recent developments

Ray took a new job in Rochester, NY and will start in early January once we get final word on when the Army will let him go. He's very excited about being out of the Army and his new job. I am less thrilled about it all, but doing my best to be supportive and positive-not things I would say I am naturally good at.

Ray and I celebrated our first major holiday together this week. We made a fantastic pecan pie, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy and green bean casserole. On the advice of my dear friend Ruth, who is skillful in many many areas and unexpectedly has turned out to be a fantastic makers of Thanksgiving foods, I made cranberry butter. Wow, that is a new family favorite! Our turkey and stuffing were good, but need some work.

All this talk about food brings reminds me of something else, my overeating. I actually cannot believe I am writing a blog about this since I have read several other blogs about eating habits and roll my eyes back and groan since there are some people out there who care much more deeply about this topic than others and feel the need to describe in detail their latest "eating healthy" plan with the world. I'll spare you all the details of what I am eating, how I feel about my overeating and my plan for how to stop it (since I actually do not have one just yet). I simply will say that I am committed to putting a stop to it so that I can wear non-yoga pants one day soon. Also to the inventor of hidden expandable waistband pants I send a message--Bless you friend! They are truly a wonder of the world.

I wish you all much luck with your overeating this holiday season. I know I need a lot of luck and maybe a mild stomach bug to help deter me from partaking in it this time of year.

Interviewing

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for us. Ray did an intensive first round of interviews last Monday and Tuesday with 10 companies. The interview prep started on Friday with Saturday and Sunday full of company briefings and one-on-one preparations with the folks from the recruiting firm followed by staying up half the night researching the companies and practicing in the room. I was exhausted and more stressed than I have been in a long time so one can only imagine how Ray was holding up. Ray is used to doing horrible, exhausting things for long periods of time without complaint, but I am not thus I just complain about it. In all truthfulness that was one of the very worst weekends of my life. Ray looked absolutely adorable in his fancy business suits and he wowed many a company in spite of his exhaustion and nervousness. Skippy and I are very proud of him, but not surprised since we already know how great Ray is.

It seems to have been worth it since Ray is currently in Rochester, NY at a follow-up interview with his top choice and has another follow-up interview in NYC with his third choice on Thursday. This kind of thing really ought to teach me to stop complaining.

Walburg

I went to the German bar/restaurant in Walburg on Friday night for my dear friend Annie's birthday. It was a lovely crisp fall evening. We ate, we drank, we listened to German music and watched, but did not participate in dancing.

It was a great, great night, which has got me thinking about the last time I went to Walburg. On this visit, there was mercifully no drunkenness, no pole dancing and I did not have to prevent a member of my party from continually making out with and coming dangerously close to going home with a member of the band. One might think that I'm acting like and old lady by saying this since this sounds like a great night out in college, right? I'd absolutely agree since I did actually have my fair share of fun in college and see no problem with that and have been know to even instigate it. The difference here is that the member of my party referenced above was and is married. What makes it even more offensive is that she constantly gushes about how blissfully happily married she is ad nauseam and had a toddler at the time. No good folks, no good.

I've spent many a year trying to get my life together and have a long way to go. One of my latest goals has been to be work on being less judgmental. "The Walburg Event", as I like to call it, was not enough to get me to distance myself from that woman. Crazy, I know. There were actually three such incidents over the span of just shy of a year and that still was not enough to convince me that this person was toxic. I in the last month finally came to this conclusion. I took the do not judge people goal to an extreme. Thankfully I finally made a decision to cut out this person and a few other toxic people from my life. I myself and some non-optional people in my life have the ability to add toxins a plenty to my life that I don't need any additional help. This is my second cleanse of toxic people in the last several years and I have to say that even though I was slow to see the need to do it, I am happy I did. Next time let's hope it does not take me so damn long to get to this point. My sweet Raymond was fighting the global war on terror at the time so I was kind of a wreck- this might help explain a bit.

weekend accomplishments

My sister ran a marathon this weekend. I truly cannot ever imagine doing something like this myself. Did I mention she works full time and raises two children almost by herself? What did I do this weekend? Not a whole hell of a lot, especially not when you must compare it to something like that.

