Green and an F.O.

We've been getting rain for the last couple of days, so everything is very green. Here's the intrepid rhubarb plant that grows just outside my back door. I thought I had gotten all the flowering stalks cut off, but this one peeped out. Looks like this will be the "do something with rhubarb" weekend.

My best laid plans for raspberry containment have already been overcome, as you can see they are escaping out to the left. I'll need to reassess and try something else for the upper part as well. But it's nice to think we'll have fresh razzleberries. I wonder if any will make it inside.

This is why I love perennials. The Delphinium (on the left) started greening up weeks ago, and it's the big, bold kind with spikes of dark blue flowers. Looks like it's time to thin the Iris (again!), and the rose in the back looks respectable after I finally cut the dead canes off last weekend.

Here's my boughten lettuce starts, planted around the beginning of April. I believe I'll have a salad tonight. I sewed the snap peas heavily, and there are a couple of the wimpy broccoli seedlings I started inside. The look better every day.

And last but not least, here's my Cadence! A Finished Object (F.O.) that is done but not blocked. the lace pattern at the top will lay flat and pop a lot more when I've blocked it, they tell me. I wish I had made it just a little longer, but I will see if I can get another inch out of it when I block it, and I could pick up stitches and add a couple more inches of ribbing at the bottom because I've got plenty of yarn. This was done in Cascade Ecowool Plus, and two of their massive (400+ yard) skeins were more than enough for this sweater, made in a large (38? maybe a 40 inch bust), and I have about half a skein left, so this took about 600 yards. A real bargain.

The Garden Season Gets Up To Speed

When we get rain here in CO, it's usually met with exclamations of "We need it!" and no one gets too bent out of shape. If it's actually raining, you'll see many people without an umbrella or a raincoat because there's usually a good chance that it won't rain. But we've had a couple of rainy days, and are forecasted to have a couple more for the rest of the week.

So you can appreciate my sense of satisfaction that I got vegetable plants and seeds in yesterday. What? No pictures? I know, I'll get out there this morning and get some. Our frost date is May 15th, so things should be fine. Out of the things I started by seed, I only planted a half-dozen broccoli starts. I don't know what happened, but things never thrived. Potting soil, peat pots, fluorescent light, heat mat, then real sun, it still wasn't enough. But they didn't damp off, and they are technically still alive, so maybe it's a nutrient thing. Anyone want to weigh in?

In other news, I've scheduled my once-every-five-years colonoscopy for next Tuesday. As the sibling of a person who had colon cancer, this will be a regular (well, every five years) thing. Friend D is able to get me home, and I'm so appreciative. It will be good to know. I think about how my sister had a tumor growing in her colon for years, and it went undetected because she was 'too young' to get colon cancer. Get your screenings, people.

Thank you very mulch

Today was a long, but good, work day. I installed edging, which has needed to be done for a while now. I also ordered six yards of mulch, and got about half of it put down. It is amazing how much better things look. I'd been looking for the right edging to put along the sidewalk and ended up using cedar shingles/tiles (they probably have a better name...). Below on the left are two landscape timbers I tried last weekend. The sidewalk has bumps on the sides of it, so I couldn't snug the timber against the sidewalk and it looked bad.

On the right are 4 x 4 timbers that Mr W and I placed a couple of weeks ago. These make a right turn and head down the alley. It was an easy project, as I just scraped the soil a bit, placed the timber, and we pounded in 1' pieces of rebar to hold it in place.

Left side edging done. As these things go, it wasn't as challenging as I thought it would be. We had two days of rain (which happens a handful of times a year), and the soil was easy to work.

I'm a little embarrassed to show the degree to which the weeds had gotten away from me here.

I pulled some of the weeds, and cut the trench.

Lots of newspaper for weed control.

Yeah, there's no comparison, is there?

I then put mulch over the existing mulch on the tree lawn, which was a big improvement. Hopefully I put down enough to discourage weeds. I also trimmed the suckers on the two Serviceberry trees. Time well spent. I hate it when it feels to me like I'm not keeping up with this part of owning a home and being part of a neighborhood. Voila!!

As I worked, Mr W's math teacher happened to walk by. I didn't know she lived in the neighborhood, and I introduced myself and we chatted for a bit. Remember when you thought the teachers ceased to exist outside of school? 

In other news, I met one of my new neighbors! The husband of a youngish couple. I didn't see any evidence of kids. For some reason, they haven't taken down the For Sale sign yet.  But their stuff is inside. Odd.

As heard on This American Life

Ira Glass just said the unemployment rate for people with PhD's is 2%. That made my evening!!

I'm laying low tonight, and going to get to bed early so I can have a really productive day tomorrow. I'm installing edging in my yard, and getting 6 cubic yards of mulch delivered that will make the yard and garden beds look nice. I'm surrendering more of my yard to mulch, so will lay down wet newspaper before I put the mulch down.

I'm going to plant some plants I've bought, too, and I've got about 4" left of the second sleeve of my Cadence sweater. That will get done this weekend.

But now, I'm going to get off the computer so I can read for a while.

Party's Over

The pity party, that is.

Maybe it's being able to get the thoughts written down here, or maybe it's actively trying to see what other people are going through. Either way, I'm good. I've got my perspective back, and although I haven't 'let it go' all the way (still have a pinkie-hold on it - maybe two fingers) I'm closer to doing so.

I applied for another job today, and that helps as well. I find that (OK, please excuse the obviousness of what I'm going to say) if I keep busy, especially doing things that make me happy, that goes a long way in maintaining the right attitude.

K? K.

Double Whammy

I admit, I'm having a tough time of it lately. I'll freely acknowledge upfront that the important stuff in my life is in place. I have my health, my kid is also healthy, I'm able to make the mortgage payments on my home, and I have a job for the next 5 1/2 months.

I find, though, that the job search and the partner search have worked to compound my anxiety about both, and I'm working to let that go. I've thought about what that means, "letting it go" and how I am not good at it. At all. In one way, letting go means to just drop it, to leave it behind, and be done with it. In another way, letting it go means that it will "go", somewhere, on its own, so letting it go connotes giving up control, although you are still interested in the outcome. If you've read this blog at all, you can probably surmise that I have trouble with both meanings. It's hard for me to get to that place where I feel like I've done enough and can set the thing on autopilot and get on with life.

I listened to this yesterday, it's a podcast of the OnBeing radio program, and the host interviewed Sylvia Boorstein, who is both Jewish and a Buddhist scholar and teacher. It helped. It's like I know what I need to do, I need to "just" stop worrying. I'm having trouble finding a path to get there. I'm pretty sure I will find it, but this is a difficult thing.

MoDa 2011

For a long time, I have viewed Mother's Day with mixed emotions. My own mom, Judy, died in 1993, so after a couple years of very sad Mother's Days, the day has been one where I didn't have much to do. Fast forward to when I became a mom, and up until about a year ago, Mr W's cluelessness has made nothing happen on the day.

I guess that's an advantage of a two-parent household. The other parent can prod the child to get something or make a card, whereas I'm not going to press my kid into paying homage. Well, not too much. He's finally big enough that I can extract some yard work out of him "as your gift to me for Mother's Day" and he's game.

For some reason, this year feels a little different. I feel that I can celebrate my mom without getting too sad, and also celebrate being a mom. On Facebook, a bunch of friends have changed their profile picture to a picture of their moms, and I've followed suit. I posted this shot of her, taken when I was 2, which would make her about 29. She looks awesomely fabulous.

