brought my total to 44,934. So I still have a little better than 5K to write sometime today and/or tomorrow. The biggest problem is that my story is done. I wrote the Epilogue. Even wrote The End at the end. I have no more to add to it. Some suggestions given to me by fellow NaNo'ers is to write a prologue, have my character write some emails to her children and include them the story line somewhere, maybe even write my Christmas Letter from the viewpoint of the MC (Main Character). I am not sure what I will write. At this point I am tired of the story, tired of the whole thing. Maybe that is because I still am not feeling 100% healthy. Which leads me to the next paragraph …

This post could have just as easily been titled "It's Your Sinuses, Stupid!" Yeah, I know I said earlier in the week that I did not think my vertigo was related to sinuses, but now I think I was wrong. By yesterday afternoon my head was hurting and there was that telltale pressure behind the eyes. When I finally fell to around five in the afternoon that my head was hurting due to sinuses, I broke down and took a sinus tablet. Today the head is better, although the dizzy still feels there a little bit, mainly when I am sitting motionless. Very odd.

Plus, my eyes are tired from my marathon days on the laptop Monday and Tuesday. And now I am tired from sitting at the car dealership all morning, waiting for them to diagnose why my check engine light is on when they supposedly fixed it last week. It did not take even a day for the light to come back on last week after they "fixed" the problem. After sitting there all morning, they found the problem (under warranty, thank goodness), but it will take most of the afternoon to fix. So they gave me a ride home and when the problem is fixed, they will send their shuttle van back out to pick me up. Ugh. Making chit chat with the van driver all the way back in to the dealership again, oh goody. Have I ever publicly stated here how much I hate making chit chat, social pleasantries, with someone I do not know? Well, I do. Hate it, that is.

So I am home, catching up my blog and trying to figure out what I shall write to use up 5+K more words! Tomorrow is the last possible day to finish. Check back and see if I make it!

Oh! And a shout out to my friend Lisa … hey knitbits! Happy Birthday!!! And yes, she's a knitter. Whatever gave that away?

NaNo Eve

This may be Halloween for most people, but for over 100,000 crazy souls, it is NaNo Eve. The night before NaNo begins. Am I ready? No way! We somehow acquired a Miss Munchkin on Saturday afternoon for an extended stay. She went home this morning. So I am exhausted from lack of sleep (she does not sleep through the night when she stays at Grandma's), shell-shocked from her continual (and improving) efforts at talking, and hurting from being pummeled by a 20 month-old toddler climbing all over, up and around me. Somehow, until I saw the announcement in my e-mail box this morning, I had forgotten that November 1st was just around the corner. I mean, I had almost a whole week right before Miss Munchkin arrived … but time seems to have slipped away.

One good thing about time slipping away is that I have not spent hours and hours contemplating my plot and characters. In fact, I have the barest of outlines and only a slim idea of my main character. Last year I had so much planned ahead that I felt burnt out by the whole thing before I even began writing. We will see whether not knowing everything in advance (or thinking I know everything) will work better.

Another good thing is that Penelope is home! She was home again for a couple of days last week, but then her check engine light came on, so she had to go back to the shop. But it was just a vacuum hose or some such thing easily taken care of, so she is back home today. That means that David can take himself to class and I no longer have to drive people everywhere. More time for writing!

The goal for NaNo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That breaks down to 1,666 words per day. And since I already know of a few days here and there where I will not be able to do any writing, I figure I need to do at least 2000 words per day, and it would be way better to do 2500 words per day. Wish me luck! I'll try to keep my count updated here, but if you don't hear from me for a few days, hopefully it is because I am busy writing the Great American Novel!

Penelope's Home, For The Moment

Today's entry will be a short one, as it is race day! The NEXTEL Cup night race at Charlotte. It should be exciting! Hopefully Jeff (Gordon) will do well and keep his points lead. Only five more races in the Chase after tonight's race! I have enjoyed this race season … it's the first where I've been able to watch all the races on television (the perks of cable!).

We picked up Penelope yesterday. After a month of driving the Neon, driving Penelope sure does feel odd. It's hard to decide whether what I'm feeling in the steering is simply the difference between the Neon and the Town & Country or if it is something more. But definitely Penelope is not feeling 100% well. She makes this very disturbing moaning sound when you turn the wheels either right or left while driving. And she badly needs a front-end alignment.

So Monday I will have to make an appointment with the Chrysler dealership so they can check her out and verify that the noise was not present before the accident. Then the insurance company will approve whatever further repairs are needed. Or so they say. We shall see!

