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!

Dog Muffins

 

I think I'm a pretty good pet owner. I take Sally to the dog park just about every day, skipping Saturdays or Sundays sometimes when we've been around the house all day anyway. She is not a working dog by any means, but repays me and Mr W by being an affectionate and good-natured dog. This picture was taken about a year ago at the dog park, and when our friend J crouched down to take the picture, Sally lunged forward. J did get out of the way and didn't get knocked over, I'm happy to report.

I got Sally after my other dog died, and wanted specifically to get a puppy, and further to get something that I knew would be really good with kids, as Mr W was six at the time. I don't remember how I first learned about Labradoodles, but everything I read suggested that would be a good choice. In fact, when I was asking questions of the woman I eventually bought Sally from, she couldn't name anything to really watch out for in their personalities, besides energy. I found Sally by searching the Denver online classifieds ("we met online"). The going price for Doodles at the time was close to $1000 and she was much less expensive, being the product of two pets instead of more papered dogs. And it's worked out great. She's a wonderful, healthy dog.

Now, the dog muffin part. On the scale of how people treat their dogs, 1 being they live outside, aren't considered part of the family and work for a living, and 10 being dogs who have their toe nails painted, get dressed in jewelry and eat exclusively people food, I'm about a 5. She's an indoor dog, and part of the fam, but she gets dog food, cheap dog treats and rawhide. At the dog park, there's a group of us who end up going at the same time each day, so we walk around together. It was one dog's birthday so her owner made dog muffins (like people muffins, but less sugar, fat and salt) for all her dog's friends. This owner has a treadmill for her dog, too. Yes, I can snicker, but there is no doubt this one shelter mutt scored big in terms of the good life. 

So, while I'm not the sort to bake treats for my dog's friends, I'm still a pretty attentive owner. I suppose the fact that the dog can't appreciate how poorly some other dogs get treated is the paradoxical outcome of being a good pet owner. I wonder about the same for Mr W. We are by no means rich, but he wants for nothing and has a lot of stuff, as do many kids of his generation. It's hard for him to get his head around how bad it is for a lot of the world by me just telling him. Indeed, I am of the mind that our place in life obligates us to do something to return the favor, and my efforts are fledgling, but we're on it.

 

Current Events

I'm just about back into my groove from being out of town. Even when I'm gone for just a few days, there always seems to be a big list of things waiting for me when I return. The night before I left, I was doing laundry, and heard the sound of water hitting the floor in the basement.  I went down to find water coming up out of the vertical pipe that drains the washer. I needed those clothes, so I put towels down and hoped for the best - the load was almost done anyway. 

Fast forward to yesterday, when the plumber comes out.  Do the pipes gurgle when I flush the toilet? No. When I take a shower? Nope. He snaked the line and determined that there was just lint blocking the part of the line between the washer and the main. Lint. Like from someone's early felting projects where she didn't use a pillow case. Ahem. Oops. Well, $90 and no harm done. I use pillowcases now, so hopefully this won't be a problem. I am thankful that previous workers put a cleanout next to the house the last time I had sewer issues.

But I was going to mention something else. I was visiting my dad in Florida last weekend, and my brothers were there as well. My dad is kind of old-school, socially and fiscally conservative. I'm kind of left-leaning. We talked a lot about current events over the weekend. A lot. And I have to say how impressed I was with the degree to which we all have been paying attention. Someone would bring up an angle on some issue, and pretty much all of us had heard about what they were talking about, or something similar. I really liked how, although we didn't agree on how to fix things, we agreed on big issues and respected each other's opinion. It made me wonder if I was spending too much time reading about current events, when I could keep up with my dad, who is retired, but I think I'm OK.

One other thing that I learned over the weekend is that my younger brother has a unique memory of past events. The birth order is my sister, my older brother and me - each a year apart - and then him, six years after me. On the one hand, we will talk of things, and he'll say, "I was too young", or "I wasn't there".  On the other, he remembered things that I had forgotten about, and in wonderful detail. I have a new appreciation for his memories. There was a snake story that I had almost forgotten, and it was fun to hear it again.

