Two weeks!

Wow. I have not been blogging. It's a busy semester and I spend all of my time on Facebook. I'm still here & doing fine. Hope you are all doing well, too!

Three FIVE posts for January

ETA: Wow, I can't even count! October 2008 was also slow.... 

This is my leanest blogging month since October 2006 (I checked). I guess it's a lot of things- Facebook being a BIG reason that I don't feel as compelled to write over here. I am also pretty busy and still feeling like I am "not working up to my potential" (to quote my 8th grade guidance counselor).  I am teaching the BIG freshman science course and I changed textbooks this semester. This doesn't change the content of the course, but the organization is different and I have to update and revise and make new lectures. In fact, that is what I should be doing right now. 

I am trying (at least in my mind) to get my act together in terms of research, too. Since I can't have my RA do much, lots of things are just sitting and waiting for my attention. I did tell her/him that s/he is out for next year, so I am now advertising for a new student. I am stuck advising this student, however, and I am not happy about it. Being in a small program, I didn't see any way that I could really refuse- s/he is here because of my RA, so even though I am dumping him/her from that, I can't exactly pawn her/him off on anyone else. Such a pain- I don't see how s/he will even get through the program. 

Personally, I am feeling pretty good. I haven't kept up with exercising as much as I had hoped, but it's more than I was doing before, so that's an improvement. I am relieved to be in a non-pregnant and no-chance-of-being-pregnant state, too, because I feel free to have a beer or take ibuprofen or whatever without being stressed about it. I can feel things are shifting with H, though. We were in a certain "mode" the past year, while trying and have to get back to how things were before- or at least a new way for us to be. It's a relief for both of us, but I know I am still a little sad (H never says if he is or not). We will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this summer. So much has changed in the past ten years. When we first got together we were under so much external stress and came through it fine. The past year has brought about a lot of internal stress and we have to find a way to work through that. I am not worried about our future, but there are some issues (that have always been there) that have been bothering me the last couple of weeks. I really let him have it about something this morning and I hope he got the message.

It has been a sad week for other reasons, though. A friend's daughter has a miscarriage after trying for more than a year to get pregnant. I feel so terrible for them- I always consoled myself with the notion that I already have a child, so I can't imagine how horrible it would be to lose your first- especially after trying for so long. It's so sad- I hope they are OK. 

Well, I am in a down mood because of this morning, so this may not be an accurate reflection of what is going on in my personal life- so don't worry! Just yesterday, I was telling D that H is my best friend. She thought that was funny, but I told her that it's the best way to be. 

What a great day...

Check THIS out!

Perspective (& non-bullets)

I don't want to say anything specific here, but a blogger friend of mine is having a hellish time right now and I feel absolutely terrible for her. It makes me put my own woes in perspective and realize that I really have nothing to complain about (which I knew anyway). I haven't been depressed all the time- it comes and goes- and I am trying to do something about it by getting plenty of sleep and getting back into regular exercise- which ALWAYS improves my life-outlook. 

We start classes tomorrow and I don't feel ready- another week would have been great, but that's not how the calendar is set up. I have syllabi ready for both classes and know what I am doing tomorrow, but Wednesday is still not prepared. And I have a manuscript review due Thursday. And need to finish some minor revisions of a paper. I just feel like my home office desk is a big mess (because it is) and should probably clear it off today, so that I can feel organized.

We are still progressing with the remodeling stuff, but have hit a snag with... you'll never guess... financing. We don't have enough equity to cover the whole job (which we knew), so we are looking into doing a HUD 207(k) loan. They base your loan amount on the value of the property AFTER the work is done. We have to wait for the contracting bids to come in, then have the appraisal done and see if the math works out. If not, we may do part now and the rest later. The same day we looked into this, we also got the BIG bill from our architect. He had told us an estimated amount for the whole job, but I didn't know we would get one bill that accounted for most of it. And he doesn't take credit cards. Ouch. Between that and knowing that the potential loan requires a down payment, we are feeling quite poor- which is silly given our income. We just don't have thousands of dollars just lying around to cover these things. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Otherwise, 2009 is not great so far, but it's not terrible, either. I spent the first week of the year without my car (the hybrid), because there was a part that needed replacing. They had trouble diagnosing the problem, then needed to order a part AND the tool to replace it. It seems fine now. Then our other car (almost 9 years old, 64,000 miles) needed a new muffler. And anything costing us lots of money right now is not welcome because of the remodeling plans. I'm sure we'll figure it out. 

I haven't written a really thoughtful post in quite a while- I'll have to work on that...