Penelope Update

Penelope is still at the shop and we do not have a clue when she'll be done. Her bodywork was finished last week, but there was a noise the shop couldn't pinpoint. She went to another shop and had her front end aligned, but that didn't end the noise. Now the diagnosis seems to be a new steering box, but since that is over a certain dollar amount, the shop has to go back to the insurance company for approval of additional expenditures. So there Penelope sits, waiting for approval. And here I don't sit, because while we're down to one vehicle I get to be the chauffeur, driving Bill to work, driving David to college, picking them up, taking people here and there to appointments, etc. David has taken the bus a few times to college, but for an 11:15 class he has to leave here at 9:30, and it only takes 20 minutes to drive there. So most days I drive him there.

There is an upside to all this driving, though; listening to the local NPR radio station. For some reason I do not remember to turn the radio on at home, preferring to listen to Folk Alley. I get more accomplished at home when I listen to music. But I love NPR for all the great interviews, book reviews and talk shows they offer daily and it's great company in the car.

Of course, there is also a downside to NPR; it spurs on my reading habit. After listening to interviews of authors who have new books coming out and listening to book reviews, I now have more books that I want to read. I have to keep a pad of paper handy in the car so I can jot down author names and book titles of those that sound really interesting. And when I get home, I head to PaperbackSwap to see if I can acquire a copy. If reading is my habit of choice, PaperbackSwap is my enabler. Most of the books I have read this past year have come from PaperbackSwap, and when I am done with them, I relist them and swap them back for more! If you like to read, check out PaperbackSwap. And if you decide to join, I would greatly appreciate it if you would use my email address ( wdkmg@pipeline.com ) as your "sponsor." That will gain me a book credit! Thanks!

NPR and PaperbackSwap are the reasons for no blog post yesterday. I was engrossed in The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer, an author I listened to a couple of weeks ago on NPR. But more about that tomorrow, when I post my review!

A Note from the Universe

Daily I receive my own personal "Note from the Universe" email and today's was so good I wanted to share:

Actually, Karen, it's not that you want stuff that you don't have, but that you want stuff that you think you don't have.

And the best way to change this is to begin thinking that you have it.

"Oh, there's my electric, fully loaded, 2008 Habitron cloud maker!!" -
The Universe

To subscribe to your own personal note from the universe, visit www.tut.com.

Our Morning Walk

I have never been a morning person. You would think that after forty-eight years of practice, the whole morning thing would be easier, but it's not. I really do not have anything against morning per se, it just would be so much more enjoyable if it would come later in the day! We could begin the day with afternoon (or even midday) and maybe then I would wake up with energy and the ability to speak in more than monosyllables. My husband says that will never happen, the waking up with energy and speaking coherently part. At least he has slowly learned not to ask me questions in the morning or tell me anything important and expect me to remember the conversations. Instead, he waits an hour or so and then e-mails me from work.

In the past, mornings have meant that I get up while Bill shaved, made my way to the kitchen, cooked his egg, packed whatever food he was taking with him that day, and gave him a kiss as he headed out the door to work. And then I would lock the door, turn the kitchen light back off and crawl back in to bed. I might just lay there, listening to the news, dozing off and on for half an hour or so and then get back up and head for the shower. Or I might have actually fallen back to sleep for an hour and then woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. That extra hour of sleep always seemed to help bring coherent thought to my brain.

That was the routine most mornings, until we moved here to Tallahassee. Here we live in an apartment and cannot just open the door and let our dog go out to the yard. Instead, the dog needs walking in the morning. Ugh. Even though a boy walked her just a few hours earlier, she seems to think she needs a walk at 7 a.m. And since I don't really want to clean up any dog messes inside, it's up to me to walk her. So, I do all the same routine, except now when Bill goes out the door, Penny (the dog) and I go with him, walk him to his car, and then continue on our morning constitutional.

Now if Penny could just get her business done in the first five minutes, I could easily find my way back into bed. But no, that does not seem possible. Instead, we walk and we walk some more, all while she sniffs here and there. I am never quite sure if she is still sniffing the armadillo she tried to chase the night before, or sniffing where other dogs have been, or just trying to find THE spot that suits her to get her business done. But by the time she finds that spot, I am noticing the freshness of the air, the blueness of the sky, the flower I didn't see yesterday. In short, I am waking up. Oh no!

This week, since the vet said that Penny needs to lose at least ten pounds (and we won't talk about how many I need to lose), I have been taking Penny on a longer walk in the mornings. Instead of turning around and heading back to the apartment when she is done with her business, we continue on our walk. We head down to the pond to see if the alligator (or is it a crocodile) is visible in the water. We walk up the steps by the pond, admiring the blooms on the crepe myrtle. We walk around by the pool to see if anyone is there this early in the morning (not usually). And eventually, after about twenty minutes or so, we make our way back home. Penny is ready for her breakfast and I am ready to begin my day. It is really quite pleasant, our morning walk, if only it didn't come so early in the day!

