keeping busy
We have had enough snow that I am finally willing to call it "winter", and so very grateful I am, after a couple of years of no snow till late November or early December. However, I watch the forecast and see that it is supposed to go back up above freezing, and I worry if it will be another of those winters where the temps oscillate back and forth over freezing so that what snow we have melts and refreezes into a thin crust. This strikes me as a much better thing to worry about than politics, though not any easier to solve.
Work has been going well, I had my annual meeting to discuss how I am doing with the job, and thus what amount my annual wage will be, and the review went well. Not only do I love my job, but my colleagues are happy with me and the work I am doing. We have several grant proposals out or in the works that could result in my getting more hours, so that is all good.
Norrskensfesten is next weekend, and I am pretty much on top of what needs doing (though I should have emailed the event schedule by now, so had better do that this weekend). We are at 99 registered just now, and I am good with that. I think it will be a really fun event.
I am currently reading a book in English, despite my "no fiction in English" rule. I had been checking Katherine Kurtz's web page fairly regularly, to see if she had written the final Childe Morgan book, but each time I did there was still no word. Then I forgot to check for a while, and didn't look again till this week. The book is done, and was published in 2014. Oops. I guess "a while" is longer than I thought. However, life has been so busy I have been reading it in small doses, rather than all at once like I used to do. I love having so many hobbies, but my 20-something self wouldn't believe it. However, I hope I can get it done this week, because then I will break that rule again by reading hrj's new book, which is poised to come out, and, since she is good about promoting her book in places I see (like here), I know about it, and will get it straight away. I wonder why none of Katherine's fans bothered to mention it on the email list. Just because no one has posted there in ages is no reason not to mention the book there.
Tonight, after Phire practice we had a fun excursion. Those of us who are new to the group since the last time they had one of these were blindfolded and led from the practice site to the snowy banks of the lake (which isn't quite frozen solid enough to trust it to hold a large group of us, yet), and they welcomed us to the group with a small ceremony, including a dubbing with a fire sword. Then we got to play with the burning toys. Fun. Afterwards we retired to the nearby home of one of the members for pizza and socializing. We played a game wherein we each, in turn told a fact about ourselves which we thought made us unique in the group. Those whose facts were, in fact, unique, got to do another round. I think I could have done quite a few more rounds before I ran out of ways in which I am unique. I was the only one present with three passports, who has lived in 8 different countries (and 6 US states), who has never been drunk, who can remember the moon landing (ok, that was cheating, I was the only one present who was alive then). I was also the only one present with a PhD, but I didn't bother to use that one. However, unlike some of the others, I have never built an electric guitar from scratch (nor any other instrument), I have never crawled under the barb wire to get into a relocation camp, I have no odd growths of bone sticking out from my shoulders where one would expect smooth collarbones, never lived on an Indian Reservation, nor in India. It was an interesting and fun game. Made slightly more challenging as we spoke Swedish most of the evening.
Work has been going well, I had my annual meeting to discuss how I am doing with the job, and thus what amount my annual wage will be, and the review went well. Not only do I love my job, but my colleagues are happy with me and the work I am doing. We have several grant proposals out or in the works that could result in my getting more hours, so that is all good.
Norrskensfesten is next weekend, and I am pretty much on top of what needs doing (though I should have emailed the event schedule by now, so had better do that this weekend). We are at 99 registered just now, and I am good with that. I think it will be a really fun event.
I am currently reading a book in English, despite my "no fiction in English" rule. I had been checking Katherine Kurtz's web page fairly regularly, to see if she had written the final Childe Morgan book, but each time I did there was still no word. Then I forgot to check for a while, and didn't look again till this week. The book is done, and was published in 2014. Oops. I guess "a while" is longer than I thought. However, life has been so busy I have been reading it in small doses, rather than all at once like I used to do. I love having so many hobbies, but my 20-something self wouldn't believe it. However, I hope I can get it done this week, because then I will break that rule again by reading hrj's new book, which is poised to come out, and, since she is good about promoting her book in places I see (like here), I know about it, and will get it straight away. I wonder why none of Katherine's fans bothered to mention it on the email list. Just because no one has posted there in ages is no reason not to mention the book there.
Tonight, after Phire practice we had a fun excursion. Those of us who are new to the group since the last time they had one of these were blindfolded and led from the practice site to the snowy banks of the lake (which isn't quite frozen solid enough to trust it to hold a large group of us, yet), and they welcomed us to the group with a small ceremony, including a dubbing with a fire sword. Then we got to play with the burning toys. Fun. Afterwards we retired to the nearby home of one of the members for pizza and socializing. We played a game wherein we each, in turn told a fact about ourselves which we thought made us unique in the group. Those whose facts were, in fact, unique, got to do another round. I think I could have done quite a few more rounds before I ran out of ways in which I am unique. I was the only one present with three passports, who has lived in 8 different countries (and 6 US states), who has never been drunk, who can remember the moon landing (ok, that was cheating, I was the only one present who was alive then). I was also the only one present with a PhD, but I didn't bother to use that one. However, unlike some of the others, I have never built an electric guitar from scratch (nor any other instrument), I have never crawled under the barb wire to get into a relocation camp, I have no odd growths of bone sticking out from my shoulders where one would expect smooth collarbones, never lived on an Indian Reservation, nor in India. It was an interesting and fun game. Made slightly more challenging as we spoke Swedish most of the evening.