thanksgiving

I'm in St. Louis right now, visiting with the family for Thankgiving. I feel so lucky to be able to be home. I know, I know, "lucky" isn't a feeling. I left on Tuesday and drove Boulder to Lawrence, KS. I made really good time, only exiting the highway 10 minutes in Colby, KS for gas, and another 10 minutes in Salina for a peebreak. Total trip time, 8.25 hours. I stayed in Lawrence at a friend of a friend's house and drove with Steve (the friend of a friend) to St. Louis on Wednesday.

The first day back was challenging, but things have been really great the last few days. It has been so nice to see my parents, my grandparents, and my sibs. The last 2 nights I've stayed up WAY too late in snuggle puddles with my sibs watching dvds.

I ate WAY too much at the Thanksgiving dinner, but well, that doesn't seem too surprising. My contribution to the meal was an ugly, but tasty apple pie.

Yesterday, we went to my grandma Betty's gravesite for her headstone unveiling. I can't believe she's been gone 11 months.

Over the last 2 days, I taught my sister Courtney how to knit, and realized how far I've progressed on the knitting learning curve since I learned how in February. I see how she's getting stuck and struggling, and I remember why it took me months and months to complete my first scarf. Hats are SO much easier. I just started making a new scarf with a fancypants cable pattern with two cables on one side, three cables on the other with a seed stich border. This is by far the most complex thing I've ever attempted. There is a pattern that is 12-rows long before it repeats. I think this one might take a while. I'm making it from some gorgeous oatmeal colored wool, Cascade Yarns EcoWool #9008 .

So the drama story in brief: My house is currently being "rented". I put that in quotes because the people who are currently living in my house signed a contract and moved in over a month ago, but haven't actually paid anything. Yes, their security deposit check bounced, their October rent check bounced, and they didn't even bother writing a check for November rent. I'm working with my property management company to get them evicted, but it won't even go to court for another week.
sigh...

Another highlight was breakfast with Doug and Susie! Yay for seeing good friends! :)

Tomorrow I drive back from St. Louis to Boulder, approx. 13 hours and 870 miles.

excel geeks r us

This has been a crazy, emotional, interesting week. I don't want to go on and on about work, but well, there was some stuff going on there this week.

Monday I went up to the Longmont house to sell a piece of farm equipment. It was weird being on my property and not being able to go into the house (it is being rented). The new tenants have dogs and chickens and goats and a horse. It was so weird to see animals running around the yard that aren't mine. More letting go!

For my Tuesday story, I need to give some background. Part of my job is to create and maintain the instructional budget for the department. The instructional budgeting process begins about a year in advance of when it is needed. So I (and all the other people in my position at my university) are in the midst of budget creation for 2008-2009. We had heard from Academic Affairs that there would be a new budget creation process this year and that changes were coming. A few weeks ago, we had a presentation of the proposed new budget process. The meeting was helpful to hear about how the current process has been a beast for the folks in AA and they really need to simplify some stuff to make their work more managable. That seemed very reasonable. However, when it came down to actually looking at the proposed spreadsheet formats, there were a bunch of things that just didn't make sense to me...some things would be simplified for the folks in AA, but a lot more work would be put on the plates of the folks in the departments. I had some ideas about what could make things better, and met with the Dean to talk about what could be done. I found out that I know a lot more about Microsoft Excel that she did, and I ended up creating a bunch of new and exciting formulas and pivot tables and other fancy stuff to automatically grab data and put it in the summary format that AA needs. I got to geek out doing excel stuff for a few hours last week, and on Tuesday, she and I presented the new spreadsheets to the group of people who will actually be using the spreadsheets. I was shocked that people actually "ooh"ed and "aah"ed and applauded. I wasn't expecting that. All they have to do is cut and paste their data into the template and add data to one new column, and the template formulas do the rest. I'm pretty proud of myself, and pretty excited that I was able to create a new system/process that will benefit a bunch of people at my workplace by reducing workload. I got people talking about excel, and people are asking me to do some excel training. It was fun to do the excel geek thing, and fun to demonstrate how it works...a nice reminder that I do enjoy teaching. I hope that I do get an opportunity to teach others skills that will be useful to them. Ah, geekitude.

Wednesday was Halloween...one of my favorite nights of the year. YAY!

Thursday, I said goodbye to one of my staff. I'm really sad to see her go. I learned a lot from working with her. I learned a lot about myself and also about how I want to be. She has some amazing qualities that I would like to work on in myself. Sigh.

After work on Thursday, I drove up to my house in Longmont to talk to my un-responsive tenants. I will be very glad when that house is sold!