The pond and one of the buildings in our apartment complex.

One of the weeping willows around the pond.

Part of the pathway around the pond. There are always cobwebs across the stairs in the mornings when I go up them!

The fountain comes on about 7:45 a.m. and is on till very late in the evening. It's very lit up at night and makes for a very peaceful and relaxing walk.

Mr. Alligator. Charles had told me there was one in the pond, but I had not seen him until my early morning walks this week. The pond area is fenced in, so he should not pose a danger to anyone.

A close-up of the crepe myrtle near the steps coming from the pond area.

One of the very large trees that grow between our building and the main road. This is the view from the stairs next to our door.

Cosmic Joke?

Bill's last day of employment at his previous employer was May 15th. We finally received the COBRA package today, July 11th. The very same day we received our new health insurance cards and plan information from his new employer. Good timing, eh? I guess we don't need to worry about the COBRA coverage after all! Now I can spend more time figuring out how to deal with the 401k funds! Will the paperwork that goes along with a move and job change never end? Tomorrow David and I have appointments to get our new Florida driver's license. Yup, that is what I said, appointments. Made online! I wonder if that will speed up the process any at the office? I'll report back tomorrow on that.

Twenty-eight Years!

Hard to believe that twenty-eight years ago today we were in the midst of our wedding celebrations. It was a day much like today, blue sky, fluffy white clouds, although not quite as hot, thank goodness! It was a perfect July New York summer day. I wish I had a picture to post of our wedding day, but they are all still packed away.

How are we celebrating today, you ask? Well, so far we have watched a race (the rain-delayed Busch race) and walked the dog a couple of times, Bill has worked on a computer and I have done several loads of laundry … it's an exciting life we lead! And since the Daytona race events begin around 5 p.m., I doubt we will even go out to dinner today. Maybe we will do something more exciting tomorrow, if Bill gets done with the computer he's working on!

Smoke Alarm Test

Charles decided to test the smoke alarm system in our apartment last night. Not intentionally, mind you, but the end result was the same. They work very well. Guaranteed to wake you up from a dead sleep at 1:45 a.m. I promise!

It would seem that cooking hot dogs directly on the burners of an electric stove causes a lot of smoke! Can you imagine? Bill was dumbfounded that anyone would even try! But Charles assured us that you can cook them on the burners of a gas stove! Oh my. I think that maybe we need to invest in a small, electric hot dog grill!

Driver's Edge Review

Here is David's description of his participation in the Driver's Edge program last Saturday:

So, Saturday I got to attend Drivers Edge in Atlanta. If you're not familiar with it, Drivers Edge is a non-profit driver's education program based in Las Vegas that travels around the country, run by professional race car drivers. It holds that in America today, people are not truly taught how to drive, but merely how to pass the driver's license test, and it therefore seeks to teach new drivers the skills needed to actually drive safely.

All the participants were given a short test on their knowledge of driving and car care in general, and then we were divided up into four groups, to move through the four different portions of the program. I first attended a talk given by a local police officer on traffic laws and safety, and his personal advice. It was mildly interesting, but the highlight was one of the fathers asking the officer if he should teach his daughter to obey the speed limit or follow the flow of traffic. I'm sure you can guess what the answer was.

Then we moved on to the oversteer portion, where I got to drive a very nice BMW vehicle through a wet portion of the parking lot and learn what it feels like to spin out a car, and how to prevent it. That was fun, and the cars were air-conditioned, which, considering the 95 degree heat, was quite nice. The primary lesson here is to look where you want to go, not at what you want to avoid. After that we moved on to the driving posture, safety, and car care lecture/comedy act. The speaker did an excellent job of making a somewhat dull subject more interesting, and taught me to Wash BOATS.

Finally it was back to the cars for the braking and avoidance course. The idea here was to experience what ABS feels like when it activates, and it does kick a bit. The second portion was a small jink in the track meant to simulate a rapid lane change on a highway. I got a bit of a lecture here on proper steering, and how to keep a firm grip on the wheel at all times.

Finally, there was a post-test to be compared to the pre-test, and some awards were handed out. I got one for scoring in the top two of the group on the pre-test, and there were awards for the driving portions for best driver and most improved. Then they handed out various, free, merchandise, and certificates of completion, and then we were done.

Since taking the course, I've done a bit of driving, and have noticed myself paying more attention to the road, particularly farther ahead, and keeping a better grip on the steering wheel. Overall, I'd say it was a worthwhile experience, though the day and a half on the road there and back might have been a bit much.