I'm not sure where the feeling of different comes from. I've been around and around with myself for the last few months, worrying about the job search, and worrying about the partner search, and I'm trying hard to focus on the moment and all of the things are right. Plus all of the things that aren't wrong, if that makes any sense. Trying to let go of the things I don't have much control over. After living on my own for six years now, it's not in my nature to do that. It's so hard, but yet I feel like if I don't find a balance between feeling like I'm doing my part, and letting things take their course, I'm going to be very stressed out.

So maybe the positive feelings on this MoDa 2011 are from me getting a little more comfortable with my place in the world right now. That sounds hokey to me, too. Well, nevertheless, may you and yours celebrate Mother's Day if that's your thing. Looks like it's going to be a nice weekend here.

Knock Knock

I live in a safe neighborhood. I know my neighbors by name, and I feel safe here. Having a big dog who barks when people come to the door helps too. I've thought about adding more/better locks to my doors, but haven't done it yet.

I was in bed last night and had turned the light off around 10:45. I should mention that my bedroom is at the very front of the house, perhaps 10 feet from the sidewalk, and very close to the front door. I frequently hear soft voices of people walking by in the summer, and it's not a big deal.

At 11:03 last night, someone knocked on my door. Not hard, but knocked, and I could hear a male voice talking. I might not have heard it if my room was in the back of the house. The dog of course starts barking (good girl!) and I have this visceral reaction, where my heart starts pounding in my chest as I think about what I'm going to do if they force their way into my home. They also have flashlights, or headlamps, and I can see the light pass by my window several times. They knock a second time, the dog barks, and my heart starts pounding again. I work up the nerve to peek out the side window, not the front, and can see the light from the flashlight.

I wait, never even considering answering the door, and they go away after what seems like 10 minutes or so. Could it have been that long? I don't remember looking at the clock again. I laid back down and had a restless night's sleep.

What happened? I'm guessing it was a case of mistaken house identity, as there are several parallel streets in this area, all with old houses, and maybe they got the address mixed up. This put quite a scare in me, though, and I felt really vulnerable. Mr W was here too. But they didn't really want to get in, otherwise they could have. I've got a big pane of glass on the porch door, and a big old window on the porch that could both be broken if someone wanted in badly enough.

Hmmm. Maybe I'll go door shopping this weekend. I'm very happy with how the dog did her job, though. Good dog, Sally!

Another this and that

The work to do at work is piling up. It struck me as sort of an odd juxtaposition that people are expected to work harder after getting notice that they are losing their jobs. I'm doing it, I will do it, and I was pondering what my motivation was. One would think there'd be a motivation to coast. But I feel like I am a professional, I feel like I owe it to my boss, I feel like if I can do this last push, that I can look back and know that I did my best in that job.

So, I've got four manuscripts to write in six months, along with data analysis for two, and some lab work... It is a busy time. Life in Cubeville is not always conducive to the flow of writing, so I'm going to see if I can work from home some when it's time to do a lot of that. Depends on the day, but the sounds and smells can be a distraction.

It's almost time to plant vegetables. Almost. I think I'll set out my seedling tray because it's supposed to be nice today. They really limped along this year. Didn't die, which I take as progress over last year, but failed to thrive for the amount of care I thought I gave them. I've seen several blog posts about people planting things in zip lock bags, maybe I'll try that next year. Thankfully, I can punt and get what I need at the garden store, but still would like to see if I could get my determinate tomatoes to grow. They are pathetic little things still.

I took the van in yesterday for several smallish repairs. I like that I have the kind of relationship with them that when the weakening back hatch pistons made it so the hatch bumped the mechanic on the head, they replaced them. I happily paid. Not sure we've worked out the hot engine thing, but we'll see. They fixed a couple of leaks, and I'm happy to report that my transmission fluid is as clean as you'll find anywhere now. The mechanic also showed me how the second battery works. A previous owner put a second battery in, plus a couple of cigarette lighter outlets, and although I could see the wiring, I couldn't tell what was hooked up to the second battery. Turns out it's always on, directly hooked up to the main battery, which is charged by the alternator. He suggested, and I agree, that they could put a switch in that can cut the power between the batteries, so that I could use the power of the second battery only, and not worry about having enough power to start the van at the end of the trip.

So, I'm thinking about where we'll go this summer, and that's fun. I thought maybe the Wildflower Festival in Crested Butte, or maybe the Black Hills before school is out. Perhaps a trip out to see my brother, and I have a pipe dream of driving this thing to the Pacific Ocean, but it will likely remain a dream.

Shopping Bag Experiment

 

I got a couple of fabric shopping bags from a friend the other day. Shortly after, I was at the garden center, looking at potato grow bags, for which the garden place wanted $15 apiece. I didn't buy any, and then yesterday, had the idea of using these, because they are the same material. I tried a black plastic grow bag for potatoes last year, but they got too wet and rotted. 

I put a bit of soil in the bottom, after I took out the flat plastic piece, and put the seed potatoes on top. The one on the far right is itself an experiment, being one sprouted, organic Yukon Gold potato from Whole Foods that got away from me. I covered them, and will water them with the soaker hose, which needs to be repaired before I can use it.

In other news, I had coffee and lunch with P yesterday. I admit I don't feel a spark yet, but he's nice, and we have a fair bit in common.

Like visiting an old friend

Sally and I went for a nice hike this afternoon. The weather's been kind of cool, and as a result my desire for yard work has been ho-hum. I did get one thing done, which I'm going to put in another short post, plus odds and ends like fixing the hinge on the gate in the yard that's been falling apart for the last (*cough*) couple of years.

This lovely little plant is P. bellii. I studied it in school, so I feel like it's an old friend in a way. It's pretty specific in terms of its habitat, loving shaley soil that seems inhospitable to many plants, so it's kind of rare. There's a population of it where we hiked, and it's just coming into flower. I should have put something in for scale, but the whole thing is about 5" across.

I've noticed a difference hiking this year, since I started doing Spin classes last fall. I have more energy when I hike; it's easier. That's a good feeling. The dog loves to hike, and it's good to get her out as well.

I'm Eligible!

Yes, that's right. In the eyes of the hiring system for the Biologist job, I have been deemed Eligible. I think this is one of many little steps in the process, but I'm so pleased to have made it past the initial screen. Here's the definition.

"Eligible - Application Referred to Selecting Official: Applicant's name has been sent to the selecting official for further evaluation and possible selection."

Ha! Me and 50 other nerds.

It's still Poetry Month

Ahem. And I'm a couple of haiku short. So, I'm cheating and reposting this nice poem that I posted a few months ago. Courtesy of the OnBeing blog.

“Love after Love”
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Control

For as much as I'm a fan and proponent of science, I also recognize that there are workings that are beyond the reach of my conscious mind. I bought myself a Tarot deck a few years ago, and pull it out occasionally. IMO, it taps into what I am already thinking or feeling at some level, and brings it up for discussion (with myself, of course). I'm a total newbie/novice, but still manage to get something out of it a lot of the time.

This card came up in the "probable future" spot in the reading. For me at this time, this one's all about control.

