Tent camping experiment

A couple of years ago I started going camping again, but so far I've always rented a cabin.  A cabin makes for quick and easy get away since these have a kitchen, a bathroom, a real bed and air-conditioning.  You don't have to pack much, just some food and clothes and maybe a camp chair for sitting outside.  But it's not exactly the camping experience of my younger days and I found myself longing for a good old-fashioned tent camping excursion.

I wasn't sure if I could successfully pull off tent camping at my age so I booked a site at a local state park for the weekend.  Home was only 20 minutes away so it was a quick trip back to the house if things didn't work out or I had forgotten something essential.  There was also the possibility that it would be far too hot during the day in July and I might want to retreat to air-conditioning for the afternoon.

I bought a cheap tent for this initial foray since I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a tent that I might only use once.  That cheap tent turned out to be the biggest pain point of the weekend.  I've always had very large tents in the past and wanted to go with something smaller this time so I got a tent that was 7x9.  I was afraid that I would find it too small, but the footprint was not the problem.  Instead, the problem was that I could not stand up straight to get in and out of the tent or stand up to do anything once inside, such as changing clothes.  I have back problems so that made everything about this tent extremely difficult.  I knew I would struggle with the set up and take down, but I did not expect it to be a literal pain beyond that and I would definitely swear off tent camping forever if that were my only tent option.  But there are other tents, so this was not a deal-breaker for tent camping in the future.

My next age related concern was the sleeping on the ground with a sleeping bag/cot/airbed.  I opted for an airbed, which I have never used before while camping, but it seemed like the best choice for my old bones.  The first night I found the airbed to be very comfortable, possibly more comfortable than my bed at home.  I can't say for certain because I had not only set up camp that day, but also had gone on a nature hike and my back was so sore that laying down on just about anything would have felt comfortable at that point.  The second night I felt like I was sleeping on a bowl of jello because the bed was now under-inflated.  It hadn't leaked, but it since it was brand new it had done the usual "stretching" that always happens with airbeds.  This was nothing more than poor planning on my part because if I had remembered that it was going to "stretch" then I could have put more air in it at a reasonable hour instead of discovering this at 2 AM when I went to bed. And I wasn't going to wake up the entire campground with a noisy air pump so I just had to swim around in it for the night.  That said, even an under-inflated airbed was satisfactory and so as long as I remember to bring a rug or some sort of padding for when I roll off the bed in the morning to stand up, I'll be fine. Yes, I have to roll off the bed and then stand up since it's far too low to the ground for me to get out in a normal way.  That's what happens when you are old and have back problems and sleep less than 24 inches off the ground. But it was not a deal-breaker for tent camping in the future.

Another age related concern was having a bathroom located some distance from the campsite.  I wasn't sure how easily I could accomplish those middle of the night bathroom trips.  The whole getting out of bed, putting on shoes, unzipping the tent, re-zipping the tent, then walking the 200 to 2000 feet to a restroom in the dark seemed like it might be a bit much at my age.  Turned out that it wasn't a problem except for the first night when they had to shut the water off because someone drove over the water faucet for their campsite.  The nearest working restroom was a half-hour walk away and that wouldn't have worked out for me in my youth either.  But on the second night, when we did have working restrooms nearby, it was a non-issue.  Still, it never occurred to me that the restrooms might be out of order and I think I may get one of those canister toilets and the little popup tent to house it in for "emergencies."  Therefore, the restrooms were not a deal-breaker for tent camping in the future.

Next, I had concerns about the heat since it's always very hot in Texas in July.  This weekend was a  tad cooler than normal, but it was still in the mid to upper 90s and the heat index was over 100 degrees.  The heat didn't bother me near as much as I expected, but I'm also certain that I can no longer endure a full week or two of tent camping in July.  That wasn't a problem when I was in my thirties or younger, but it's not going to be possible now.  That probably holds true for the cold as well and there will likely be no week-long tent camping happening in January or February either.  So overall, the weather was not a complete deal-breaker for tent camping in the future, it just limits the length of time that I can camp.

To wrap things up, I had a really good time and learned that I am not too old to go tent camping.  I just need to get a better tent!

Bouncing Back

Spring came and went and it's pretty much summer weather now. The band got together again in early May.  We all had a good time and even wrote a new song. I think we were all a bit nervous that we wouldn't find our groove again without Rob and for me, it was a relief when we were able to create something new without him physically present.  Though I'm fairly certain he was there in spirit.

I also decided to unleash my inner geek and build myself a new gaming computer. I haven't had a gaming oriented computer for over 20 years and I haven't build a system from scratch in even longer than that.  I went with a Ryzen 7 2700x processor, 32 GB of DDR4 3200 RAM and a RTX 2080 graphics card.  Motherboard is a ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero and I put it in a Meshify C case with an extra Corsair fan.  I went with some RGB lighting, mostly as a joke, but turns out it's rather pretty and I like it. 