Back to it

I'm back from my weekend in Florida visiting my Dad with my brothers.  My older brother's flight got canceled, and hopefully he'll get back to MN today.  Darn that winter travel anyway.  This picture is us after we took an airboat ride.  Interesting, a little exciting (the driver had a lot of control and swung us around turns from time to time), but really loud.  They gave us head phone ear protectors to wear.

It was great to see everyone, and we began to have "the talk" with my dad.  Thankfully he's still sharp mentally, and although he has slowed down just a little, he seems to have many more years ahead of him. He showed me the list - 40 items long - of the things he had to do when he arrived at the Florida house back in December. He's so much in the do-it-yourself generation. I wish I was more like that. It seemed like he's done a good job at getting his papers in order so that we know what he wants to happen in case he gets sick.

Florida, as you might imagine, is nice. It didn't feel homey to me, though, and I'm still trying to figure out why. Where my dad lives reminds me of Tucson, with the low strip malls, palm trees and clay roofs. It feels like a place, like Tuscon, actually, where it is a substantial job to keep nature at bay so people can enjoy themselves. My strong preference is a place where air conditioning is optional, I guess.

I sometimes feel like the odd one out.  Mom and my sister are gone, and while no one excludes me or anything of the sort, I feel like there is a bond between the males of the family that I am not part of, and I guess that's a function of loss more than anything else. There is a concept in genetics called genetic drift, where, small changes that don't directly affect survival accumulate over time between individuals or populations that are separated by space. The end result isn't good or bad, it's just that you can tell there's a difference. Not that I feel like I've drifted in a way that influences how well I get along with my family, but I feel like I've had to make my way on my own without their influence because they are so far away.

My dad asks me, every time we are together, if the x and I will get back together, and this drives me crazy, despite the fact that I know he means well and has my best interests at heart. Mr W's dad has never, never ever, wavered in his desire to not be married to me, which is fine.  It makes it easier to move on, and I could never go back. I got a bit  impatient with him when it seemed like he thought I was unpaired because I wasn't looking in the right places, like church (he doesn't read this blog).

It was a great visit, and I hope to get down there every year or so.  It is always nice to see everyone. I guess seeing people who have known me my whole life gets my introspective self in high gear.

A Little Change of Scenery

I'm flying to Florida on Thursday to see my dad and brothers for a few days.  My dad's had a winter place in FL for the last 10 years and has always wanted us to visit. I'm glad we're finally getting it together to go down there, and, as dad says about himself, "I'm not getting any younger."  That may be, but he's pretty darn healthy, and I'm hoping I am the beneficiary of those genes. 

Speaking of feeling healthy, I've been doing this Spin (the bike kind, not the yarn kind) and Tone class for about 4 months now, and I feel really good about it.  We bike for about 40 minutes and then do about 15 minutes of work with hand held weights.  My arms have muscles I can see, and my backside looks better (if I may say so), too. Besides that, though, I feel stronger. I feel strong. I remember it was probably a couple of years ago and I was hiking with a friend, and going down a hill and I felt almost like I was going to fall.  It's hard to describe.  Nothing was hurt or wrong, I was just so out of shape that hiking felt like a lot of work. This is better.

Back to Florida. I was able to use miles to purchase the trip down there, and then paid for the trip home.  I was able to get direct flights, too, and I'll bring my stuff in a carry-on, so it should be pretty smooth travel, barring weather calamities. We don't see each other enough, my family and I, seeing as we're scattered across the country.  There's nothing much to be done about it, especially with my brothers and their wives.  The all have good jobs in their chosen fields and have established themselves where they live. I'll have to be content with vacations.

It's Done!

 Here's my Liesl sweater.  I had to redo one arm, so it took me a little longer than I thought it would.  But I like it!!  It fits well, and I like the way it looks.