Here's a blurb:

"The lesson of the Four of Pentacles is that control is impossible. We stand in the world as in a great ocean. Who could manage or possess such power? The only way to keep from drowning is to ride the currents. The ocean will support us as long as we swim with the flow."

Between my job search and my Mr. Right search, I've been weighed heavy with trying to make things happen. And happen NOW. Or when I want them to. With this in mind, I wanted to let these two aspects of my life know that I'm going to be letting them both go on their own for the weekend. I'm going to turn my computer off for much of the time, and work out in my garden. I'm going for coffee with new prospect P, and probably will try to hike with Sally on Sunday.

It's hard to let go!

Edging

Now THAT's an exciting blog post! Ha. I got my income tax refund recently and feel like I've got a few bucks to do some small improvements in my yard. One of them involves large quantities of mulch to cover or re-cover areas that I don't want to cut with the mower, with the related job of containing the mulch by installing edging. With the rain we've had lately, it should be relatively easy to install the edging, and it make such a difference to how my little yard will look. I'm keeping my options open for another raised bed or two where I put some of the mulch, but won't being doing those this year.

The tax refund has also made it OK that I hang on to the van for a while longer, despite no immediate job prospects come November. It's been running warm since I had the heater coil replaced last fall, and I made the appointment to bring it in to have them look at that, plus to make sure she's trip-worthy for the summer. I want to get out a lot this summer (note to self, maybe it's time to make some campground reservations...).

I did succumb and email the contact person for the Biologist job, as I haven't heard anything, and it's been over 4 weeks. Four rather anxious weeks, despite my best efforts to go with the flow, knowing that I have given it my best shot. She was gracious enough to get right back to me, and said they had received a large number of applications, and she expected to "have an update by Friday". I'm glad I emailed her. I'm just about to the point where I feel like I am checking the job sites enough, but not too much. When I look at something like "all the jobs in Fort Collins" that were posted in the last 24 hours, it's several hundred. I mean, it looks like there are a lot of jobs open, even if almost all of them are not my thing. Lots of medical, IT, financial positions. But this is a good place to have the skill I have, and I remain optimistic that I can find something in town.

Lastly, I finally got to speak again with P, the person I met when I was hiking the other day. He was out of town for a week, and we traded a few emails, but got to actually talk on the phone yesterday. So far so good. It's hard (duh) to get the nonverbal communication stuff over the phone, but we talked for about 40 minutes. We nailed down a time for coffee on Saturday.

Mild Holiday Angst

It was kind of a strange day today. I don't know where my head was (oh, wait, it was probably on some job classified site, but still) but I totally misread Mr W's interest in Easter. He must have spent the last few with his dad, because I had asked him if he wanted to dye eggs, he said no, so I bought a little box of chocolates, happy with my thoughtfulness. Boy, did I read that wrong. He was very upset that I didn't get him Easter candy, and cried actual tears for a while, although later admitted that he wrung it out a bit to see if I'd buy him a new game for his video game player. They are pretty savvy, but I didn't feel bad enough about it to offer that.

The above events did put me in a bit of a funk, and I actually got melancholy, which is unusual for me. I pined for the days when mom and dad had the holidays all planned out, down to our clothes and shoes. I was taken care of.

But we went to church, and doing that kind of dusted me off and propped me back up. I was hoping to get a little nugget to metaphorically put in my pocket, to help me get some perspective. The minister, who I adore, he's so good at what he does, talked a bit about how you have to have the lows so you can appreciate the highs. You have to know what the bad stuff feels like in order to appreciate the ecstasy of the good stuff. I liked that.

Mr W and I also went on a hike with the dog, and while I thought we'd go just part of the way around this trail, we ended up doing the whole two mile loop, which Sally loved because she got to go wading into the chilly water several times. Mr W hung tough until the last 1/4 mile or so, but still persevered. 

I called my family, my dad, and each of my brothers, and got to speak with my dad for a bit. I had let him know about my job situation via email, and he said the funniest things, which I got a lot of comfort from. It was like he was in my head, and said the stuff I needed to hear. He said he had talked with God about the job thing, and that it was all going to work out. Better than I expected, and things would be just fine. Then he went on to say, "You're not alone, honey." It makes me tear up just writing it again. I hadn't asked for the assist, but he gave it and it helped a lot. Later I got caught up with one brother and got an email from my SIL, so touched base with everyone.

Next year, I'll make up the basket, and heck, I'll even hide the thing, and leave clever clues (Mr W's going to regret asking today whether I had hidden his candy. It might be in the compost pile...) for him to work for finding it. He actually really enjoys that, and I think it's fun as well. I was sort of wanting ham, but made a tuna casserole (not the same) because the celery was going down fast.

In the end, it's up to me to make a stab at holiday traditions, whatever they end up being.

Aaaaaannnnddd another thing

I've just updated the "blogs I follow" list. I've got a slew of them in Google Reader, and just imported most of those.

Lots of good stuff!!

Job Seach Mini-Rant

To the HR people out there who write job descriptions, working with the people who actually will be supervising the new hire, carefully listing the requirements and expectations for the job, figuring out how many years of education candidates should have:

Would it kill you to give a salary range for the position?!!

"Commensurate with qualifications and experience" means almost nothing to me. Why do people do this? Is it to passively try to lowball potential workers so they don't have to be paid at the very top of the budgeted amount for the position? Do they not know how much money they have to spend on the position? I can't believe it's the latter. Do they think that giving a salary range reduces their bargaining power when it comes time to negotiate a salary?  Or that giving a salary range would turn some people off who might think the salary is too low and therefore not apply at all?

I just don't get it. A few years ago I talked to some people on campus about a Lab Manager job, and in the end, I'd have to take a huge pay cut. It wastes both our time to have me even come in, when if the salary was posted, I'd have passed on the job. And I feel weird asking up front. Furthermore, I simply told them I had to remove my name from consideration, and didn't say why, because I thought it would look bad. Greedy. On the other hand, maybe I should have known, although for a job that's just called "Lab Manager", I imagine there's a large range of salaries. Yes, I know how to find those salary surveys online, it just seems like they're never exactly like what I'm searching for.

That's one thing I like about trying to get in with a government agency. It's all out there at the beginning. And, they'll pay for a person to have an advanced degree. No, I still haven't heard anything on the Biologist job. On Monday it will have been four weeks since it closed, so I should hear something soon, like how my qualifications compared to other applicants.

But I'm keeping my eye out for a variety of things, and figured out a couple more keywords to search on that return the sorts of jobs that I could do. I haven't reached an equilibrium point yet between feeling like I'm actively searching enough and feeling like I'm spending too much time checking and rechecking job sites. Hopefully soon.

Garden 4-22-11

Lettuce and peas.

Apple blossoms!!

Haiku #6

I should wait for rain
To pull the copious weeds
Timing, everything

Sleep. And contract work

I should start this out by saying that I found out yesterday that I will get that bit of funding to take me three months or so past the end of my work contract. That is very good, although the details have yet to be worked out and I'll have to be some kind of other contractor, where I buy my own health insurance and take out my own taxes. I don't dislike that, it's just that I don't want to do it wrong. And ambivalent is the word of the hour there; it is great to get a little extension (so I'll have a job through Halloween) but my need/want to have a full time thing is still pretty strong.