I've left it at work for the last two weeks so I could get some important stuff done. At work, I'm way too busy to spend time on it and I don't want to bring it home until I can be guilt-free about doing nothing but mucking around on my new computer.  This week looks good for that so I'll probably bring it home tomorrow. 

I've also started walking the three mile paved trail at the nearby state park a couple of times a week.  Back 30 years ago, I used to walk this same trail every day after work.  It was closer to my house and workplace than any gym, far cheaper than a gym membership (I got in free) and way more enjoyable than being in a sweaty gym.  These days, it's more of a hobble than a walk and it takes me twice as long to go the same distance, but one thing hasn't changed - it's still closer, cheaper and more enjoyable than going to a gym.  Here's a picture of the trail.

The trail meanders around campsites and while walking it, I realized just how much I miss tent camping.  The cabins I've been going to are rustic enough that you can still call it camping, but it's a completely different experience than staying in a tent.  I have some concerns about being able to still pull off tent camping at my age and disability, but tents have evolved quite a bit over the last 10 years and there are quite a few now that are fairly easy for one person to set up.  So I decided to book a tent site at a state park for a weekend in July, but everything at all the nearby parks was already booked up.  And then I finally managed to find one camp site available.  There was only one in the entire park and when I saw where this one and only site was located, I decided that it was sign from the universe that I should go for it.  

After all, what are the odds that the one and only available campsite would be located right across the street from the restrooms, thereby eliminating my concerns about having to hobble a long way to the restroom in the middle of the night? I'll let you know in July how it went - it should be an interesting experience.

I seem to be bouncing back and I feel like I'm getting my sea legs now in this strange new world of no parents and no husband.  I still miss Rob and my parents and I guess I probably always will, but I don't feel lonely. And I'm not sad, but I'm not exactly happy either.  I think it's too soon for that.  

Time flies...

I don't remember much of February other than it was dark and cold and I worked a lot.  The start of March was still cold, but I was so happy to see the sun rising sooner in the mornings.  Then daylight saving time rolled around and the clock change screwed that all up.  I was out of sorts and grumpy for weeks afterwards and it stayed cold.  It feels like April 1st was just a few days ago instead of ten, but I guess that is what happens when one spends their time working 10-15 hour workdays and working quite a bit on the weekends too. 

Although it sounds like it's been all work and no play, the band has started getting together on occasion to eat, drink, and be merry play music.  We usually kick things off in the late afternoon and then turn off the amplifiers and quiet the drums at 10 PM in the interest of sparing the new neighbor's small children a poor night's sleep.  At that point we switch to doing Karaoke and hilarity ensues since none of us are the slightest bit good at it. 

I also watched quite a bit of TV (Netflix & Amazon Prime) because I was too tired to do anything else after a long workday and thoroughly enjoyed shows I normally never would have watched.  Turns out "fluff" TV is pretty good for letting my brain unwind.   I read books too, on those days when my eyes weren't too tired from staring at a computer screen all day.  I probably read more books in the last three months than what I read in the five years prior.

And this weekend I'm finally taking off a few days and will be spending the time at a cabin in the woods with some friends.  I've got another friend who is going to house-sit for me and take care of my dogs so I'll have a few days where I'm on a REAL vacation! 

Well, break time is over for now so back to work until 9 PM, but after that - VACATION TIME!

Fighting the wintertime blues

January has always been a dreary month for me.  There are too many days that are dark and cold, often combined with rain, mist or fog and I usually get a bit down in the dumps during this time of year no matter what else is going on in my life.  This year I was already feeling depressed after Rob's death and even though I survived the holidays relatively well, the winter blahs have now arrived in full force.  This depression is frustrating, but I also know it is perfectly normal and it will pass over time.  I just have to figure out the best way to muddle through the next few months.  It's not easy for me to find any sort of motivation when I'm depressed, but I have managed to attempt a few things.

My office at work is a dark, windowless cave which is a plus during the hot summer months, but a total drag in the winter.  Right now it's dark when I go to work, dark when I come home and I never see any daylight until the weekend.  That's certainly not helping things so I've decided to work from home one day a week with my desk strategically positioned between two windows that will give me the maximum amount of daylight.  Today is the first day I've tried it and it's a nice change of pace. 

I've spent the last couple of weeks packing up Rob-stuff to go through later.  The packing up part has been difficult and hasn't done much to improve my mood, but looking at it all the time didn't help either.  If I have no immediate use for it, such as beading supplies, or it's something that will probably never bring me joy, like that really ugly skull shaped wooden thing hanging on the wall, then it goes in a box or a closet and I'll make the decision to keep it or get rid of it later when I'm in a better frame of mind.  The house is still 90% Rob, just pared down a little.  

