For better or worse, I resigned on Monday.

It may not be effective til the end of May, but this is the first major step completed.

No one has yelled at me or cried. Those who dislike me have been polite and considerate. And most importantly, my friends still love me. As someone who tends to loose all friendships when embarking upon life-altering changes, I cannot describe to you how much this terrified me.

I still worry about things falling apart after I’m gone but realize that I have to let it go (despite what the deep-seated, gnawing fear in my tummy tells me). However, I’m such an all or nothing person that I will never persue my dreams if I don’t get out of this office.

So, what now? It would be lying if I said I had no clue. I have so many ideas that it’s becoming a struggle to narrow it down to just a few to start with. I see some serious housecleaning  (both physical and mental) in my near future. I also think some serious redevelopment of old skills are going to be necessary. Eventually, I hope this poor little nonexistent blog will become a part of that.

We’ll see.

So, I took the job from hell and tried valiantly to loose my marbles.  You’d think working two full time jobs (yeah that second one didn’t end up being quite as part time as I’d anticipated) while finishing my master’s degree would do it, but somehow I survived. I did manage to swing a new lappity tappity box and an all expense paid trip to Vancouver, BC. (YAY ME!)

I also graduated. Totally anticlimactic, but I am now a certified geek! (I so need this on a T-shirt).

So, now that grad school isn’t sucking the life out of brain and my wallet, I suppose I need to find something else to keep me occupied. I’ve got a dozen massively big projects in my head for this year and they are scaring the living daylights out of me.

We’ll see what happens.

Happy 2010!

This means that I’m very possibly going to end up driving myself stark, raving, running-down-the-street-with-my undies-on-my-head, looney instead of finishing up school like a good girlie so that I can:

• graduate
• stop spending my measly paycheck entirely on tuition
• quit my job
• go back to being a fabulously interesting jeweler
• and generally attempt to make our lives more meaningful

Instead, I feel like I’m being sucked back into the hell. Why did I choose information science in the first place when I know that sitting in front of a computer all day will eventually kill me? There are so many answers to that question.

Todd’s responses normally run along the lines of

• comforting: you’re good at it dear
• practical: we’re in a recession, do one to afford the other
• scary but true: we could walk onto any campus and be the psycho, administrative power couple (i.e., we’re both artists and intelligent troublemakers)

The reality is, I had to come up with a Plan B once I realized there was no way in Hades that I could make a living as an artisan jeweler while living 2 hours from what is essentially slave labor. Starting a business with no immediate cash and in the middle of a recession probably isn’t my smartest idea. Finally, there are times when information science, particularly the control and dissemination of information in society, really does fascinate me. (This said after I can no longer read the text on the computer screen because my eyes refuse to focus.)

Anyway, I decided to splurge on these.

Believe it or not, Max was even nice about it this time. He sat there for an hour watching my card. Poor guy must have missed me last weekend.

Todd and I flew up from Corpus rather than attempting to drive it. Naturally, after I’d bought the tickets (totally non-refundable) Todd informed me that he had jury duty the same day that we were scheduled to leave. I should mention that this is the sort of jury duty that if you don’t show up, federal marshals hunt you down and drag you to the court house in handcuffs just so that they can make a quorum. So, realizing this, we spent a month scheming/trying to figure out how I could kidnap him from the courthouse and hide out until our flight left. Thankfully, it was a slow day and they let him out early-no scheming necessary. We were off on our merry way!

At the airport was saw another example of how Steve Jobs is slowly taking over the world.

It’s an Ipod vending machine. I’m sure people thought we were a tad nutty for taking pictures of it. What can I saw, we’re Mac-happy people. It’s probably the only form of absolute brand-loyalty exhibited in our household. (Warning: never-ever ask Todd what he thinks about PC’s…it’s not pretty.)

So, we flew to Denver and stayed the night in a rather nice hotel room with a rather awful bed. Got up at the crack of dawn and drove to where we were staying in Estes Park. The Stanley was a nifty old Edwardian hotel, although we didn’t actually stay in the main building. They’ve recently built a bunch of lodges behind the main hotel and we rented one of those. I’m not sure I dug the rustic moose-inspired decor (why moose? the place is surrounded by elk), but I did like having a full kitchen.

We did have to be very careful driving through the parking lot though. Apparently, a big front was coming in and driving all the elk down from the high country-directly into the parking lot of the hotel. I kid you not, a bull elk and maybe 20 to 30 of his nearest and dearest lived outside our hotel room for the duration of the trip. They have the weirdest scream (though Dad protested this term, it still sounds too high-pitched to be called a bellow or call).

The first day we ran around finding things, the hotel, the fly shop, etc. Then we drove through the national park. We definitely weren’t in South Texas anymore. It was beautiful-even the pictures can’t show it all.