This segues nicely into what I wanted to say about sleep. When things are humming along, I'll get about 7-7.5 hours of sleep during the week, and maybe 8-9 on the weekends. I wake up once, and then go back to sleep pretty easily. When my mind is occupied with thoughts of things that are not settled, it makes me wake up early. I'm thankful that I usually don't have trouble falling asleep, but I'll wake up earlier than I want to.

Anyway, I can tell a difference when I've gotten a couple of decent nights' sleep because I start to plan. I start to think forward, and that is a good feeling. I woke up this morning feeling that way, and am relieved. I have a lot of work to get done in the garden/yard this weekend, and it helps to be looking forward to it with enthusiasm.

I've always envied those people who can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and do 8-9 hours, no matter where they are or what's going on in their lives. I've wondered if a person could be trained to be more like that.

Some musings

I'm still thinking about the juxtaposition of seeing old flame CB, and meeting this new person, P on the same day. I don't quite know what to do with the feelings related to knowing there is someone out there with whom I share this great chemistry and who feels the same about me, yet we can't be together. With Mr W's dad here in town, I simply can't pick up and move. I can't do that to Mr W solely for my benefit. And CB can't do it on his end either. So, I will let these feelings recede and sort of put them in a pretty box in my mind. And look forward.

Look forward to getting to know P. I take it as a good sign that we talked easily and about interesting stuff on the trail, so I imagine there will be more of the same. He works at an art museum, so he's a student of history and is like-minded on things I care about, and is outdoorsy.

Back to Mr W. He went to the doctor the other day for just a check up and almost weighs as much as Sally the dog now. 80 pounds. He's still slender, and I worry that one of these days, his lack of having a sport that he does regularly is going to catch up with him. But he's quite healthy, and I am thankful. Last night for the first time, he asked that I set the alarm clock instead of waking him up myself. You got it, kid. We'll have to find something other than NPR to wake him up to, maybe a CD.

He sometimes bemoans that fact that he has to attend the after school care, while "everyone" else does not. Has to go to the all-day day care when they have a day off from school and his dad and I are working. It usually ends up as, "well, that's just how it is, and most kids have two parents that work" Blah, blah, blah. I guess it's part of being a kid that he can't see that in a couple of years he'll be capable of staying home on his own, and won't have to go to that stuff. Two years is a long time for a 10 year old, though, isn't it?

An Open Letter to Mike G

Dear Mike (for those of you who don't know Mike, he's a good friend of my brother's and commenter here):

Just wanted to let you know that I took your recent advice to wish for my prince to come. While I was washing dishes on Friday night, I said, out loud, "I want to meet him. I want to meet a nice guy who is potential partner material."

I'd thought share how my day went yesterday (the next day, Saturday).

1. I went hiking with a local Meet Up group. We went to the Red Mountain Open Space north of Fort Collins, where it was (and always is) windy but really beautiful country. When we first got there, there was a group member from Laramie, WY (which is about an hour north of FC) who met us there, and he was driving a red Insight like SIL Mary's. I went over to see how he liked it and we talked a bit. Later in the hike, we were chatting, and it turns out he's from Ohio, and went to the same college that I went to, but graduated a couple of years before I got there. He's asked me out for coffee, and we're volleying emails to set it up.

2. Riding as a passenger on the way to the hike, I'm checking my email, and see that a guy from the dog park who is part of our little group that always seems to bring their dogs there at the same time, has sent me a message, saying if I ever wanted help in my garden, to give him a call. I see him as a friend, but it's still nice to be asked, you know?

3. Finally, in the evening, I drove to Denver and met up with old friend (and former long distance relationship guy) CB, who had been in town leading a tour. I sat in on their last dinner, and it was a really nice experience to see how CB and his co-leader interact with the clients, and how much they obviously enjoying themselves. I was not expecting to feel pretty much the same about him, after a year and a half of being apart. So goes this matter of the heart. It was great to see him. The combination of the 900 mile distance and the need to be good parents to our young kids is difficult to surmount.

How's that for asking and receiving?

I mean, I've been whining for months now about this, but I haven't actually sent a request to... um, whoever receives such things. I'm a nerd who is firmly on the side of science on most things, but the degree of coincidence here is a little freaky.

Haiku #5

Job searching feels like
holding my breath for too long
while life continues

Mixed

I got an email from the x this afternoon, telling me that he and his girlfriend are now engaged. No firm plans on the particulars yet but they are staying in town.

I have mixed feelings on this. I don't mind, or care that he's taking this step. I really don't. There has never been any ambiguity as to our status, and I am thankful for that. And furthermore, as I told him when I replied to his email, anything the promotes stability in Mr W's life is fine by me. She seems a reasonable person, has a son of her own (a couple of years younger than Mr W) and doesn't seem to have any hangups about her role in his life. I asked Mr W tonight what he thought, thinking that, like a lot of kids of divorced parents, that he might be a little sad that this event meant that his parents really would never get back together.

He said it was fine, and then asked right away how I felt about it. And then asked if I was ever going to get married again. I hope I don't appear like this crazy spinster type person to him. I told him that I was really looking forward to being married again, I just hadn't found the right guy yet. His response was, "So someday, I'll belong to two families." Yup, that's been the goal, my sweet offspring.

This gets to why this news kind of sat like a pebble in my shoe today. I'm a little bummed out that I am not in the same place. I'm a little sad that I am not in the same position. I haven't by any means lost hope, but I figured I'd be there by now. But here I am, and life is good. I'm looking forward to a lot of things. The job thing will resolve itself. My kid and I are healthy. The important stuff is in place.

Occupied

It was another up and down-ish sort of day yesterday on the job front. I'm still waiting (it might be too soon yet) to hear something on the fed job, which I will call the Biologist job to distinguish it from another fed job I'll talk about shortly. The Biologist job closed a little over two weeks ago, but I'd like to know NOW, thanks. It's nice that they let you see, on the electronic application system, whether all of your materials have been received, and mine have. So it's just a waiting game.

I finally heard about the teaching jobs. I didn't get them! Not too surprising there. I'm still a bit flummoxed as to what exactly they were looking for that I didn't even rate an interview. Well, fine, then. Keep your $9,000 a year pay cut and I'll take my talents elsewhere. It's kind of like that, that I was willing to sacrifice in order to do this important job, and they more or less said, "No. No thanks". If there were a clearer message to move on and focus somewhere else, I don't know what it is.

Did you read/listen to the piece on NPR about aging and stress? A new study indicated that our ability to bounce back from stressful events has something to do with longevity. Looking forward, I am.

I had been meaning to contact a friend who I hadn't talked to for a while. I am friends with he and his wife and our kids went to the same daycare when they were little spuds. He works for a nonprofit that helped me choose my study organism when I was in school, and has since become its director. I emailed him to see if he knew anyone that might be connected to the Biologist job, and he said no, but he'd keep his eyes open for other positions.

That night, that NIGHT, he forwards me an email that is what they call an "Outreach Notice" where another agency wants to gauge interest in a position before it's actually posted. The position is another fed position, in town, and is for something called a "Science Application and Delivery Specialist". Another job that is right up my alley, blending science and the explaining of science. And it pays well, too. This one is mostly the explaining of science. I'm still marveling at the timing of it. I would have seen the posting when it becomes official in a month or so, but now I've sent my resume directly to the person I'd be working for. How cool is that?

They are still trying to wrangle the extra months for me at work, and I feel ambivalent about working so hard to get out of there and finding the next thing. I hope the timing works out so I can get done all I want to there, and then take a couple of weeks off and start the new thing. HA! Right. But that's OK.