Life Is Good

Fresh sweet corn that tastes like actual corn. Tomatoes that smell and taste like tomatoes. And an afternoon walk on the beach. What more could one desire?!

The Universe speaking …

Today's quote from www.tut.com

Actually, there's really no such thing as "maybe," Karen.

There's just indecision.

Peace out-
The Universe

Technology and Rain Delays

Today is the first NASCAR race broadcast of the season that we have not been able to watch on TV, since we do not have cable ... yet! Cable is scheduled to be hooked up tomorrow! In the meantime, we signed up for a 14-day trial version of NASCAR.com's RaceTrack so that we can watch the race live on the computer. And Bill has hooked the computer's display into our 42-inch television and the sound into our stereo. All so that we can watch a live-web cam of the pit as the cars sit covered, waiting out the rain. Such excitement! Hopefully, though, the race will begin sometime today and then we can watch it through streaming video.

Yesterday we got more things settled around the apartment. I discovered there are some hooks outside on the screened-in balcony, so I can hang a couple of my plants. I am going to have to find some outdoor plant stands, as I really only have room for a few plants indoors. And I'm more than a bit worried about how the cat (and Miss Munchkin) are going to deal with the three plant stands that I have for inside.

We moved my computer around a bit in the bedroom to ease up the bottleneck. I can now sit at my desk and still have room for someone to walk past me to the bed! And today I unpacked the bathroom boxes. That leaves just my office stuff (three boxes) to settle and Bill's computer corner in the dining room. We need some shelves for there, I think, or a desk with shelves above it. And a couple of more small bookcases to hold the books I brought. Really, small ones will work as I only brought a few books! Honest! Some to sell on e-bay, some to use this last year of homeschooling, and some I just wanted to read. But right now they are all in boxes in the hallway closet and it will be a lot easier to use them if we can actually see them!

All in all, we're getting quite settled in here and adjusting nicely!

Am I Home Yet?

I know I have not made an entry here in over a month, but I've been busy! It sure would be nice to be able to stay at home for a few days and begin to settle in here in Tallahassee. Here is a brief recount of the past couple of months:

April 5th - Drove to Evansville to pick David up for Easter weekend.

April 9th - Drove back to Evansville to take David back to college.

April 11th - Drove to Tallahassee, Florida

April 12th - Bill's job interview in Tallahassee

April 13th - Drove to Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida

April 14th - Home again to north Alabama

April 18th - Bill received the job offer, but had to wait for all forms to be processed before giving notice.

April 19th - Bill accepted the job offer in Tallahassee.

April 30th - I drove to Tallahassee, looked at a lot of houses and apartments to rent, settled on one apartment complex and came home on May 3rd.

May 1st - Bill gave two weeks notice at his current job.

May 5th - Drove to Evansville to bring David home for the summer.

May 10th - Son-in-law (Shawn) received a promotion and notice that his new job was in Albany , Georgia.

May 11th - David went to Kat's to help her pack up her apartment.

May 13th - Shawn left for Albany, Georgia, to begin his new job the next day.

May 14th - Kat arrived, with Miss Munchkin and their cat in tow, to stay with us until we go to Tallahassee.

May 15th - Bill's last day at work.

May 17th - Picked up the moving truck.

May 18th - Loaded the moving truck. Discovered that the a/c system on my van was not working properly. Left it at the dealer so they could order the parts and fix it. Picked up a rental van to drive for the duration.

May 19th - Finished loading the truck. Went to the Hobo Dance and stayed up way too late considering how early we had to leave in the morning.

May 20th - Drove to Tallahassee. Shawn arrived in the evening to pick up Kat & Miss Munchkin. We kept their cat.

May 21st - Unloaded the truck.

May 23rd - Bill began his new job.

May 25th - I drove back to north AL to return the rental van and pick up my van. Drove back that same day (arriving in the wee hours of the next morning). Saw my dad, who had just gotten back from vacation, a vacation he cut short because he wasn't feeling well.

May 26th - Drove to Albany, Georgia to pick up Kat and Miss Munchkin. Life in a motel was not working out so well with a fifteen-month-old!

May 27th - Received a phone call from my dad that he had had a heart attack and was in the hospital, scheduled for a catheterization on Monday and possible installation of a stint.

May 28th - They were unable to do the stint on my dad as he had too many blockages. By-pass surgery was scheduled for Wednesday.

May 29th - Drove to north Alabama to see my dad before his surgery.

May 30th - Dad's surgery.

May 31st - Dad moved in to a private room less than 24 hours after the completion of his by-pass surgery. They did a triple by-pass. I visited with him there before heading back to Tallahassee; he was doing great.