Last night during my writing group, I found myself detailing the ways that I am currently not doing a good job of self care. Regular exercise is part of what I am not doing (I also spend most of my day seated at a computer ruining my eyes and hands; drink way too much coffee, beer and wine; eat junk food; do not get enough sleep; shower and wash my clothes with a shocking amount of irregularity; often am too exhausted to wash my face at night; and only floss an average of once a week, among many other poor health choices). It is easy to see I have a lot of room for improvement and pretty much the only way to go it up from here. While I ponder getting my act together, I am not sure however, that training for and running a marathon is good self care either. It is an accomplishment for sure, but the cost-benefit analysis makes the overall goodness of this in realation to self care less clear.

In any case, one ought to have respect for things one knows for certain she can never accomplish like running a marathon, driving a city bus, doing a pull up, singing without causing those around to have a pained expression on their faces, being the leader of a religious sect, etc. Well done, Kelsey, well done!

STOP

I'm not sure why it is that people that I would generally consider my friends and with whom I used to spend time without any hidden agenda, now seem to only invite me to spend time with them if they stand to profit from it. I honestly do not like being invited to "parties" of any kind under the veil of friendship when the real purpose is not really to spend time with me (this is just a side benefit at best or just savvy business practice at worst). The objective of such and invitation rather is for me to come, invite any and all of my other friends too, so that we can buy something. In the past, I have felt pressured to go and to buy just one little thing (that ends up costing much more than a comparable item in a shop) so I can leave without feeling guilty. Truthfully, I am done feeling obligated and guilty. I do support women making a career from themselves. I support women in general as a hard core third waver and feminist scholar. However, I am finished with this mixing of objectives. I don't invite people over to my house saying it's a party and then show them all my writing and then try to convince them to subscribe to the journals where I publish or to buy a book in which I have written a chapter.

This all may be a consequence of me being middle-aged and living in the burbs surrounded by a lot of stay-at-home moms. Or perhaps, this is a consequence of our capitalist patriarchal society and its power to convince people that unless you make money you are not worth much. Hard to say when I've only had one cup of coffee. The moral of this post is-if you really don't want to see my shining face and chat with me at your party, but hope that I will buy something and convince all my friends to follow suit, please do not invite me over.

ahh

Sometimes life is good to me. My husband is seriously the sweetest thing. I started back to classes last week and he had my dinner ready for me when I got home last. He said at the table that his new favorite sound is the sound of the garage door opening because it means I'm home. He's so adorable and I'm not really sure how I got so lucky.

The other good news is that I actually have a committee. AND it's full of famous fancy pants people just the way it should be. The amount of name dropping I had to do to get these uber famous people on my committee is rather absurd, but then again so has been much of my academic career. I can take exams this fall as well. It looks like all my permissions to collect data are approved so next week let the data collection begin.

I hope that by posting this I have not caused in irrecoverable change in my good fortune.

now what?

I am living life husband free for a week. My sweet Raymond is off to CO for work for a week and Skippy and I are actually not sure what to do with ourselves. I have already cleaned up the mini-fridge in the garage and set up a beer fridge. This required moving a few things around since our garage is quite full of stuff (important tolls and lots of junk too), but was well worth the effort. I'm drinking one of the beers that didn't make the move to the new beer fridge as a reward for my hard work.

I am enjoying my summer vacation and am trying hard to not to think about how crazy things will be in August. I will be collecting data, studying for and passing qualifying exams and writing up my proposal. My sweet husband will be getting out of the Army (might have to rename my blog, huh?), searching for a new job and most likely moving. For today, all I need to do is feed my dog and grill some delicious herb butter filled sirloin burgers on the grill. See why it's so easy to ignore the fact that August right around the corner?