I also got rid of the couches.  He died on one of them and there wasn't any way to keep them and not be constantly reminded of that day.   With that space freed-up, I moved the band equipment from the upstairs bonus room downstairs to the old living room and turned the dining room into my new living room.  We never used it as a dining room since it's by the front door rather than by the kitchen and the dining table just became a place to plop stuff down when you walked in the door.  It's too small of a space for a couch, but a love seat and a few chairs will fit and that's really all I need.  It will be a while before I have saved enough money for new furniture, but in the meantime, I have my camping lounge chairs and camping rocking chair.  They are actually quite comfortable despite looking a bit odd as indoor furniture. 

The junk car in the driveway is gone.  Rob insisted he was going to fix it some day, but he's certainly not ever going to get that done now so I donated it to my local public radio station. 

Cooking and baking are things that I used to really enjoy doing so this weekend I made five different quiches, chopped them up into individual portions, vacuum-sealed them and threw them in the freezer.  

Is any of this helping?  I can't say for sure, but at least it's more productive than just staying in bed under the covers, binge-watching Netflix which about all I really want to do. 

I survived the holidays!

This was a really tough holiday season.  Thanksgiving without mom and dad was hard enough, but without Rob?  The man who loved to cook and thought Thanksgiving was one of the best holidays ever?   Yeah, it was tough.  And then there was Christmas.  A big part of the fun of Christmas for me was finding as much cool stuff as possible for Rob on a limited budget. Skull shot glasses, Grateful Dead ashtrays, cheap novelty knives (one year I found one that looked like a grim reaper riding a motorcycle!), novelty salt and pepper shakers (he collected them) and silly gag gifts, it was so much fun!  I'd spend a whole month searching for these things.  But this year I only had to buy gifts for my remaining family; off-the-shelf toys for the younger grand-nieces/nephews and gift cards for the rest.  What a big yawn and it took me only one day to do all of it.  And when I was done wrapping the gifts, I realized that I had bought wrapping paper that was mostly black, with just a little bit of red and white. That wasn't a conscious decision, but it accurately reflected my mood. 

Overall, I never could get into the holiday spirit and quite frankly, I was pretty much depressed for the most of November and December.  But I did promise to go to my brother's house for the traditional family Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchange, now held there and no longer at my mom's house.  That thought stung a bit, but I forced myself to get out of the house and drive out of town to do it, fearing if I didn't go that I might start a new habit of never celebrating Christmas again. 

My sister-in-law did a great dinner spread and between my niece and nephew and their kids, there was plenty of family there.  Much to my surprise, I had a really good time and you can't beat having an adorable grand-niece fall asleep on your lap when she finally crashed around midnight.  I'm so glad I spent the night there with my remaining family instead of driving back home to an empty house where I'd be sorely missing Rob. 

Once I got home, late in the afternoon on Christmas Day, I proceeded to cook my own version of the perfect Xmas day dinner feast - tamales with chili con queso and my secret recipe for 60's side of the highway mom and pop restaurant where no one speaks English style Mexican rice.

I not only survived, but I came out much happier than when I started.  That is probably the best Christmas present ever. 

On the road again

I was able to drive to work yesterday.  It was very uncomfortable when I tested out my ability to do a "panic stop", but it didn't seem like I was going to be dangerous out there on the road so I went ahead and drove to the office.  It's about a 30 minute drive with several long traffic lights and always one or two panic stops on the way because the drivers here are horrible.  I pulled it off, but 30 minutes is about the most I can do and I'm not good for much walking afterwards.  That pretty much rules out making a grocery store run any time soon. 

Truth be told, even if I had someone else do the driving, there's no way I'd be able to walk the distance it takes to get through one of our huge grocery stores.   I won't starve though.  Only a mile from my house is a small convenience store that also has a meat market and carries fresh produce.  Well, "fresh" might be a misnomer, but it's better than nothing and it's the only option out here in the food desert where I live.  They call it a food desert because the closest grocery store is 10 miles away and about a 45 minute drive.  There's also no public transportation access and the cab fare is about $30 one-way.  Although the convenience store is a bit more expensive on some items, the extra cost is still a lot cheaper than paying $60 to go to and from the big grocery store in a cab.

The convenience store is what's called a "Mexican Market" which means things are not exactly the same as what I might see in my regular grocery store.  I'm not really sure what those cuts of meat are (other than the ground beef) and I'm also not sure what to do with them.  The produce is not your normal selections; nopales (cactus), chayote squash and other odd things.  The cheese selection is also interesting and I have already gotten used to putting Oaxaca cheese on my pizza because they don't carry Mozzarella. 