June 2nd - Took Kat to Albany, Georgia, so she and Shawn could go back to north Alabama to move their stuff. Kept Miss Munchkin with us for a few days. Dad called to tell me he was back home, having been released several days early due to how well he was progressing.

June 5th - Drove to Albany to take Miss Munchkin back to her Mommy and Daddy and also to help unload their truck. A long and exhausting day.

June 6th - Today! Slept late. Have done little to nothing. Hopefully I will have more energy tomorrow. There are still boxes to unpack! And things to do! A new life in Tallahassee to begin!

Catching Up

I can see I should have set a goal for writing daily in April! Goals. Must have goals! And deadlines! All procrastinators work better when there is a deadline looming.

Here are some pics of Miss Munchkin from Easter Sunday. She had fun gathering Easter eggs at my dad's, even though she did not have a clue what was going on. Once she got one egg in each hand, she just grinned and watched all the other kids running about, picking up eggs.

And here's a pic of the handbag I crocheted for Miss Munchkin. I had troubles with the handle and will probably have to redo it, but she seemed to like it.

It's been a busy April. On the 5th I drove to Evansville to bring David home for Easter break. And on the 9th I drove him back. And then on the 11th we (Bill, Charles and I) drove to Tallahassee. Bill had an interview there on the 12th (his birthday!), which we are still waiting to hear the final verdict on. Hopefully we will get word soon.

Friday the 13th we drove to Jacksonville, just to see. There are more job opportunities there, but none of us felt at all comfortable there. It is just too big of a city. Way too many people. Way too much traffic. We drove right on through and headed for St. Augustine, spending Friday night there. On Saturday morning (the 14th) we visited Castillo de San Marcos and walked the beach long enough to get the beginnings of a nice tan. It was lovely. Saturday afternoon we headed back to Tallahassee and then for home, driving through some very nasty storms but arriving safe and sound in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It was very nice to be home. And it was a good thing we came home earlier than planned. Bill had turned off the power strip to my fish tank before we left. I had some very cold, hungry fish in dire need of some oxygen! The tank was down to 62 degrees and most of the fish were just lying on the bottom, slowly fluttering their fins / tails. But I did not see any dead ones. I think they must have been practically hibernating from the cold and lack of oxygen. By Sunday morning they were looking much improved, swimming around the top, waiting for their breakfast!

Dogwood Winter Sucks!

I hate dogwood winter. Just when you think that warm weather is here to stay, old man winter blows his icy breath and we get several days of cold weather. I know you all in the north country are thinking that fifty degrees and a north wind is not cold. It is, though, when it has been in the eighties for two or three weeks. It is not nice to have to turn the heat back on and bring all the plants back inside so they don't freeze.

Yesterday I drove to Evansville and brought David home for a few days. Two days driving (yesterday and Monday) so that he can be home three days. Crazy. But it is nice to have him home, even for that short a time.

I haven't posted here this week because I have been trying to concentrate on writing a couple of articles for my website. Almost done and then I have to convert them to HTML and get them all linked up to the site. I will post here when they are up.

Next Thursday is Bill's birthday and also, coincidentally, the day he is scheduled for a face-to-face interview for a job in Tallahassee. So he is going to use a couple of vacation days and we will spend Thursday through Sunday in Florida. Most of that time will be in Tallahassee, but I think we will try to get in at least one day in Jacksonville. There seem to be many more job possibilities in Jacksonville, so we would like to see the area before we decide whether to submit a resume to any of those opportunities. Hopefully this interview on Thursday will work out and we can get under motion, begin to get out from the limbo of waiting and actually begin moving and living again.

Today was pay day and I should be paying bills instead of updating blogs! Bill paying is always so much fun. NOT! Wouldn't it be a blast if just once there was a huge surplus of funds left over after ALL the bills were paid?! I am sure that is just around the corner for us!

Job Opportunity

Yesterday Bill was offered a job opportunity that really bears some looking at. We spent all day yesterday talking about it and today I am making a list of pros and cons so that we can make an attempt at coming to a decision.

Basically, this is a year-long contract to upgrade and maintain computers and networks of an online gaming business. Everything they need, Bill can do with no problem. And everything that Bill asked about, such as budget control, etc., did not seem to be an issue with the contractor. So the job is very doable.

The pay is excellent. Heck, the pay is beyond excellent. We could pay off all our existing bills, pay David's college tuition for the next three years, and still put away a sizeable chunk into our retirement savings. And living expenses for the full length of the year-long contract are totally covered by the contractor.

Sound too good to be true? That is because the job is in Canada. Not just Canada, but some small Inuit Nation town in north Canada. I mean, really north Canada. So small it does not even appear on any maps that I can find. The recruiter sent us a .pdf map that shows where the town is. I did not realize people lived that far north!