Progress

Here is my Cadence as of this morning. I did move all the live stitches to scrap yarn so I could try it on, and the neckline, which is really wide in the pattern, and which I made on smaller needles, will work fine. The yarn is pretty grabby, so I've had to change the way I hold it and that has sped up the process a lot. I'm ready to do the 2" of ribbing on the bottom now, and then hopefully knock out the sleeves.

I say hopefully, because this is the time of year when knitting loses its appeal to gardening. I used to worry that I'd lost interest in knitting all together, but it comes back in the fall. I like the rhythm of that. I was outside for a bit yesterday, and made a long list of things that need to be done in order to properly usher in spring/summer at my house.

Has anyone every tried doing weed control by pouring boiling water on the weeds? The previous owners put down pea gravel in the font of the house and it always has weeds, which I usually knock back with Roundup, but would like to find an alternative. I did a test patch yesterday, and the leaves sure looked cooked, but I'll have to wait and see it that actually kills the plant. I remember seeing a butane torch apparatus in a gardening catalog that allowed the user to burn weeds, and thought that was a good idea for this small space, too.

Since the government shutdown isn't going to happen, it's back to work today, and I am relieved.

Haiku #4

Sally hearts dog park
Tongue dotted with dirt and grass
Please, just throw the ball

Haiku #3

Government shutdown

Bicker like little children

I've got work to do

Similarities

With the pending government shutdown, it feels like I'm losing my job twice. I can't believe that actual adults are compelled to let the government shut down so they can posture themselves into a better political position. I didn't think it would happen, but here we are on the day, and no budget. I only hope now that I will be able to enjoy myself on this involuntary furlough, as it's out of my hands.

We're not going to starve, and indeed today is payday, so we'll be OK for a few days while it gets sorted out. Did you know the shutdown of 1996 was 21 days? That's a little scary. I don't remember much about it.

Have you seen the Decorah Eagle webcam? I observed eagles for my MS, and while some say it's like watching paint dry, I find it fascinating. More like watching a fish in a tank. The little ones were just born in the last week or so, they come out from under the mom relatively frequently.

OK, back to the job stuff. So I've been putting my resume up on Monster, and the federal job site, and Career Builder. I've heard from several recruiters for things like selling insurance and being an analyst in WI, but nothing serious there. Which is fine, I guess I don't really expect to have a future employer find me in that way, I'd just like to be ready to tweak a resume that's on the site and send it along as an application.

But there is a similarity to posting one's resume online, and posting an online personal ad. I didn't realize this until I went onto Monster and saw that my resume had been viewed by two "potential employers". And I felt that little rush I felt when people looked at my profile. That's so freaky. Look at me! Look at me! To what end, I have no idea. I need to expand my search and submit resumes for some positions that I sort of qualify for.

I can see that attitude is a big driver in this. If I feel down in the dumps about it, that's going to come through when I'm deciding what to say in a cover letter. Nothing's really changed in my search for a new job, the openings just aren't moving fast enough. That's another similarity between this search and my search for a partner. Oh, why, Universe!? Why do I have to learn this lesson over and over?! Enjoying the ride in the meantime is so very difficult.

This segues me into the other thing that is going on. The person I was in the long distance relationship with is in CO working this week and next. We're going to eventually get together for a visit at the end of his tour, and I'm looking forward to seeing him. It has made me remember, though, how hard it was to do the long distance thing. "Waiting gracefully" was the term I used for being able to live my life between visits, and it was something I was never able to master.

So, as life will go, I have an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is today. I don't feel like going out and having fun, but my son's class needed a chaperone for a field trip to a park today, and I'm going. I'll go into work for a few hours in the afternoon to prepare for the shutdown, but am going to concentrate on just being with my kid today. He's really looking forward to it, and I felt (but covered it up) sort of ho-hum last night. Today we will have a nice time, it's supposed to be a nice day and those kids are always a lot of fun.

It will work out, and I'm doing what I can about the things I can do something about.

CPR class

Work offered a free CPR class yesterday, so I took it. It has been a while, over 10 years, and the AED (Automated External Defibrillator) is at the forefront of the process now. They've also changed the sequence of steps from ABC to CAB, meaning that a round of chest compressions (hard and fast!) should start right after assessing that the scene is safe, followed by checking airway and breathing.

This emphasis on the AED of course assumes that when someone goes down, someone can start chest compressions, while someone ELSE calls 911 and gets the AED. We have seven of them at work, and I could get to one if need be. Great, so if there's a crisis outside of work, where do you go? It occurred to me that there should be a smart phone application for that. And there is, so I will download it to to my phone today.

Participating in stuff like this always makes me a little anxious that I would someday have to put the knowledge to work. Everyone should at least (if I may pontificate for a moment) have read how to use one. The statistics are staggering. Almost a quarter of a million people go into sudden cardiac arrest each year.

More Spring Cleaning

Here are my seedlings this morning. I have to laugh at the scale of my "operation" here at Casa LindaCO. That's half broccoli, and then some tomatoes, cantaloupe and pickling cucumbers. I also started some broccoli and tomatoes for the community garden that grows stuff to donate to the food bank. The rest of what I want to plant needs to be direct-sown so we'll do that in about a month.

I'd like to finish this sweater I'm working on before it gets warm, but time is getting short and I can feel the desire to knit starting to slip away like it always does when it gets warm. I'm about half-way done, so it's anyone's guess at this point.

I was listening to a song on my iPod the other day and had the most curious thought. The song was "Useless Desires" by Patty Griffin. The link is for a live version video. For some reason, this song found its way to me the summer of 2006, when I thought (incorrectly) that I was ready to start dating again. I met someone online, and we had a really good rapport, electronically, anyway. I remember it feeling so great, and that perhaps this was it (or maybe IT). After we met, he absolutely lost interest. Perhaps because I was just a wee bit taller? We'll never know, but the despair I felt was a really good lesson about infatuation vs the real thing, and when to let your guard down, that kind of thing.

So I heard this song last week when I was going over data on the computer in the lab, and I had this thought, which was: if I could go back to the Linda of the summer of 2006, I'd tell her that things are going to be OK. I'd tell her the road to finding a partner isn't nearly as linear as she would have hoped, but that we've learned a lot about the important stuff in life so far along the way. And we are strong (most of the time).

Then I thought, how about the future Linda? The five years hence Linda? What sage and sound advice would she return with? My hope is that she'd say I'm currently doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and that things with finding Mr. Right fall into place when they should and in a very natural and fun way. I'm hoping also that she'd rave about what a great thing it turned out to be to get the kick in the pants to move from my current position to the thing she's doing. Meeting people, working in some kind of conservation biology and/or science communication sort of job.

And this all made me smile a bit.

Current Favoritist Song

Disclaimer: I listened to this song before I saw the video, which is sort of odd. Not obscene or gory or anything, but I don't get the exploding people at the end... I suggest you listen to it before you watch the video, maybe? Anyway, I love the words and the beat. The teacher at my Spin class was nice enough to let me foist a playlist on her yesterday, and this was on it. Go! Run! Be happy!!