Now I can cook regular Tex-Mex any day of the week, but if I want any variety I'm going to have to go beyond my usual tacos, tostadas and enchiladas.  I'm hoping the internet can give me some clue on what to do with the unfamiliar cuts of meat.  I already know several recipes for chayote squash since I've been eating that for years. but I've never done anything with nopales.  Who knows, I just might be having cactus for dinner tonight.

A hard lesson

I'm a pretty independent person, not usually willing to let others help me out if I can do it myself.  My friends stepped in after Rob died and I was grief stricken enough to let that happen.  But apparently I didn't learn that lesson well enough so the universe saw fit to orchestrate another demonstration. 

This weekend I was out at Bastrop State Park with my friend Tracy for his birthday.  We were setting up a canopy that needed to be moved over a picnic table and I hopped up on the table to help move it along.  When I stepped off the bench of the table, my right foot landed wrong and it made the most interesting noise; sounded a bit like a Xylophone or a bunch of knuckles cracking.  I wasn't sure if it was a break or a sprain, but either way I couldn't put much weight on it.  No bones were poking out anywhere so I didn't see any point in going to the doctor right then; just threw some ice on it and went on with the party.  Other people joined us, we cooked dinner, I drank a lot of beer which dulled the pain, and had a wonderful time.

The next morning, my foot was no better and now this was a problem.  Not only did it mean that Tracy had to load up both cars all by himself, but I suspected that I might not be able to drive my car.  I gave it a try and was able to get the car up to the park office, but only just barely.  There was no way I could drive in traffic on a busy highway to get home. 

Tracy took me from the park to a minor emergency center in Bastrop where I was hoping they could fix me up enough to drive.  They took some X-rays, determined nothing was broken and it was only torn ligaments, but that I would not be able to drive for at least a few days, and most likely not for a week or two.  They gave me a shot for the pain and big boot to stabilize my foot.  I might not be able to drive, but with the boot I could hobble around without crutches for short distances and for that I was extremely grateful. Tracy took me home and found someone to drive my car back from Bastrop, a friend of his who had never met me and no reason to do that, but was more than willing to help out.  Not only did I have to rely on my friends, but also the kindness of strangers! 

Today I'm working from home.  I've got a co-worker who will give me a ride to work tomorrow.  What happens after that remains to be seen, but I suspect I'm going to have to lean on people for at least a few more days. 

A party for Rob

Rob didn't want a memorial or a funeral.  Instead, he wanted me to throw a big party like the ones we used to do at our house back in the 90's.  I chose Saturday, October 20th as the date, hoping by that time I could actually celebrate his life instead of crying the whole time.  There were a lot of preparations to be made and out of town guests to accommodate so I was quite busy in the weeks leading up to the event.  I decided to hold it at my mom's house since it has a large backyard. Tracy did all of the work to get that house ready for the party, even using his vacation time to do it!  We rounded up an assortment of tables and chairs.  There weren't enough chairs so I went out and bought some more. There weren't enough beds for the overnight guests so I went out and bought some airbeds (and had to wait over an hour at WalMart just to get someone to unlock the cabinet that held them!)  It had been raining for two weeks and was expected to rain the day of the party as well so I went out and bought some popup canopies (it didn't rain.)  We hauled PA equipment over there to provide the Rob requested music, both recorded and live.  Guests flew in and were picked up at the airport.  Then on Saturday morning a crew of friends descended on the party house to start cooking the food and setting things up in the backyard.  They did a fantastic job and I'm so grateful because there was no way I could have pulled this off by myself.

The party was everything that a Rob party should be, from the people to the food to the music.  I only cried twice, first when Bill brought in a beautiful memorial display and second when Matt Amos played the song that Rob always sang at our friends' memorials, Ain't no Grave.  I had planned to get  drunk, but ended up spending so much time talking with people that I didn't even get a buzz that night.  On the other hand, some of Rob's friends did get extremely drunk and although that might sound like a bad thing, it was just perfect.  Because it's not a Rob party unless one or two of the guests have had way too much to drink and have to be carried off to a bed or couch to sleep it off until morning. 

It was a fitting tribute to my husband and I was surprised that it provided me with quite a bit of relief. I didn't feel any sort of closure or relief from the funerals for my mom and dad.  Those events just seemed to deepen my grief.  This did not and I don't know if it was because more time had passed between death and event or if it was because this was truly a celebration and not some dingy, dirge of a funeral.  Either way, my recommendation from now on to anyone who loses a spouse is to wait at least a month, and then throw one hell of party. 

Fall weather

Weather forecast for the Austin area issued 410 PM CDT Mon Oct 15 2018:

• Short term (tonight through Tuesday night)...
• much cooler temperatures along with widespread rain and a few thunderstorms can be found across south central Texas this afternoon. Temperatures are currently in the upper 30s to upper 40s across the region, compared to 24 hours ago when temperatures were mainly in the 80s to lower 90s.