So, here is my list:

Pros

• The salary. It's huge. Five times what Bill normally makes in one year. Since we do not have much of a retirement fund, this money would be really welcome.
• Living in an Inuit village, learn the customs of the natives.
• Charles likes cold weather and wants to learn to ski.
• All living expenses paid for the entire family while living there.
• No cooking for the entire year (they have a communal cafeteria)
• David's college would be paid for, with no outstanding loans when he graduated.

Cons

• A year away from Miss Munchkin, Kat and David. We would not be able to come and go. Once you are there, you are there for the duration.
• We would only be allowed a set weight amount of items to take with us (everything is flown in), so I would have to really plan ahead for books and such. But we would have Internet, so we could read whatever we could find online. And e-books are available from the town's cyber-library.
• The darkness. The job begins July 1 and we would be there until June 30, 2008. The summer months of sunshine are fine. It's the winter months that worry me, as both Bill and I need sunshine. We've been assured they have sunlight-replacement bulbs and such for those people that are affected by lack of sunlight, which is both Bill and I.
• The cold. Both Bill and I have seen enough snow to last a lifetime. But it's a dry snow up there, right? So our joints wouldn't ache so much?

Can anyone else think of any other pros and/or cons? Things we should consider while thinking over this job offer? Anyone have any experience living where it's so cold for long periods of time? And if you really think that we would seriously consider such a thing, you have obviously never heard of april fool's day!

It's Friday

No time for long chatty entries today. Friday morning is always my homeschool chat. From 8 a.m. (CT) to whenever, often until afternoon.

http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/hs/chat.html

But today I will have to leave early, as we (Charles and I) are driving to Birmingham to visit friends for the afternoon. And then we have to leave by 4 so that I can get home in time to get ready for dancing. Friday night is always square dancing night.

http://www.brindleemountainsquares.com

So a hectic day! But fun.

Technology, Love it or Hate it?

Charles got an iPod for his birthday Tuesday. He had an mp3 player already, but it was about wore out and he had requested something bigger and better for his birthday. Of course, bigger and better also means more complicated! Charles does not deal well with most computerized technology. He has a difficult time reading something and translating that into action. If he can see it done, he is fine. But he has inherited my technology-blindness, if you will. I have tried to help him, and we are finally making progress in understanding how to convert his existing songs into the proper format, but man, has it been a struggle. It's like learning a new language, reading some of the technical jargon. I'll read something to myself, then read it aloud to Charles, and the two of us try to decipher what I just read. But, like I said, we are finally making progress.

Now, if you were to show Charles a new karate form, he would get it right away. Or if you were to put him in charge of a class of karate students, he would have no problem with that. The class would continue calmly and smoothly. But show him something that needs tools to work on, like a car, or something with technological jargon and pop-up warnings, like a computer, and he is lost. He has had to learn to deal with more of that, though, this year with David away to college. No more can he just throw his arms up in defeat and cajole his brother into helping him.

And what is Charles doing now? While his iTunes is finally converting all the files the way he has been trying to get it to since late last night? He is out squirrel hunting. I am not sure if he took his blow gun or his bow. I do know the squirrels are not in any danger, though. The cats trailing after Charles will successfully warn away any squirrel silly enough to get within shooting range.

March Update

Well, I have failed at my goal of daily writing for the month of March. I know March still has a few days left, but as regular readers have likely noticed, there is a huge gap in entries, from March 17th to today, March 28th. My excuse? Life. In all it's wonder and glory!

Sunday (the 18th) was race day and also was the beginning of two days of watching Miss Munchkin while her mommy and daddy got all of her belongings moved to their new apartment. They did take Charles with them, but I am not certain it was a fair trade. Charles is pretty quiet these days, sleeping late and not keeping me very busy. Miss Munchkin not only does not sleep late, but she does not take very long naps and she is not quiet when she is awake! She kept me very, very busy those two days.

I did have Tuesday to myself and I do not remember why I didn't write that day, other than possibly I was trying to catch up on every thing I did not get done while Miss Munchkin was here! And then Wednesday morning I got a phone call from my daughter asking if I would come and help clean and paint their house, which consumed the next four days. I know their house was not that clean when they moved in to it! But it does look nice now and hopefully they will be able to sell it quickly.

So that took care of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday? Race day again, and a resting day as I tried to recover from four days of manual labor. I'm soft, I know! And also hunt the job boards for possible positions in Tallahassee for Bill. That has been my normal Sunday occupation for many months now.

Monday? Tuesday? I do not know where those days went. I was busy, but not too busy to write. So no excuses there. But today I have written twice to (hopefully) make up for lost days. And who knows? Maybe during these last remaining days of March I will be as prolific as I have been today! And be able to create whole entries that say absolutely nothing, as this one does!