Haiku #2 and Spring notes

Yesterday I bought a few bags of Sheep and Peat yesterday, and worked that into the soil of my raised beds. After trying to keep up with turning compost and watering the pile during this really dry winter, I have no finished compost to give to my garden this year. I guess it's going to be a two year process. I have a spin composter for my kitchen scraps and that goes pretty fast, especially now that it's warming up. I wish I could just throw compostable stuff on a pile and leave it alone, but I don't have the space.

I also shored up the raised beds by putting wood screws in at the corners, and will be switching what is grown in each bed, so I moved the trellis and planted lettuce and peas yesterday. The garden center where I bought single starts of lettuce last year had their lettuce in four-cell packs, so I bought two, one green, one red. That's a lotta lettuce. I also got my snap peas planted, and planted a lot - most of a package. It feels good to be underway.

Last night, I woke up around 2:30 to the smell of smoke. It has been a really dry winter, so my thought, after I sniffed around my appliances and found nothing on fire, was that it was a wildfire somewhere. Sure enough, there's a fire burning west of town and the wind blew the smoke right into town. Humans must have some really basal mechanism that says, "Hey! Fire! Don't sleep, you might have to flee!" because the rest of the night I was restless. At the time I write this, it's 2000 acres and only about 30% contained, so people are being evacuated. Nothing to worry about here in town, though, except the smoke. After an 80 (!) degree day yesterday, it's supposed to snow this afternoon. It's so Colorado, but that weather should help the firefighters' efforts.

Here's a haiku for my gardening efforts yesterday.


Bags of Sheep and Peat
turned over to feed the soil
The peas are happy

National Poetry Month

It's National Poetry Month in April, and I thought I would give myself a light challenge of writing at least 10 haiku (haikus?) this month. Sounds pretty reasonable, especially since I'm going to use one that I wrote a while ago to start off.  The poster above is from the 2010 celebration and I just love it for some reason. Love how it looks like paper cutouts assembled together, love the colors, love the line of poetry. It just really does it for me. I have this image on my desktop at work (I guess for about a year now!).

OK, here's #1:

Don't know much about
the laws of attraction, but
haiku writers, wow!

I wrote this when I was doing the online dating thing.

Hey, here's an idea! Feel free to play along.

Happy Birthday, Judy

 

Today would have been my mom's 74th birthday. Wow. She died much too early, at age 56. Miss you, Mom.

Annnd up we go

This job thing has taken a bigger toll of me than I had previously thought. It's been interesting, though. When I was first divorced, I figured by the time I was 5 years out, I'd be happily settled down in the relationship I'd be in for the rest of my life. OK, I'm trying not to roll my eyes either.  My point is that I had assumed, it's been part of my plan, to be settled down with a nice guy, with another income, by now. I didn't want someone to provide for me, but to be kind of a backup.  And I'd be the same for him.

This feeling was ingrained when I was first looking for jobs, and saw the federal one that I did end up applying for. It was offered at two pay scales. The higher one (that I don't qualify for; I applied for the lower one) has a maximum salary (over time) of over 100K. When I saw this, the thought came into my head, unbidden, "If I made that much, I wouldn't need a man". And I guess that would be true financially.

I think that thought started my current mindset that it is all me here. It's my responsibility to find and keep the job that will provide me and my kid (for the half time that he's here) a reasonably good and stable life. And, it turns out, this doesn't scare me as much as it once did. I've got some skills, I can talk to people, I will find something.

I mentioned here a few days ago that there was the possibility of some money coming in that would keep me employed for a few months after the official end of my contract at work. I think that looks like it still might happen. As much as I'm privy to the goings-on at that level of the organization, anyway. Along the same vein, my supervisor told me he met with the highest level people in the division (i.e. our site) to make a pitch to have them change their minds and fund me so I can continue doing the genetics stuff I do, which no one else at the facility does. I was really pleased he would do this. I don't know when we'd know, and they didn't make any promises.

At the same time, I feel a little unsatisfied. I don't want to cobble together a few months' work at a time. And if I do get renewed, I don't want to have to go through this job-related anxiety next year. I don't want to appear ungrateful because I'm not. This, I suppose, is typical of the job situation for a lot of people. We're UP! We're DOWN. Oh, wait, someone's making a pitch for us, we're UP! Stay tuned.

Grappling with the big questions

Are these worth the money (three ladders for $50)? I hate the tomato cages I had last year. They came with the house, and were the conical type. They leaned over when the plants got top heavy, and took up too much room in my raised beds. I have one tomato spiral that I use periodically, and it doesn't work worth beans. I vow after each time I use it to never use it again.

I like the idea of a ladder because I could tie the plant to it as it grows, and easily get at the fruit. The other thing I'm thinking of is to get a bunch of 6' bamboo and put three posts of bamboo around each plant. It's cheaper (about $35-$40), but I don't know how that will work. So, dear readers, what do you use? I know some of you are intrepid and experienced gardeners, so I would appreciate your opinion.

Home Again

I am back home after my trip to CA for work and a spot of play. It was a good trip. I gave a good talk, and am hopeful that the extra three months of work that my boss is trying to finagle will come through. Or, that I will get a good job before then. I had my classic anxiety dream last night, wherein I am back working at the nature center in Toledo that I worked at (happily) before moving to CO. In the dream, and it is always the same theme, I am back working there, and there is a group of kids coming, SOON, and I need to present part of the day's programing to them without any preparation.

In this dream, though, there were more details, and it was one of the those dreams that seemed to last most of the night. I remember saying, as I have before in this dream, "I sometimes dream that I'm back here to work". Wacky.

Anyway, here are a few shots from the trip. This was much more of a professional/trade show type conference than the academic ones I am used to. This is one of the workers there, and behind her, you can just glimpse the exhibit hall. I had no idea there were so many products to kill mosquitoes with. Must be pretty lucrative, too, because those displays were really nice.

It rained the first day I was there, to my surprise. Here's a genuine west coast snail, trying to get out of the rain by coming up on the sidewalk. Its shell was about an inch across.

I really did laugh out loud when I saw the sign on this Mickey statue. Sure, put up a totally climbable statue and tell everyone to stay off. 

We went to dinner one night at a New Orleans-themed restaurant. I had shrimp and grits and it was really good and really salty. The piano was totally covered with rhinestones, which reflected white in the picture, but you can kind of see on the sides of it.

Around the same area of the restaurant, there was a shopping district and I found this nice purple-flowered shrub. I have no idea what it is.

On to Palm Springs. After the conference, I took a shuttle to the airport, rented a car, and drove to see my SIL, who was visiting family in Palm Springs. I won't bore you with the details of the trip, but everything they say about California traffic is true. There are just so many people packed into that space. Here's a gas station that actually still offers full-serve gas - but it's going to cost you.

One of the botanically (and gastronomically) awesome things about southern CA is that there are citrus trees grown as ornamentals in people's yards. We picked these from the tree in the front yard, and there were also lemons and oranges about. I love that kind of stuff. And they were good, too.

This is the view out the back door of where I stayed. Just lovely. They plant annuals in the winter that we plant in the summer, and then come through as it gets hot and pull them out to leave the desert landscaping to get through those hot summers. It was a really nice visit.

I planted some seeds before I left, and they have germinated. I need to get out today and turn my compost pile again. I'd like to get the soil prepped in one part of my bookcase raised beds, so I can plant peas. It's fun to be thinking about gardening again. I got the job application submitted for the job I really want, and want to send in a couple more resumes to companies that don't have anything at the moment, but might, blah, blah, blah. It'll work out.

