Hello... anyone out there?
Still in Chicago, and probably will remain so for the next two or three years.
Cordell (24) moved in at Christmas, and both he and Clay hit the DePaul honor roll and dean's list last quarter. He got a job with a new tutoring center on campus, and is working with the physics club to build a muon detector. He also is very kindly helping the local homeschoolers ref their first soccer season ever, and took Linc to the Anime Central convention last weekend (where they waited in line for FOUR hours! Yowza... but they both seemed happy they'd gone. Next year: prereg for sure!).
Julia is still in Seattle with Mike, and seems happy there. She's not posting much anywhere that I know about, and I've developed a pathological hatred of talking on the telephone, so I just don't hear from her at all. It's kind of sad, I miss her a lot still, but I know she's enjoying herself and doing some very cool things there... I guess all I can do is hope to eventually move within visiting distance someday.
Clay (18) dialed his class load back a bit this quarter, and is gearing up for his big trip to France this June/July. He'll be staying with a friend of a friend, a family that runs an organic farm and also has an 18yo son that they'd like to send to Chicago someday. He's also still a lifeguard at Wright Community College. He started Bill and I on the Song of Ice & Fire books, and asked for a ticket to the Lyric Opera's production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" for his birthday.
Linc (7.5) just lost his third tooth, his big upper left incisor. Losing teeth is such a traumatic event for him; when it was finally out, I told Bill, "I've been to labors that were easier than that!" I don't remember having to be a tooth doula for the other kids. He's reading and doing some Legos, but his driving passion in life now is Minecraft. He's taking a break from aikido, so we are trying to do more geocaching and bike-riding for movement. He was on a huge poker kick for a few weeks, and you had to be careful... the little stinker was actually really good at it (thanks to coaching from his brothers who were taking a Game Theory class at the time).
Bill is still loving his job, and they are still loving him, according to his reviews (both faculty and student). He's baking here and there, but mostly enjoys playing games when he's not working (Dwarf Fortress is a recent favorite, but he's also big into Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies with Linc, and I think he's also doing Mass Effect 3 and maybe Skyrim). I've dragged him into a few puzzle-related events, and I think he mostly enjoys them... we are a pretty good team together, I think.
We will have been married for ten years this July 13th. Hmm... maybe it's time for tattoos...
Me... well, I'm having a hard time. That's another post, the hard stuff. But basically I'm trying to spend time with Linc, do stuff to help keep costs down (mostly making our own food), and try to keep myself busy until the boys gets home. I've been baking all of our sandwich bread, a good sourdough recipe, and have it down to a nice rhythm.
Thanks to an incredibly kind gift from an old friend, I will be able to fly out for a quick visit to the Whole Earth Festival and braid for the midwives. I am also taking an extra day so I can drive up to see my dad and Aunt Kathy in Sonoma. I know it's causing upheaval back here (I can't take Linc with me), but I'm trying not to stress about that so I can get excited about the trip. I am actually torn about seeing all my lovely friends in California... it's almost better not to get a taste of how loved I am there, because it makes it so much harder to bear going back to living without those connections when it's time to go back to Chicago. Is that terrible to admit? Maybe... I'm still going to go, and to try to compress as many hugs and visits in as possible in a few short days.
Two days after I get back from Whole Earth, I'll be heading up to Wisconsin for a Renaissance faire... the first I've done since the 2009 Ohio faire I did with Karen Ribble and Barbara Jensen. I did braid at the first Chicago Maker Faire a few weekends back, but it was mostly people wanting free braids, not teaching braids like I was envisioning. I need to update the website...
The cats are still driving us crazy. I think it is mostly old-cat issues, and we will do a few more things to make them as comfortable as possible. Finding a way to let them spend some time outside... in some sort of enclosed area... might help.
We still don't know if we are moving this June. That's more than a little stressful for all of us... but that's another post as well. I'm trying out for Taskrabbit, we'll see if that generates a few bucks and takes the edge off.
Due to the crazy drunken feeling I get with carbs, I'm on essentially a low-carb diet again. I am NOT doing it to lose weight, but I anticipate that I might, which would not be terrible (I am at my highest weight ever, and I hate it). We can't afford Nia, and while I try to get out for a walk or bike ride every once in a while, it's not very consistent. I also do some meditation on my own, but again not as consistently as I'd like (and there is nothing that offers meditation classes or meeting anywhere near me). That's one of my main motivations for wanting to move, actually... I want to get into a neighborhood where there is even a remote possibility of finding a friend who might want to do this kind of thing with me. Right now, in Santorum Land, it's not happening.