Spring Fever

Spring has sprung here in north Alabama. The sun is shining, it's mid-seventies in temperature, the flowers are blooming, and the humidity is still relatively low. All that, combined with Daylight Savings Time, has given me a bad case of spring fever. I do not want to sit and write today. I want to be out digging in the dirt, playing in the leaves, planting something. I know from past experience, though, that if I go out and rake last fall's leaves or whatever other thing might need doing outside right now, my sinuses will flair up and I will be miserable for days. So instead I have expended all this spring fever on house cleaning. Don't panic! I do not mean any real serious house cleaning, just some sweeping and vacuuming and laundry.

If we were not in the middle of these trees, my sinuses would not have such a problem with outside activities. But here, with all the leaves and dampness and lack of any real circulation, we have mold spores and mushrooms and all sorts of lovely things practically year round. It is one reason we have considered clearing out all of the big trees, but could never quite bring ourselves to do so. And one reason I am looking forward to moving to an established yard rather than trying to carve some sort of yard out of a forest.

Another reason I would love to be in an established yard is due to all the poison ivy and poison oak here. For several years I had a nasty outbreak of what, I did not have a clue. But it itched and spread all over my arms and legs. After about the third year I finally discovered it was a poison oak reaction. I had never reacted to poison ivy before, so this was new to me.

Another new item that we discovered our first summer here was chiggers. It seems that chiggers love pine straw, and we certainly have a lot of that here with all these huge pine trees. Chiggers are most lovely. NOT!

So, spring fever I may have, but I will do my best to limit my energy to the indoors and hope that next year we are in a place that is more conducive to outdoors activities.

Spring Break Over

Tomorrow we take David back to college, which means another long day of traveling. It is really an easy trip, with the only really heavy traffic going through Nashville. And even then, we are usually making the trek on either a Saturday or Sunday, so the traffic is not all that bad. But it is still a long drive. And with tomorrow being the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, that means we will lose an hour's sleep tonight. I love Daylight Savings Time and am very happy that it is starting earlier this year and lasting longer, but I hate losing that hour's sleep!

I spent most of today working on creating a list of all the math and science books that I sorted off the shelves on Thursday. All day, but I have only about 1/4 of them on the list. That means a lot more work next week before I am ready to post the list to any group. After I get the list made, then I have to go back through the list, looking up comparable books on e-bay and/or Amazon and see what the used price should be for each one.

This evening we met Kat and Miss Munchkin in Cullman for dinner. Steak! Yummy! Miss Munchkin ate a fair share of my green beans, along with some french fries and a small bit of cheesecake. She definitely prefers to feed herself now, although with only two teeth, you have to really watch what she tries to eat.

It was a nice dinner out, with all three of our children there. But every time the past few months that we have been able to all be together, I cannot help but wonder how long it will be before we are all able to be together again. Life is changing. David in college. Kat with a family. Us looking to move further south. So many changes. And no way of being able to look ahead to know whether they will be good changes or not. No guarantees in this life! Just sight your course and hope for smooth waters and good times ahead.

Time for bed … I am going to have to arise much too early for a Sunday morning!

All Tired Out!

I know I did not write yesterday. I will have to make up for that by writing two entries another day. Miss Munchkin and her family have been visiting for the last 48 hours, from Saturday night just after we arrived home with David until tonight. So yesterday was a busy day with all of our children home. We played on the Wii, watched movies, and were generally entertained by Miss Munchkin. I was so busy that I just plain forgot to write!

Today I have been babysitting, from 7:30 a.m. till 6:15 p.m. I am barely coherent at 7:30 in the morning, let alone capable of taking care of a one-year-old! Miss Munchkin was good most of the time, but she sure is busy and she jabbers almost continually. She took only one nap, which lasting little more than an hour. Grandma is one tired gal tonight!

I have gotten very accustomed to a quiet house, with morning all my own, and just generally not having to think about a wee child every waking and sleeping moment. There is a reason why older women do not conceive as easily as younger women. Little children are just plain exhausting and best left for the young of mind and body to raise. And this particular old body is going to go soak in the tub and go to bed!

Names on the Road

We made the trek to Evansville and back home today to bring David home for Spring Break, a 600-mile round trip. We are getting the trip down pretty good, this time only taking 11.5 hours and that included two gas stops, one meal, picking up David at the college, and four potty stops at rest areas! Boy, am I sore, though. I cannot ride nearly as well for long periods of time as I could in my younger days. I remember a time, not all that long ago, when going non-stop from NY to AL was fun, only 18 hours! Not anymore!