Yep, that's Texas weather for ya - almost a 50 degree drop in 24 hours.  

Grief and life without a smartphone

It's almost been a month since Rob died and overall I've been doing okay.  I had some rough days where I'd spontaneously burst into tears at the oddest moments, but as far as I know that's pretty normal given the circumstances.  Last week I was at an IT conference and so busy with work that I didn't have time to think about anything except work and the bare minimum daily home requirements (feed the dogs, do laundry, pay bills, etc.) and that pretty much stopped the spontaneous tears, at least for now.  For the most part, I've done a whole lot of "one step in front of the other" which fortunately, is something I'm very experienced at doing although I've got to say, it's a bit harder than usual this time.

In the middle of all of this, my smartphone started acting up and pretty much died on me. I ended up spending almost a week with nothing more than a flip phone on a different phone number that could only make phones calls if the stars were aligned just right.  Well, it could also get texts, but they were pretty hard to read on that little tiny screen and I never did get the hang of successfully replying to them. It did allow me to call a cab to get to and from the IT conference, but that was about it.

Now that's a pretty minor problem, but when you are in the middle of dealing with the death of your spouse... not so minor.  No one had my new flip phone number and all of their phone numbers were all on my old dead phone that I couldn't access anymore.  Since I couldn't access it at all, I also couldn't forward my phone calls.  And all those applications that I need for work?  Nope, not on a flip phone.  All those things that require two factor authentication from my old phone number?  Nope. It was a huge hassle and not something I wanted to deal with on top of everything else. But deal with it I did and I do now finally have a brand new shiny smartphone.  Going forward the only thing I have to deal with is getting everyone my new phone number and tracking down and fixing all the two-factor authentication stuff. And I'll get there. Eventually. Although I haven't quite figured out how I'll notify people whose phone number I no longer have because my old phone is dead, but I guess I'll find someone who knows someone who knows someone.  And that actually worked quite well for notifying people of Rob's demise since he kept everyone's phone number in his head and I didn't have half of them, but I ended up hearing from quite a few because one person told another and they told another and.. well, it worked out for the most part.

Now jumping back to the whole phone number change, you might ask, why didn't I just keep my old phone number and save myself the additional hassle of switching to another number? Well, the carrier I used didn't have the model of smartphone that I wanted and while I could have settled for a less desirable phone, I also had promised myself that when then time came that I needed a new phone, then I would switch to my childhood phone number that I had transferred to that recalcitrant flip phone when my mom died.  I had memorized that phone number back when I was about two years old and as a result, it's unlikely that I will ever forget it.  Unlike my other cell phone number that I could barely remember even though I'd had it for about seven years. So the timing was less than ideal, but I went ahead and followed through with my plan to switch.  So what if there's a little bit more chaos when everything else has been turned upside down? Just a drop in the bucket, eh?

I'd also like to mention that my friends, family and employer have all been incredibly supportive during this time and a huge factor in why I've been able to keep myself together and functional during this last month. It would be easy for me to feel very alone right now given that I've lost both my parents and my spouse in just three years time, but everyone around me has let me know that I'm definitely not alone.  And Tracy, my best friend, who I've known for over 40 years, has helped with me stuff that I couldn't bring myself to ask for help with and just jumped in and did it anyway.  Dude, I so owe you and I hope I can return the favor someday.

It's the start of a new chapter in my life

So very much has happened over the last five years, that I couldn't begin to discuss it all in one post.  Here's a short version.   Rob had an serious accident on his scooter in October 2013 and almost died from a severe head injury.  His recovery was far beyond what the doctors expected and he was able to come home after a couple of months in the hospital.  He had a slow and steady improvement, however, he never was able to get back to 100% and return to work.  The years of 2014 and part of 2015 were spent helping my mom who had been diagnosed with cancer.  She made it through the difficult treatment and was pronounced cancer free at the end of it.  Towards the end of 2015 my dad's kidney failure became progressively worse.  He managed to pull off one last Christmas with the family, but died in January 2016.  A few months later, my mom's cancer returned and she had major surgery and further chemo.  We made it through all of that, only to have her experience an allergic reaction to medication which resulted in an emergency tracheotomy.  She never really recovered from that and died in July of 2017.  The year of 2018 hasn't fared much better. My brother had a heart attack and almost died.  Fortunately, he had a successful bypass surgery and recovered completely so I had hopes that I was finally done with this sort of thing.  Until Rob started getting sick.  He wouldn't go to the doctor, no matter how much his friends and I pushed him to go.  And to my great sorrow, Rob died on Monday, September 17th. I thought it was difficult losing my parents, but losing my soulmate has been much, much harder.  