Here it is after blocking.  I wasn't sure if it would be long enough, but it's fine.  The lace really stretched quite a bit.  Yea!  This is my next project:  Cadence.  I'm casting on with smaller needles than it calls for, so the neck isn't so big, and so far so good, but I'm only a few rows in :-)

What you really really want

Feeling better this morning about the job thing.  I had a good talk with my supervisor yesterday and we got caught up on the things projects I've been working on.  It's a good situation, where I go and do my thing and he is very hands-off. He said there will be layoffs, and that I "should be OK".  As these things go, I'll have to assume some duties of people who get laid off, so it looks like learning something about mosquito morphology is in my future.  I haven't had to learn because there's always others around to ID the bugs that way and my thing is to get their story through their DNA.  But I'll look at them in the microscope, and learn the terminology. 

This means of course, that some people are going to lose their jobs, and I can't help but feel bad for them and a little guilty that I got to stay.  Having a couple of weeks of uncertainty and "what ifs" about the prospect of losing my job tweaked me out enough to know these folks are in for a jolt. 

The flowers above are two African Violets that have decided they really like the north-facing window and I've gotten a winter time flower fix from having them around. The one on the right languished in its pot, crowded with offshoots.  I took those out and replanted them in separate pots, and this one, with a little more legroom now, has gone bonkers. 

But back to the job thing.  I pitched my idea of taking a 30% pay cut in order to go back to school and this was met with, "well, I don't know how we'd do that, and either you're here to do the work, or I can find someone else".  Not in a bad way, but my boss wants a full time person to do the work, and I respect that.  However.  The prospect of doing this other thing, the instructional design thing, is still appealing and I'm wondering if I could still pull it off. 

Hence the title of this post. Next year will likely find me in the same position, wondering if I'll be renewed.  There's also no room for advancement in my job. Even if I became and FTE, I'd still be a tech.  Most of me is OK with that, seeing that if affords me to do what I want in my off time.  But there's a nagging bit of me that wants to know how I can be satisfied with just doing that.  I could take these online courses on my own time and get the certificate while I'm working full time. I imagine most, if not all of the people doing the certificate are simultaneously working, so it's possible. I'm daunted by the fact that it's a 6 credit course per semester, which by my recollection is a full load by graduate school standards. So, I'm ruminating on this still and relieved that it looks like my job looks like it is safe for another year. 

A Little Edgy

The rumor mill continues to churn at work, and it's starting to make me a little edgy.  Nothing has actually been decided, however, and I'm going to pitch my idea of reducing hours to my boss today.  Depending on my mood and how much I let the possibilities swirl around, I can see the potential to get myself pretty worried about this.

I'll need to find out for sure if I'd qualify for unemployment benefits, because it's a contract position.  I also have to find out whether I could, if I can't stay on at the CDC, go to school while on unemployment.  This strikes me as such a no-brainer, although I don't know if it is the case.  A person who loses their job should be able to have the unemployment benefits for, I don't know a year? in order to get retrained for the next thing.  It seems like such a good investment to me.  I'll take on the burden of paying for the school, just let me have something to live on and don't make it hard for me to get health insurance, OK?

But I'll have to find out all this stuff.  The logical part of my brain gently reminds me that I don't have enough information yet. 

I thought that I'd start having trouble sleeping about all this, but I am frankly amazed how exercising three times a week makes it easy to fall (and stay) asleep. I was thinking about work stuff last night before I went to sleep and thought I'd be restless, but clunked out and slept well.  I'm a little embarrassed to say that I haven't stuck with an exercise program for this long (4 months and counting) before. I haven't lost much weight here, but damn, I feel good. It does help my outlook, and that is reinforcement to keep doing it. And I can see changes in my arms and legs that make me feel like I've got something to show for my work too.

Plan B

If you've been following the news at all lately, it seems clear that federal spending faces steep cuts.  I'm not here to go into where those cuts should or should not come from, but it looks like my particular agency is going to face some significant cuts.  I've talked with my supervisor briefly about it, and he just doesn't know anything yet. 

Lots of questions and uncertainty.  A coworker and friend has already gone on an interview in another state for a job.  I am ambivalent about what to me seems like it might be a little too proactive, since we don't know anything about our jobs yet.  However, if you had the means and chutzpah to pick up and move to a job that you wanted, was pretty secure, and paid well, would it make sense to do it?