I do like traveling, though. I always have. There is something about hitting the road with a long trip planned that is just very exciting and also relaxing at the same time. One of the things I enjoy most about traveling is seeing all the different place names and trying to figure out why they were given that particular name. Some are named for people, some are Indian names, some are named to remind immigrants of places in their homeland, and some seem to be descriptive names, but it is not always clear which is which. For instance the Elk River in Tennessee. Now I am pretty sure there are no elk in southern Tennessee and that there were no elk there two hundred years ago when the river was named. So did someone think they saw an elk? Or was that someone's last name? Or did Elk just sound similar to what the Indians called that river and so the settlers called it Elk?

Then there is the Cumberland River that runs through Nashville. Why is it called Cumberland and just what is the origin of the word cumberland? I am going to have to look that one up because it has intrigued me all day long.

Clarksville (Tennessee) is an easy one. It was named for General George Rogers Clark, a frontier fighter and Revolutionary War hero. He was also the older brother of William Clark, of Lewis & Clark fame.

Now Paducah (Kentucky) is another one that I will have to look up. I imagine it is an Indian derivation, but I would love to know for sure.

Just a few of the thoughts that absorbed my mind today as we drove the many miles. And best of all, David is now home and we all get to enjoy his company for a week! And then next Sunday make the same trek all over again!

Change

I subscribe to a daily e-mail service from www.tut.com . Today's message was this:

The great thing about change, Karen, is that it absolutely, positively, always means things are going to get even better.

Even when you don't know how.

The Universe

Sounds good to me!

I cleaned out more books yesterday. There are 24 grocery bags full of books to take to the used bookstore at the public library. It was time to get really ruthless about how many books I have versus how many I need and how many I want to pack and move. And those were only from my fiction shelves! The shelves look a lot neater, though. Time to tackle some of the non-fiction shelves again and all those that are stored in the office building. Most of those can go to the library too!

When I finished carrying all those grocery bags to the van, I then tackled the four containers of cassette tapes. Who listens to them anymore? I saved out the comedy ones that would be difficult to replace with CDs and the rest I am going to give away. What's the saying, if you haven't used it in 6 months, you don't need it? Maybe today's the day to tackle my closet again. It seems like I'm on a decluttering roll!

December update

I just checked when I last wrote here and can't believe it was so long ago. Where did December go? It's been a month of ups and downs and not one I'd like to repeat for a long time to come.

Mr. Algae-Eater seems to have recovered nicely. I bought some sort of aloe juice medicine that was supposed to be for sores on fish and added it each day for a week. It seemed to do the trick. He's back to his old self.

We did take a trip to Tallahassee last week and Bill interviewed for a position with a company there. He liked the company, so now we are just waiting to see if they liked him enough to hire him. Or if they thought they needed his experience enough to hire him, as they have a huge mess to clean up. Hopefully we'll hear soon. Bill and I really liked it there. The sunshine, the warmth, the beach, the seafood. It was very nice.

Christmas was a quiet day. Several of us have colds, others have been stressed and working too many hours. So we just watched movies and played with Miss Munchkin and tried to keep the wrapping paper out of her mouth. The best gift seemed to be the Flexible Flyer horse we got her. It didn't take long for her to figure out how she could move to get the horse moving. It is going to be a while, though, before she'll be able to ride it herself.

And I bought her a stocking that had the head of a cat at the top of it. I was going to make her a stocking. I got all of 4 rows done on it. I'll have to finish it next year. But the cat stocking was a big hit. Miss Munchkin loves "fluffies" and all day long she'd carry that stocking around and put her face right down into the cat's face and make her "kitty cat" noise, which is sort of a cross between a meow and a purr and a dinosaur growl. Very cute. That's what she's doing in these pictures, in addition to trying to eat the nose of the cat!

Fish update

Well, Mr. Algae-Eater is not looking very well. Sunday he has what appeared to be open sores on his skin. I bought some stuff to put in the water that is supposed to help. Maybe it is; I don't know. The sores do not look as red, but today his tail does not stick out behind him like normal. It curls and definitely looks shorter, like he has lost some of it. But this afternoon he did scoot around quickly into the weeds when I turned the light on, which was the fastest I had seen him move in several days. Maybe there's hope?

Kat says that Miss Munchkin walked across the kitchen on her own this afternoon and then stood there longer squealing about it. I need to take some more pictures. I haven't taken any since early November and they are still on the camera. Tomorrow she will be 9 months! I'll have to remember to take the camera with us dancing Friday night and get some pictures of Miss Munchkin and I doing Cotton-Eyed Joe.

I talked with David for a short bit today. Today was a "reading / studying" day in preparations for exams, which begin tomorrow. Next Wednesday he will be ready to come home for semester break.

I co