Although I am grieving, life does go on and I've decided to pick up this blog again.  Writing has always helped me through the tough times in my life and I'm not sure why I stopped posting here during these last five difficult years.  Maybe it's because I had so little free time or maybe it's because I just didn't want to write about all the turmoil.   Either way, that chapter of my life has closed now so I think I'll give it another go during this next one. 

We celebrate 19 years of marriage today

Rob and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary today.  We didn't go out for dinner, but instead stayed home and cooked a very expensive rib-eye steak on the grill and drank some rather expensive locally brewed beer that I brought home in a growler.  I haven't found a restaurant yet that can grill a steak better than we can and drinking tasty beer at home means we don't have to worry about who is staying sober enough to drive back out to the boonies where we now live. 

There's not any "traditional" gift designation for 19 years, but even if there had been, well, we probably wouldn't have followed that anyway. Rob briefly considered combining the 15 and 20 year gifts by getting me a crystal china-man, but didn't have much luck finding such a thing, at least not in our price range.  $3500 for a lamp?  Not gonna happen.  Instead, he got me a little diorama of a day-of-the-dead skeleton bride and groom.  And we were apparently in tune on the day of the day theme since I bought him a day of the day cookie cutter as well as a skull shot glass and some Lil' Devil Cinnamon Toothpicks.  Not exactly traditional gifts, but very personal and I think that beats the hell out of diamonds and what-not other things that advertising says you ought to buy for your sweetie. 

The anniversary card that Rob gave me pretty much says it all.

 

 



One week is too short, too long and just about right

I was trying to decide if a week of vacation was too short or too long and I've come to the conclusion is that it's both. Today is day four so I'm over the half-way mark. I've managed to get some rest and also get some things done around the house. Although I haven't been at the office, work has never left my mind any more than it ever does. The only difference is that I'm not doing any work-related action. Four days is the same as having a long weekend and that feels about right for a break which makes a week of vacation seem too long.

That said, the fact that I've haven't really stopped "working" nor have I even begun to do any kind of vacation activity, well, that indicates to me that a week is too short. Too short, that is, if I was actually taking time to go off on a vacation. I'm guessing it would take me about a week to unplug from work and then I'd need another week to really have a vacation. 

In this case, where I'm taking time off just to prevent dropping dead from exhaustion, one week seems just about right. It took me four days to get to the point where I didn't wake up still tired in the morning, but I woke up at 5 AM this morning, after 8 hours of sleep (what luxury!) and for the first time in months, I didn't have to force myself to put one foot in front of the other. I got up extra early so I could have time for leisurely breakfast before mowing the front lawn at 8 AM.  That's a god-awful time to mow the lawn, but any later and it's too hot, plus I wanted to do it before the bees were all over the crepe myrtles.  Unfortunately the bees were already out in full force so I'm sure the neighbors were scratching their heads at my mowing technique while I tried to avoid any pissed off bees.

Even at 8 AM, I was hot and sweaty by the time I was done mowing the lawn and I figured I'd just collapse on the couch and be done for the day (other than picking Rob up at the airport tonight.) After all, just a week ago, mowing the lawn would have taken every bit of energy I could have summoned, but today, it was not a big deal and I happily discovered that I wasn't ready to just collapse on the couch.  In fact, I'll probably knock out a few more projects before I go pick up Rob at the airport later tonight.

Now that I've bounced back a bit, the next three days are going to seem like what used to be a normal long weekend, back in the old 8 hour M-F days.  I'm looking forward  to it!

Turns out "a couple of months" was overly optimistic

Things at work did not slow down at the end of March.  I am still working pretty much the same hours and to give you a hint of how crazy it's been, I took Saturday night off to attend a memorial service for a close friend, but still ended up having to take a call from work while I was there (fortunately I did not have to leave and drive to the office!) That said, the end might finally be in sight.  If I don't drop dead myself before then, I'll be taking an entire week off in mid-June, come hell or high water. No big plans.  I'll be hanging out at home and if I can find enough energy, I might get the garage in order.  Or not. The only plan is no plan.  And  no goals, no projects, no deadlines, no waking up to answer work emails or phone calls in the middle of the night, no eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at my computer while still working,  no grabbing only 5 or so hours of sleep each night.  I'm going to turn off the clocks and sleep as long as I want!  Maybe even the entire week.

Avalanche of Work

The first full week of the year kicked off an avalanche of work at my job.  Projects that should have been started in September were finally begun and it's now a mad dash to get everything done before March 1st.  I've been working seven days a week, with many of those days lasting as long as 12 or 15 hours. I'm not being "forced" to work this much, although I would probably find myself out of a job in a hurry if I wasn't stepping up to the plate and taking on extra work.