Thoughts and possible news

My presentation went really well yesterday. It was a relief to have it over, and the whole day's worth of talks (a symposium on the bugs I work with) was interesting. A couple of near-snoozers, but overall good stuff. Note to people giving presentations: Leave your 30 row tables at home and just give us the good stuff, OK?

Last night, my boss and I went out to dinner with some collaborators, and they really liked the stuff I've done so far with their mosquitoes. There's talk of more collaboration, and me training one of them in our techniques. And talk of how to get as much done as I can before leaving at the end of July. Today I sat in on another symposium on the outbreak of West Nile disease in AZ last year, which a group from the CDC responded to and then gave talks on today.

As I listened to the talks, I thought to myself, "I'm going to miss these people; I'm going to miss this." Erg, kinda sad about it. My friend from work moved to WI to start a new job, and I miss her, too.

Well, tonight was the banquet. Man, the food was so good! I'm still full, 3 hours later. Anyway, My boss told me tonight there is talk about these collaborators putting up money to keep me on for an additional three months past the end of July. It's not a full reprieve, but they're trying, and maybe they can find some more money in the meantime to keep me another year. It feels good to see they'd like to see me stay.

A short dispatch from Anaheim

Well, I did it again. Chose a hotel that is a little too far from the conference. Not horrible, but a 12 minute walk, and I don't want to walk it after about 7 pm. I should just take taxis, there are plenty.

Can someone explain the appeal of Disney to me without using the word magic? Or using it and defining it somehow? I just don't get it. I haven't seen much of the park, as the hotel where the conference is is on the edge. We can walk through "Disney Downtown" which has shops and food, and then yesterday I went through a slice of the park on my way to catch a shuttle (which ended up being as long of a walk as going from my hotel). It's been chilly here, and it looks like they don't have everything open as they might if it were warmer.

Anyway, the conference is pretty good. It's got more of a trade show feel to it, and people are dressed up more here than at the academic conferences I'm used to. On a bright note, I saw my boss get an award from the Association whose conference this is, and that was a nice surprise. He hadn't let on that he was getting it. The talks have been OK. My world of population genetics is an infinitesimal part of the scene and that's fine. My talk is ready to go, I'll run through it one more time before I leave this morning. We've got 20 minutes, and if a ramble through it, it's 19 minutes. Perfect.

I had a dream the other night. I went into a room and there were two dead trees in pots. Small trees, like citrus. The smaller pot was sitting in the dirt of the larger pot, but they both had sand in them (which doesn't hold water, right?). So I was presented with these things, and my first inclination was to water them, which I did, trying to revive them, but I realized they were too far gone, and that with the sand, the water wouldn't help anyway. I'm pretty sure this has to do with past relationships.

OK, up and at 'em!!

Off to see Mickey

I'm going to Anaheim, CA for a conference soon. I've got my computer and camera, so I'll try to post some pictures. Since work will pay for me to check a bag, by golly I will. I'm also going big time and bringing my sweater knitting project to work on at the conference - that seems so decadent!

One weird thing is that the weather (think southern CA in spring) is supposed to be rainy and low-60's. Blech. The conference is at one of the hotels at Disneyland, and I'm staying at another hotel close by. I'll try to get over to the park once, although I admit the Disney stuff doesn't hold much magic for me.

It's a small world after all....

It's so me

Maybe I'll wear this to my first interview, which hasn't happened yet, but will!

From Cafe Press

Words

I attend the Unitarian Universalist church here in town. I joined about four years ago partly to give myself a new community to be involved in and partly for Mr W to get some spiritual context in his life. To each his own on the religious front, but one thing I really like about this church is its pastor and his sermons. I love leaving feeling like I've learned something. Last week he had a list of words that are hard to translate directly into English, but nevertheless have meaning.  I liked the list and Marc's descriptions so much, I'm sharing them here.

"uffda"--OOF-da--Swedish, exclamation--A word of sympathy for someone else in pain--"Ouch
for you"--You hit your thumb with a hammer--You're getting ready to move--You're being
consumed by Terry, the lovable but dangerous Great White Shark-- We shout "Uffda!"

"Rasa"--Sanskrit, noun--The mood, feeling, or sentiment evoked by a work of art, some other
entity, or an intense event--The essence of the emotion I feel in response to the essence
embedded in my experience--Marcel Proust eats a special French cookie and it triggers in him
intense memories of his past--and a really, really long novel--the essence of the cookie yields for
Proust the essence of his life's journey. "Rasa" is both a quality which inheres in an object or
event and also the inner feeling state evoked.

"yugen"--YOO-gehn (hard "g")--Japanese, noun--An awareness of the universe that
engenders emotional responses too deep and mysterious for words--We have the sense of, a
feeling for, the profundity and mystery in our lives and also in the world. Like "rasa," "yugen"
describes inner feelings more than the event or object that arouses such feelings.

"h`ozh'q"--HOE-shk--Navajo, noun--The beauty of life and the world, as seen and created by
a person--One's wealth and riches are one's stories and song, one's poems and paintings, the
various things of beauty one has created or embodied in one's life. Beauty is the full gestalt of
object, creator, and viewer. We walk and live in beauty; we end our days in beauty. "It is
finished in beauty."

"ostranenie"--ohsh-truh-NYEHN-yay--Russian, verb--To "defamiliarize" the world--In art,
literature, religion, rite or ritual, the intention to explode the ordinary, whether in an object, in
perception, or in experience, so as to revolutionize meaning. Make strange objects that are
familiar--Picasso, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, Charlie Sheen, Gertrude Stein, Andy Warhol and
the giant can of tomato soup. The exploration of light in the paintings of the Impressionists
might be seen as one example of this effort. Jesus in his parables uses reversal, irony,
unexpected metaphors and analogies to allow us to see and feel anew. In Zen this practice goes
on constantly, which might make you eventually desire to go on a long run, watch TV, or eat
crackers/ice cream/cookies-- whatever you prefer. But will cookies ever taste the same after
Zen? "I think not."

Workin' it

Networking has been on my mind of late. I've told several people that I'm being let go (it feels nicer than saying "laid off") and to please spread the word and let me know if they hear of any leads. And you know what? I know more people than I realized I did. It's because I went to school here, obviously, but it still felt good that I've been able to even have people to mention my plight to. OK, maybe it's not a plight yet.

Yesterday, I was picking up Mr W from his we-don't-have-school-today day care thing, and ran into a woman who has a son about Mr W's age and we were students together in Biology department. She got the job at the Botanic Gardens that I applied for an didn't get an interview for. I am happy for her, as I didn't want the commute, and she no doubt was better qualified for it anyway. But she mentioned that she had thought of me the other day because they were getting a list of people together who had the skills to work on short term projects doing lab work that I can do. We exchanged email addresses, and I sent her a resume as well. I don't want that kind of piecemeal sort of work, but it's always good to have one's credentials on file.

And yesterday, too. I got an email from a person who I consider a mentor, who was on my graduate committee and has helped me with data analyses since I got out of school. He had a person who was trying to use a program that I used and wanted to know if I could give him any pointers to make it work. I put in my two cents' worth and then had the opportunity to share the news that I was going to be let go, blah blah blah.