Unless things got really bad, I'm not looking to pull up stakes and relocate anywhere if I lose my job.  But here's the thing.  I've been taking stock of my skills and it's going to be difficult to get another job like mine.  It's not like I don't have any skills, but I don't think they are all that marketable right now, and employers may not be willing to pay for the fact that I have a Ph.D., when most of what I do can be done by trained monkeys experienced BS or MS degree holders. I can write the scientific papers reasonable well, though, and yesterday I was able to give a new postdoc good advice on doing a project similar to mine, but on ticks. I know, I know, but ticks, mosquitoes and fleas is what we are all about where I work.

So I've been thinking about the Plan.  The Plan B, in case I lose my job and I don't get either of the teaching jobs I applied for, and don't want to languish on unemployment while I get less and less employable.  It calms me a lot to think about what I would do, as it's still just me, and the marrying rich thing hasn't panned out (yet!).

I'm still interested in education, with the overall big-picture goal of promoting scientific literacy as a way to make rational decisions in people's daily lives.  I'm not able to make it financially as a high school teacher, and the full college professor thing would consume my life and force me to relocate, and the community college thing is promising, but may or may not pan out either, and doesn't pay all that great.  What to do?  Learn how to help students learn better and teachers teach better.  There is a certificate program that is all online from the University of Colorado in Denver that is called "Designing e-Learning Environments".  It takes a year, and is 15 graduate credits (which I would have to of course pay for), after which I'd have the certificate and could try to get a job off of that.  The certificate also represents the first year of a two year MA program in "eLearning Design and Implementation", so there's some flexibility.

In my perfect world, I'd get renewed for another year at work, take a 25% pay cut, which would be tight, but I could still live off of, and take a year to get this certificate, which would give me a portfolio that I could show to prospective employers.  I could potentially work from home after that, which would rock, and I'd have good skills that were marketable to a variety of jobs.

This is all still inside my head and on this page, but doing so helps me feel like a Plan is in the works.

Mish mash

 

This is the lake next to the building I where I work.  My little slice of cubeville is on the 4th floor, so there is always a fabulous view. I don't mean to be snarky about being in cubeville, either. At one point, when they were moving our lab to this building, there was talk of our offices remaining in the old building, which would have been a huge pain. So I don't mind doubling up in an office cube meant to be for one person. Anyway, we had a spell of really cold weather at the beginning of the week, and as it warmed up again, into the 40's and 50's, the ice on the lake developed these fissures that now look like someone rode a snowmobile across the lake or something. It's been really cool to see how this water changes, sometimes daily, as bodies of water (even man-made like this one) are kind of rare here.

Today is a kind of gloomy Saturday, but it's warm. There's hardly any snow on the ground, either. I've got a mish mash of things to get done, and Mr W's birthday party is tonight. I need to pick up the food, and shuttle boys to and from Chuck E Cheeses. Indeed, this reminds me I'll need to vacuum out my car before hauling children.  That dog of mine is a one-dog mess generator. There will be a sleepover at Mr W's dad's house, with nerf battles and the like. The x's girlfriend's son, who is 7, is attending as well, and it has been interesting to hear second hand how these two little souls are getting along, after being thrust together. Sort of like instant step-siblings, although not formally. The dynamics are the same, with Mr W kvetching that the other kid hovers, whines, turns the TV channel too much, that kind of thing. And to think that one of my major hopes was to hook up with someone with kids so Mr W would have the chance to develop sibling relationships. I think overall it's good, but there are also times when he's quite happy to be an only child.

I am planning on going to the Denver Art Museum tomorrow.  They are having a free day today, so I'm happily going to go tomorrow and pay the entrance fee to avoid the crowds. Mr W and I went to the Denver Zoo last fall for a free day and it was, well, it was a zoo. Too many people to really enjoy the place, and I can't imagine enjoying an art museum that way. Last night was our First Friday gallery walk downtown, when many of the shops are open late, to search for a birthday present for Mr W.  My plan was to then go over to a nice little restaurant/bar/music venue and get some dinner and perhaps stay for the show, which started at 8:30.  

I really want to be able to do this sort of thing, but I didn't stay for the show. It was bluegrass, which I love to watch, but I'm just not crazy about watching that stuff by myself. I suppose you could argue I wouldn't be by myself, and I watched plenty of singletons walk in to see the show. I feel conspicuous, although I know I'm not. But, I did resist the urge to just change into my PJs after coming home from the dog park at 6, and settling in for a quiet night of knitting.  That counts for something, right?  