The truth is that if I had sat around and waited for duties that fit my job description of "Technical Writer" since my transfer out of Customer Service, then I would have been hard pressed to have enough work for even a part-time position.  Mind you, there are plenty of things that need to be "documented", but this would involve other people giving me information and that would take their time away from far more urgent duties.  Documentation can always wait, that is, until the only person that knows how to do something is no longer around.  But as long as that person is still available, there are just too many other competing priorities which leaves me with very little to do in my official capacity.

However, I am not the kind of person who is happy sitting around with nothing to do so I managed to stay busy by scrounging around for projects and tasks.  This was not easily done at a company where projects aren't announced to the company as a whole and I would only hear about them on the grapevine, but I was able to find plenty of work to do thanks to a lot of groundwork on my part.  In fact, I actually invented several of them which meant I had to "sell" it to management.   I was, for all intents and purposes, a freelancer, albeit one with with a boss and a steady salary.

And so there I was towards the end of last year, still scrounging around for work and still waiting for my manager to give me more official duties when all of a sudden things got turned upside down.  I'm not going to go into details, but end result was that my manager resigned and a recently employed consultant ended up in charge of the department.  This consultant had already told me that there was going to be no room for me in the newly restructured Information Technology department so the fact that he was now my manager meant that I was under even more pressure to make a place for myself.  

I suppose that sounds like a somewhat reasonable explanation for the workload I'm currently experiencing, but it's not the whole story.  I could always say no, take a layoff and find another job.  And the company could easily replace me with a fresh-faced college student for much of what I'm currently doing (although they would have to pay them a higher salary and probably take a big hit on work ethics.)  Instead, I'm doing this because I love the challenge and it gives me the opportunity to update my IT skill set in an actual production environment.  And if that means working my ass off for a couple of month, then so be it.

That said, I'm still going to whine on occasion about what I know is ultimately a personal choice because at the end of a 15 hour day, sometimes it just feels damn good to whine and complain.   And if I do, there's no need to tell me that it's all my own fault; I'm already perfectly aware of that.

Hello 2013

I've not blogged much over the last three years, a time when while my life took quite a few unexpected twists and turns. If this had been a truly anonymous blog then I'm sure I would have posted a great deal, but since it was not, that left me with so many elephants in the room that I got to a point where I just couldn't seem to write a blog post that wouldn't somehow reveal information about things that were best left private.

I've always considered this blog to be a journal.  A chronicle of bit and pieces of daily life, perhaps boring and routine, but I find those are the posts I enjoy the most when looking back through them.  It's the same with my private journals, written from the age of six to my mid-thirties.  These private journals contain plenty of entries filled with emotional angst, but I've discovered that those are not the entries that hold my interest so many years later.  Instead, it is the entries about the routine, the mundane, those every day things that didn't seem important enough to mention or write down but occasionally would sneak their way in to my writing.

And while I'm quite happy that I didn't fill this blog with much of the emotional turmoil that has taken place recently, I do wish I had been able to see past the elephants and post more often. Even if it was just about the weather and what I cooked for dinner that night.  I'll try to remember that for 2013.

A leap of faith

Today we turn in our signed lease on a house and get handed some new keys. The rent on the house is reasonable by Austin standards, but will be considerably more that the rent on the apartment or, for that matter, more than any other single monthly payment either of us have ever had in our lives.  But that's not the only leap of faith we are taking since we are also breaking our lease on the apartment, just two months after renewing it. That will be a rather expensive thing to do, unless we are able to sublease it quickly.  

The circumstances that brought us to this point were what most people would call a strange mix of coincidence.  A co-worker has a rental house that we were hoping to get before we renewed the apartment lease, but his tenant decided to stay another year so we renewed the lease on apartment instead.  Then about three weeks ago, my co-worker's tenant gave notice and moved out immediately.  That made the house available, but we had renewed the apartment lease and besides, we didn't have the extra cash needed to pay another deposit plus double rent for at least a month. My co-worker advertised the house for a bargain rent price so it would rent quickly and we figured that was the end of that.

Labor Day weekend came along and the RV sold "as is" on the same day that I had it scheduled to be it moved into the shop for some minor repairs.  At that point I had some cash, but did I really want to spend it on breaking a lease and moving into a house?  And was my co-worker's house at the bargain price even still available?

I returned to work on Tuesday and talked with my co-worker who said the house was still available.  Despite my misgivings about the whole idea, I decided to go take a look at the house on Wednesday so I could make an informed decision.  I was not expecting to walk in the door of the house and get one of those "gut feelings" that I've had so many times in my life.  But that is exactly what happened; I got that feeling of "this is the next logical step".   But just the same as I did with the RV purchase, I tried to talk myself out of it.  I had the idea that there was no way Rob would agree to go look at the house that day after work since he always wants to go straight home (which is understandable, I usually feel the same way.)  Even if he did go look at it, he might not like the house and I already knew how he felt about the hassle of moving since we had discussed this prior to renewing our lease - he wasn't going to go for it unless it was the right house.  