Yesterday, I went to say farewell to Pokie, her baby Sophi, and Amcharo. Today I said my last goodbye to them. I met up with the people from Kansas who have purchased them at the ranch where Amcharo was boarded. They had already gotten Pokie and Sophi. The hardest part was seeing Dash trying to follow Amcharo as he was being led away. I was glad to meet the Kansans...they seem like good people. They said that anytime I want an update on them or photos, or want to come visit, just to let them know. I feel better about saying goodbye knowing they are going to go someplace where they will be loved.

update on my life

So it has been over a month since I've blogged and so much has gone on. I don't have email access outside of work, so my emailing and blogging have become incredibly irregular.

My divorce papers were filed with the Boulder County courts last Friday. The divorce will be finalized in mid-January, 2008. Michael and I had a really sweet evening together last Friday and then said good bye. He left on Saturday for parts unknown, with his truck and a few possessions that he has chosen to keep. Saying goodbye on Friday night was hard. It was sad. I've been crying a lot lately. I'm sad to say goodbye to someone who has been my friend and my partner for over a decade. And as sad as I am, I know it is the right thing for me. I know it is time for me to continue on my journey without him.

Mixed up in all this, I've started exploring a new relationship. Yes, I know, "what?!" Starting something new as my marriage ends wasn't what I had in mind when I left. And yet, my heart is called.

Things at work have been totally crazy. One of my staff is leaving next week, and we haven't even posted the ad for her job yet due to some complex bureaucratic stuff. So as she's been phasing out, I've been picking up duties that normally wouldn't be part of my daily work.

The house got rented last week, and we've sold several alpacas in the last month. Trying to sell the herd has been another source of work and emotion There has been a lot of phone calls, emails, and paperwork along with lots of crying as my babies are getting sold. Pocahontes was sold to some people in Kansas, but is still here because she was so close to her due date. Pokie delivered a healthy baby girl 2 weeks ago which was great, but she's not my girl and never will be. I've been up to the place where she's boarded twice to see the baby. Amcharo will be going to Kansas, too. Maya is going to be moving to south Denver. We've still got some left, but my kids are now spread out at 5 different ranches.

I've been sick twice in the last month, once out for a week with stomach flu and now I've got some yucky sniffles. I never get sick, so to get hit like this twice in a month is a clear signal that I need to slow down. Last weekend I slept most of the day Saturday and has a pretty mellow Sunday reading and watching the snow (yes, the first snow was Oct. 21!) It was really my first down time in over a month (see last blog). I just bought some yarn to start a new project this weekend, and I hope to have time to hang out with friends.

I seem to be at the edge of a lot lately...on the edge of physical exhaustion, on the edge of emotional exhaustion, and on the edge of severe hermitude. I'm sorry to my friends who keep reaching out and getting silence. I hope this will change in the next few days. I plan to catch up on email and phone calls, as long as my nose and throat let me.

So that is the update on my life, the exciting, painful, interesting stuff that has been going on for the last month. I hope to write more frequently than once a month, but right now, I can't make any promises.

exhausted foodie

So, I'm still in pseudo hermity space, but I'm also living in exhausted land. I've been waking up before the sun and driving to Longmont to care for my critters while Michael is out of town. There's been stuff going on at work that has been an emotional drain, and lots of feelings of guilt and sadness. I've been so tired all the time lately.

Maybe it is my usual early fall mode. This seems familiar, the feeling of needing to nourish myself, recharge. The weather is changing, and it is making my eating out of whack...there is still lots of summery veggies coming every week: peppers, tomatoes, summer squash. And I want to make soups and cassaroles and roast things in the oven. I want bread--heavy crusty garlicy bread. And pasta. And beans. Bean soup with crusy bread and a nice salad. That is what I want.

I made the most fabulous food on monday. I made a "tomato tart": Puff pastry covered in grated parmesan cheese then baked until golden. While the crust is baking, the tomatoes are salted so they can extrude liquid. Once the crust is cooked and cooled, it is covered in shredded mozzarella cheese, then the tomatoes are "shingled" on top, then the tomatoes are brushed with garlic infused olive oil. Then the whole thing is baked. My goodness...this was amazing. It wasn't much work...the hardest part was slicing the roma tomatoes, and not eating the crust once it came out of the oven...flaky pastry covered in nutty, golden parmesan?! Heavenly.

I also made mac & cheese...2 kinds of mac & cheese. and this isn't from-a-box stuff, but the real deal. Make the sauce yourself mac & cheese. Which really, isn't hard. 1.5 Tablespoons butter and 1.5 Tablespoons flour in a pan heated up together on med-low heat until the butter is melted and done foaming. Mix well with a wisk or fork. Then add 1 cup milk while mixing. Let the milk start to get bubbly, but not boiling (you don't want the sauce to break). Once it is bubbly and thickened add in 1 cup (or more) shredded cheese. I love to use Tilamook cheddar or Tilamook pepper jack. The pepper jack mac & cheese is so amazing.