One thing I am doing is to sign up for a tiny bit of volunteering. The church I go to had a volunteer form (how convenient!) last week and I signed up to be in rotation for: ushering, doing laundry from the kitchen, cooking meals for folks coming out of the hospital, and something else that I can't remember. I also signed Mr W and I to help at an event for the Food Bank later this month. I say this stuff not to toot my own horn, but to I guess demonstrate to myself that I am doing something to try to meet new people and contribute something. With the gardening muse calling to me again, I really want to parlay some of that interest into something where I do some volunteering and can meet some people. There's a community garden on the way to work that needs volunteers and I'm going to start there.  

Indeed, the thought of starting to plan next year's raised beds has me rubbing my hands together with delight.  I'm going to try to get more vertical structure going this year, as those book cases aren't all that big, I realized after seeing the real estate that one zucchini plant takes up.

Ramble ramble.  OK, I'll stop this rambly post here and get on with the weekend.  Hope yours is fab.

She's back!

OK, a little late to the party, but I discovered yesterday that one of my favorite blogs is active again.  It's called Bioephemera, and it's got all sorts of Science-Art mix-em-ups.  Yippee!

Some updates and a weather report

The shake up of Mr W's evening routine, wherein I had him start to help prepare his dinner, and join me at the table to eat, has gone well.  As I expected (kids are really so darn adaptable) he fought it hard for three days, complained about it for another three, and then accepted his fate from that point on.  We are talking more, although we've also had a couple of nights where what he really wants to do is to play on the computer, and he has to do all this stuff first, like help fix dinner, eat with me, and do his homework.  I have to say this effects the mood at dinner, and making dinner its own valid thing is something I'll have to continue to work on.  But it feels good to be doing it.

The mouse wars continue.  I have snap-trapped five so far, and found one dead inside an open bag of tootsie rolls.  There's some metaphor in there about excess, but I'm not going there; it was probably an icky way to die.  I cleaned out three drawers in the kitchen.  They must be able to get in behind the cupboards and into these drawers, because the mice obviously felt pretty comfortable in there, especially in the bottom one, which I don't go into very often.  I set a trap in that one, and on the stairs, as there is still at least one around.  It/they are good at licking the peanut butter off the trap without tripping it, so I've added a piece of dog food to entice them.  I'd just like to be done with this task, though.  It's gross.

I mailed off my applications for the teaching positions that I posted about here.  In a stroke of brilliance, I asked some teachers I know to give me feedback on my teaching philosophy, and I'm so glad I asked.  So very glad, because they had good things to say that could only come from people who are currently in the field.  I felt really good about the cover letters especially.  They were only slightly different, as one of the positions was for teaching General Biology, and the other one was for teaching Botany, Genetics and other subjects I'm excited about teaching.  Not that cellular respiration doesn't grab me right there, but plants are so cool, and the world should know, you know?  But I went through and kind of gave a point-by-point as to how I met the qualifications and how I would fulfill the specific responsibilities of the position.  The deadline to submit is Friday, so it's going to be a couple/few weeks yet before I hear anything.  It'd be so cool to have an interview for either position, really.

And the weather!  I know it's been a pretty wintery winter for a lot of the country, and it actually hasn't been so much of one here.  Fall was mild and prolonged, and last weekend it was in the 50's.  But we've got this "Arctic Mass" of cold air sitting on CO right now, and it's, let me check, -6 and projected to go down to an eye-popping -18 tonight.  I didn't used to worry about this kind of thing, but now that I'm a home owner, I do.  The ductwork for my furnace is such that the unused basement room gets heat like any other room in the house.  The vent is in the ceiling, isn't easily closeable, that kind of thing.  And when it's cold like this, I suspect that having that warm air in the basement probably keeps the pipes from freezing on nights like tonight.  The kids have scored another day off from school tomorrow, so I'll be home a half day with Mr W.  His dad had him today, so I didn't have to miss work.  Brrr.