Much to my surprise, Rob not only went and looked at the house, but he also liked it.  That left me with only one thing to use against the whole idea - the expense of breaking the apartment lease.  That could cost me several thousand dollars, maybe more. Or it might only cost $200 if we were able to sublease quickly.  That made it a gamble and I'm a person that has a risk-adverse personality.  Despite my worries, all that night long and all the next day, no matter what I said to myself, I couldn't shake the feeling that getting the house was the direction I needed to take.  And so I took the leap and dragged Rob along with me. It will be interesting to see how it all works out.

Hello ham radio, goodbye RV

My dad and my brother both were ham radio operators when I was growing up and eventually my mom and I also got our Technician class licenses (my brother holds the next level, a General class and my dad has what used to be the next level above General which is an Advanced class.)  

As a young adult, I didn't have the time or the money to get seriously into the hobby and eventually let my license expire.  That was quite a long time ago, but I suspect once Ham Radio gets in your blood, it's always there lurking, just waiting for something to trigger the fever again.  I say this because a couple of weeks ago, while surfing the internet, I inadvertently stumbled across some of the new things going on in the world of Ham Radio.  Well, maybe not so new to folks active in the hobby, but new to me since I had been away from it for 20 years.  

I did a little checking and most of the things that had caught my attention could be done with only a Technician class license.  I figured it wouldn't take too much study to retest and since there was an exam date of June 16th, that would give me two weeks to get back up to snuff.  I took a couple of practice exams to see what I might need to brush up on and much to my surprise, I found that I had not forgotten much at all. In fact, it only took one day of study before I could easily pass the practice tests.  Since I still had almost two weeks to go before exam day, I decided I would study for the General exam.  If I could pass this, it would be a nice surprise for my father on Father's Day because it would mean that I would be able to transmit on his favorite HF bands (something I could not do with just a Technician license.)

Yesterday I took the tests.  First was the Technician exam which I sailed through and then the General exam which I also sailed through.  As a result, the examiners were quite insistent that I take the Extra exam next.  I knew there was no way I'd pass that one since I hadn't even looked at the question pool or studied for it and it's got some pretty esoteric stuff on it.  But they strongly encouraged me to take it anyway as a way to get acquainted with what was on the test and since it didn't cost anything but a little extra bit of my time, why not?

Needless to say, I did not pass that test, but I did manage to get 27 out of 50 answers correct, far more than I expected. The half I didn't get right included quite a few things I'd never even heard of, but it all seemed like things that I could learn if I applied a little bit of effort.  I don't really need an Extra class license at this point, but it would give my dad quite a thrill if I could achieve it.  It's something to think about in a few months, after I've finished moving out of the RV.  

Yes, my RV days are over.  I've enjoyed living there the last two years, but with Rob and I moving back together, the RV is way too small for two people and two dogs.  Instead, we'll be living in an apartment for a while.  And while an apartment will make getting back into ham radio a bit of a challenge since my antenna choices will be limited, it's the best option at the moment.   

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak

"Where the Wild Things Are" is my favorite book of all time.  Having read thousands upon thousands of books in my lifetime so far, I'm surprised that I can say that one stands above all the rest.  But for me, this one does.

2012 has been a steamroller so far

It's been a very busy three months.  On the work front, we had a major project that needed to be complete before the start of peak season in April.  Despite the typical setbacks and delays you get with any major project, we were able to push it to production in early March.   And in any other year, this timing would have been just fine, but this year it seemed like the entire US had an early spring. Business had already spiked up by then and it feels like it's been a madhouse at work for the entire year.  First there was the push to get the project done, then the push to handle all the extra, unexpected business.  For the last month I've been spending over half my work hours helping out in Customer Service taking calls while trying to still get my regular work done.  It's a good problem to have in this economy, but it does leave me pretty damn tired at the end of the day.

Other things are afoot in my personal life that have brought some major changes in my routine, all of them good, but even good change adds a bit of additional stress.   Over the next few months I hope to find the time to get get my RV ready to sell and if things work out, I might be moving back into a house in June.  If the deal on the house falls through, then maybe a duplex.  I'd even go for an apartment if I could find one with a small yard (a few of those do exist in this town.)  Affordable will be tough to find in this rental market where even a small duplex or two bedroom apartment can run over $1000/month.   I've asked for a pretty substantial raise at work that would let me qualify for such a rental amount, but given that raises have been on hold since November plus the fact that my "regular" job might be changing to something else... that means a raise is not something I can count on.

Overall, there's much that's uncertain in my life right now, both at work and at home, and given the track record of the last couple of years, I think this is the new normal.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can make life seem just a bit more challenging at times.  Ah well, at least I'm not bored.

PS - those of you that are long overdue for an email from me, my apologies.