The next day we went fishing. My dad’s really loves fly fishing, so he normally tries to fit in a day (or more) whenever he comes home. So we hired a guide to take us out one day. This was my first attempt at fly fishing, so I really wasn’t expecting much more than to freeze my toushe off. I was kinda excited to try though.

Unfortunately, I think I was branded as “one of those” kind of women the instant I walked in the shop. I don’t think I had a chance once they asked what sort of sandwich I wanted for lunch. (big sigh) Enter the long explanation about what it means to be gluten and casein intolerant. Unfortunately, since lunch was included in the fee they kinda seemed insistent about offering it and finding a suitable option for me. Could I have a ham and cheese,oh wait…that has cheese…and bread.What about a tortilla wrap? No, the tortilla is wheat too. Then the kiss of death, they offered just the lunch meat…and so I had to explain to a group of outdoorsmen who like fishing and hunting that I’m a vegetarian. I should be used to that look by now, you know…the one that says I’m the biggest freak on the planet. Oh well. I told them not to worry because I’d already packed my own lunch ahead of time. Problem solved.

So, I spent half the trip trying very hard not to be “that sort of problem female” because I really do like outdoorsy stuff like hiking, camping, fishing, biking, scuba, etc. and I really wanted to learn fly fishing. This can be a hard thing to do if the instructor/guide thinks you’re a worthless human, besides I learned when I was small that staying on the guide’s good-side meant you saw more (like the bear tracks..so cool!). In truth, I probably tried too hard. Knee high water for your standard guy, meant hip high water for little me. At one point I got so cold that I stopped shivering and couldn’t feel my toes any more. The guide dragged me out and wouldn’t let me go back in until I had toes again. In the end, I think I did better than I thought I would.

I’m glad it wasn’t a competition, because 5 minutes later Todd caught a monster. (You’ve got to love that goofey grin.)

The guide was so excited he kissed the fish. What can I say, he was excited. Apparently this was the fish that got away…several times. When removing Todd’s hook, they also removed several others.

The next day we decided it was too cold to fish, and went shopping instead. We saw so many beautiful things in the shops, I only wish I had remembered to take a camera. Todd did manage to snag a picture of these glass jelly fish. I couldn’t convince myself to part with the cash. (big sigh)

The morning we left it snowed as we drove down the mountain. So perfect!

Image from Weather Underground

  ]]> http://crtexas.biz/one-eyedraven.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=76 http://crtexas.biz/one-eyedraven.com/blog/?p=62 http://crtexas.biz/one-eyedraven.com/blog/?p=62#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:55:14 +0000 cadi http://crtexas.biz/one-eyedraven.com/blog/?p=62 Last Christmas, Santa was kinda enough to give me a really awesome new sewing machine. Although realistically, I probably didn’t need it (common I already had 4 others, even though they’re all hand-me-downs from Todd’s grandmas) and it would have never occurred to me to ask for it, apparently Santa felt I needed to resume sewing as a creative outlet.

I love this machine.

So naturally, it’s done nothing all year but collect dust while I’ve randomly collected fabric with no real project in mind. Last weekend I decided I needed a new skirt.

• Pattern: My own (I began with a standard a-line skirt pattern from McCall’s, and quickly deviated because I can’t follow a pattern to save my life)
• Fabric: Roughly 3/4 yard of batik fabric scored as a remnant, 2 king-size pillowcases with embroidery

I love this skirt. I realize repurposing pillow cases might seem a bit odd, but in truth, I’m lazy. I love embroidery, but didn’t want to spend days on this project. Embroidered pillowcases are much easier (and so much cheaper when on clearance for $5) for me to find than a pretty scalloped fabric or some sort of embroidered border.

There’s also another added benefit. You know how good it feels to get into bed with really nice high thread count sheets-especially in summer when it’s really hot and the cold cotton feels so good? Yeah, now imagine living 2 hours north of the Mexican border, complete with 110 degree weather and 80% humidity. Tell me that taking that super, nice, cold cotton feeling with you all day doesn’t sound good.

Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

My puppy-bear is at the vet today having work done. I’m not sure I’ll be happy till she home again tonight.

To keep my mind occupied, I’m in the planning stages of a new sweater. Ever since the Kauni madness hit last year (do a search for Kauni on Flicker and see what I mean), I knew I’d have to make one. I just had a few issues to overcome:

• A complete lack of experience in stranded knitting
• Fear that this beautiful wool that cost me so much to ship from the Netherlands would be horrifically scratchy
• Fear of ruining said expensive beautiful wool by cutting for steeks
• Complete boredom with the pattern

So far, all obsticles have been over come with this swatch.

I sure hope she right.

]]> http://crtexas.biz/one-eyedraven.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=34