And with the job I'm really wanting right now, the Biologist one that pays really well and is a FTE job with the government, well, I've found a couple of people who know people there as well. Of all things, my SIL in South Carolina used to work with a woman who now works for the same government agency, in the same building, but a different department, as where this job is located. And I emailed the x because he's a government contractor, and he suggested I email this guy who is also in the same building as the job is located in, and who I just happened to see the other day when Mr W and I were at this hands-on science thing.

It's wacky.

But it makes me feel like I'm doing something towards getting the next job, and that makes me feel calmer. I'm not feeling so urgently like I need to go back to school, but I need to make that decision in the next month or so because the application deadline is May 15th and I'd need time to assemble letters of recommendation, and get official transcripts sent, etc.

We're going to a parade today, the St. Patrick's day parade downtown. I'll take pictures.

My Resume, Wordled

If you click on the picture, it will take you to the Wordle page and you can see it bigger-fied.  I took out the personal info and left my "action words".

This and That and That

Not too much news to report, but I thought I'd check in. Work has sort of settled back into a new normal, where we all realize that we need to wrap stuff up, but there's lots to do. I'm supposed to go to a conference in a couple of weeks, and started to work on my talk yesterday. I was going through older presentations looking for a logo to put in my talk, and realized that I've already given a longer version of this talk, so I really just need to pare it down to about 15 minutes. I even had picked the same template that I had used previously; how's that for predictable? My only question that I need to send to the contracting company I work for is, "if the government shuts down next week, do I still get to go to the conference?" The fee is paid for, but they buy refundable airline tickets, and I haven't paid for my room yet, so I really don't know.

I have been looking for a job, and actually found a couple to apply for. A couple that are (in my mind anyway) really good fits, not ones that I would pick out of desperation (although that time may come). One's a fed job, in town, and it's a couple of pay grades above what I make now. I'd qualify for the lower of the two pay grades offered (which is still great and awesome) but I was fantasizing yesterday about what I would do with the money offered by the higher pay grade, which would almost double my salary. Buy a car with cash? Contribute money to all the places doing good work around town? Put money in Mr W's college account? My retirement? Ha! There's no chance of me qualifying for the higher grade, but I'd be thrilled THRILLED to get in they system at the lower one. Oh, what's the job? It's got an analysis part where I'd read reports and distill the info into sensible bits, and then a public outreach part. It's so me.

The other one is something called a Science Teaching Fellow. This one's in Boulder, which is about an hour away, but they want someone to work with the professors who teach undergrad Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, and other stuff up my alley. I need to re-read it to see if there's a learning component for the Fellow, or if they want someone who already knows more what they're doing. It's a one year thing, renewable for up to three years.

So those are good leads.

I've been dutifully turning my compost pile, in hopes that I'll be able to use it to amend my soil before I plant things this year. So I'm out there with my watering can full of hot water a couple of times a week, and I think I see progress. The soil in my raised beds got hard and dry last year, despite me buying a soil/compost mix from the landscaping company. It's funny, after reading some of the great blogs that I follow that operate at larger and much larger scales than I do, my little plots seem so tiny. But I'm just trying to feed me and Mr W (and whatever green beans the dog ends up getting).

Can I say that I am, without fail, amazed at this seasonal cycle that I am part of? Every year when the garden is done, I'm done. Last year, I had food to eat beyond the garden's existence, but there was a point at which I said to myself, "This does not hold my interest anymore". And it rests, and I forget about it, and I start to knit again, and we have the holidays, and then it comes and gets me again. The desire to pick out seeds and plants and plan and scheme. Gardening and knitting kind of pass each other and bump knuckles on the way, one going in, the other going out of my scope of interest.

But not so fast, knitting. I've got a sweater that's about 25% done that I need to finish off before it gets warm.

Promise

Well, this dreadful photo (I took it with my phone, put it on Facebook and copied it from there) shows where my mind is of late. Saturday, I went out with dear friend D and her friend K, and we had drinks at this hip little place downtown. Drinks, as in I had two drinks. And I was hungover on Sunday. Note to self: the cost of the second drink is too high. Enjoy the one and drink water, OK? Anyway, we had a really fun time that also included dessert.

February was pretty darn mild, and we expect to have more winter before it's really spring, but it's OK to start seeds around the middle/end of March, for planting around the beginning of May. It used to be Mother's Day, but people jump the gun a bit. New this year are the mini-melons that I'm going to try to trellis, and the pickling cukes, which I will also trellis. The kid likes pickles, so we'll make some. I got a Roma-type tomato and the plant is determinate, which I'm thinking will give me one largish crop and I can can them all at once. That's the plan, anyway.

Still haven't heard anything about the teaching jobs. I've got my resume almost ready to post on several job sites, and have created saved searches that email me potential jobs once a day. I'm going to a conference in a couple of weeks, and I need to get my talk ready. It's hard to shift focus back to the job I'm still getting paid to do.

Life going on

Well, after the news that all but two of us contractors were losing our jobs, the folks from the contracting company flew out, and individual meetings were scheduled with each of us for yesterday and today to discuss "your future employment with our company". Mine's at 9:00 today.

I'm thankful that we all talk to each other, as co-workers who had their meetings yesterday described them as "five minutes of nothing".

Why, you ask?

Because Congress passed the stopgap spending dealio, so the government still doesn't have a budget for this year, so the contracting company and the CDC know that the budget will be cut drastically, but can't say for sure by how much until they pass one. I just hope they don't shut down in the midst of this, because I wouldn't get paid for that time.

As it is, I'm good until the end of July, and am now looking at that as enough advance notice to find something else. I had all but dismissed the teaching jobs as viable possibilities, as it's been a month now since they closed. But I called yesterday to see if interview candidates had been chosen, and they have not! So I consider myself still in the running, and now - go figure - the starting salary offered to do these jobs doesn't seem so unreasonable after all!

If those don't pan out, my next idea is to figure out something to live off of for a year, and complete the graduate certificate in Instructional Design at UC Denver. I'll sell the van if I have to *sniff*, but am hoping I can come up with something that I can live off of and am not above taking out a loan, but I don't want to do that either.

So, I'm actually hopeful. Everyone I talked to yesterday mentioned how there's "nothing" in town in terms of jobs for what we/they do. I feel fortunate that at least I've dipped my toes into some other pools and can pursue the teaching/education thing. Who knows? Maybe getting laid off will be the kick in the pants that lands me in education (either teaching or being support staff in the form of ID) after all.

Bummer

I'm being laid off at the end of July after all.

Boom Shakalaka

Here is my latest knitting project. It's a Cadence sweater, by Jordana Paige. If you click through to look at the pattern, you'll see that it has this really wide neckline, which initially turned me off to the pattern. But good old Ravelry shows several projects where people have cast on with smaller needles, then switched to the needles the pattern calls for when they start the chart. How clever! So I cast on with size 7's, and then switched to 10's. Too early to tell if this worked, but I think it will be OK.

Here's a close up of one of the pattern repeats. The Cadence name is apt, as I have gotten into a rhythm working around them. You might also get a sense from the pictures that this is bulky yarn. I am such a fan of bulky yarns for sweaters. This is Cascade's Ecological Wool, which is a really good deal, at $15.00 for 400+ yards of yarn. I love the look of a sweater made from DK yarn, but just don't have the time to spend with that skinny yarn. This way, I can see my progress and actually have a chance to wear this thing before it gets warm. C'mon spring, I dare you to come early!