And salad is so lovely this time of year...the weather is cool so lettuce is back. And kale! And chard! and soon the beets will be out too. And the butternut squash. I can't wait to make butternut squash risotto again...yum!

Yesterday I had a snack at a lovely restaurant downtown. I had TOASTED RAVIOLI! For those of you not from the midwest, toasted ravioli is the best. Sadly, it is almost always meat-filled. So since I've gone meatless and have traveled back to the motherland, I've been unable to eat this age-old favorite. But I found wonderful ricotta toasted ravioli in downtown Boulder. Now, this is a pretty fancy, expensive version of toasted ravioli, but it was vegetarian. And for a once-in-a-while satisfaction of a food craving, well worth the price ($3 for two large pieces at happy hour).

Ooh, and last weekend, I made grape jelly. Yes I did. I made jelly! From concord grapes that came from the longmont garden. JELLY! me, I did it. I just need to make some biscuits now to eat my jelly with. mmm, biscuits and jelly. If I wasn't meatless, I'd be throwing some fried bologna on those jelly biscuits. Sigh.

Wow, I've been wiped out, and apparantly starving. I had no idea. See, I knew I needed to write. I think so much better when I'm writing. I'm back in touch with my foodie domestic diva inner goddess. And time to start knitting. Winter's a comin'!

hermitude

I find myself going into that dark, musty place of hermitude. The place that is cozy and warm and alone. Not lonely, but alone. I need some recharge time, some loving myself time, some making soap and baking and cooking and cleaning up and organizing my stuff time.

I've been doing a lot with and for others the last two weeks, but I haven't had much alone time. So I've been hiding in longmont for a bunch of hours today. Hiding in a house that is still sort of mine, peeking at my animals from the window. Wanting to love on them, but not wanting to be around anyone.

I'm full of shoulds today. I should be doing all sorts of things. I have lists and lists of things that I should do. Lists and lists of things that I should be. Lists and list of things that I should feel. I'm tired of the shoulds. Tired of the guilt that goes along with the shoulds.

So I'm not going to be a good friend today. I'm not going to be a good companion or sibling or roommate. I'm not going to be a good (insert any of the other labels that I have here). I'm going to be a hermit and hide and bake and maybe make soap and pet a cat and pay some bills and maybe make a face mask or maybe none of those things. If I don't answer you today, it's just because I'm being hermity.

busy busy two weeks

The last 2 weeks have been busy busy busy. We had orientation week Aug 20-24, then I was at Shambhala Mountain Center for our orientation weekend Aug 24-26, then I came back on the 26th and helped out on the farm because Michael was irrigating. Then the First week of School happened.

This first week was SO busy! I think part of it was not having any workstudy help, part of it was having one of my staff out on the east coast for a family emergency, and part of it was just the crazy busy wonderfulness of the first week.

I am so happy to have everyone back! I love the crazy start of the school year, the running around, the reliability of the breakdown of the photocopier, the energy of everyone coming back refreshed and re-inspired. I'm hoping to sleep a lot this weekend...it hasn't happened yet, but I'm hoping it will :)

I was able to only work a half-day on friday and then spend part of the afternoon cleaning my friend Kash's apartment. For those of you who know and love him, and those of you who don't, please keep him and his family in your thoughts. John and I have Kash's companion, Mystic Magic Ninja Kitty Princess at our place for a while. She's so wonderful and cuddly!

I haven't written in 2 weeks, and I'm feeling like I'm just dumping, but there will be more, better stories soon.

Other news...I had a little accident with my phone, and now my phone is dead, dead, dead. I'm using a temporary phone while waiting for a new one to arrive in the mail in the next week.

Along with my phone being dead, all the numbers that were stored in my phone are gone. really really gone.

So I need your number! call me, email me, text me...I have a few numbers in my head, but for many of my friends...I don't know how to reach you!

almost there...

My friend Bryan came in from Alabama to visit and I took off part of Weds-Fri this week to be with him. It was wonderful to see him and spend time with him. I was sad to see him leave today.

However, Monday is the start of Orientation Week, so I have/had lots to do, and today was the day to do it. I am so So SO excited to meet the new students! I'm such a junkie.

Since I missed out on a bunch of work this week, I came in today. so I'm getting ready to leave work, and since my wireless has been spotty I'm writing from my office. Yes, it is 8:20 on a Sunday night. I've been here since 2pm.

The last thing I did before ending my "work" for the day was to clean up my office. I found a folder marked "to be filed" and looked through it. In there I found a sign up sheet "1st Year Student Check In with Jennie and John" with the names of the group that graduated in May. I started crying. I'm getting misty all over again. I can't believe 3 years has gone by so fast. I can't believe this is my 4th fall in my job. So much has changed and so much has stayed the same. It is time to go home and eat dinner and make a candle from the pieces of wax filled with the intentions of the Class of 2007. It is time to let them go and let myself open to a new year.