I have been playing around with calligraphy and illumination, and when I do it, I love it. The craft area downstairs is not working for me, though. I need a lot of natural light to do it... maybe I should move that table up to the living room (we moved some furniture down to the basement after the flood, now the living room is pretty empty). That's another reason to move... so that I can have a craft/writing/yoga/meditation area to myself.
Hm... I guess that was more of a downer than I meant it to be. It's all true, though, so I'm not going to try to glam it up.
I want you all to know I pop into LJ and read here fairly often, so please keep posting. I'm on G+ and FB and Twitter and Pinterest but LJ is where I can put forth longer and more thoughtful posts. Should I port to a blogging site? I know a lot of you are doing Dreamwidth and so on... I don't know. Is anyone even reading my LJ anymore?
Cordell (24) moved in at Christmas, and both he and Clay hit the DePaul honor roll and dean's list last quarter. He got a job with a new tutoring center on campus, and is working with the physics club to build a muon detector. He also is very kindly helping the local homeschoolers ref their first soccer season ever, and took Linc to the Anime Central convention last weekend (where they waited in line for FOUR hours! Yowza... but they both seemed happy they'd gone. Next year: prereg for sure!).
Julia is still in Seattle with Mike, and seems happy there. She's not posting much anywhere that I know about, and I've developed a pathological hatred of talking on the telephone, so I just don't hear from her at all. It's kind of sad, I miss her a lot still, but I know she's enjoying herself and doing some very cool things there... I guess all I can do is hope to eventually move within visiting distance someday.
Clay (18) dialed his class load back a bit this quarter, and is gearing up for his big trip to France this June/July. He'll be staying with a friend of a friend, a family that runs an organic farm and also has an 18yo son that they'd like to send to Chicago someday. He's also still a lifeguard at Wright Community College. He started Bill and I on the Song of Ice & Fire books, and asked for a ticket to the Lyric Opera's production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" for his birthday.
Linc (7.5) just lost his third tooth, his big upper left incisor. Losing teeth is such a traumatic event for him; when it was finally out, I told Bill, "I've been to labors that were easier than that!" I don't remember having to be a tooth doula for the other kids. He's reading and doing some Legos, but his driving passion in life now is Minecraft. He's taking a break from aikido, so we are trying to do more geocaching and bike-riding for movement. He was on a huge poker kick for a few weeks, and you had to be careful... the little stinker was actually really good at it (thanks to coaching from his brothers who were taking a Game Theory class at the time).
Bill is still loving his job, and they are still loving him, according to his reviews (both faculty and student). He's baking here and there, but mostly enjoys playing games when he's not working (Dwarf Fortress is a recent favorite, but he's also big into Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies with Linc, and I think he's also doing Mass Effect 3 and maybe Skyrim). I've dragged him into a few puzzle-related events, and I think he mostly enjoys them... we are a pretty good team together, I think.
We will have been married for ten years this July 13th. Hmm... maybe it's time for tattoos...
Me... well, I'm having a hard time. That's another post, the hard stuff. But basically I'm trying to spend time with Linc, do stuff to help keep costs down (mostly making our own food), and try to keep myself busy until the boys gets home. I've been baking all of our sandwich bread, a good sourdough recipe, and have it down to a nice rhythm.
Thanks to an incredibly kind gift from an old friend, I will be able to fly out for a quick visit to the Whole Earth Festival and braid for the midwives. I am also taking an extra day so I can drive up to see my dad and Aunt Kathy in Sonoma. I know it's causing upheaval back here (I can't take Linc with me), but I'm trying not to stress about that so I can get excited about the trip. I am actually torn about seeing all my lovely friends in California... it's almost better not to get a taste of how loved I am there, because it makes it so much harder to bear going back to living without those connections when it's time to go back to Chicago. Is that terrible to admit? Maybe... I'm still going to go, and to try to compress as many hugs and visits in as possible in a few short days.
Two days after I get back from Whole Earth, I'll be heading up to Wisconsin for a Renaissance faire... the first I've done since the 2009 Ohio faire I did with Karen Ribble and Barbara Jensen. I did braid at the first Chicago Maker Faire a few weekends back, but it was mostly people wanting free braids, not teaching braids like I was envisioning. I need to update the website...
The cats are still driving us crazy. I think it is mostly old-cat issues, and we will do a few more things to make them as comfortable as possible. Finding a way to let them spend some time outside... in some sort of enclosed area... might help.
We still don't know if we are moving this June. That's more than a little stressful for all of us... but that's another post as well. I'm trying out for Taskrabbit, we'll see if that generates a few bucks and takes the edge off.
Due to the crazy drunken feeling I get with carbs, I'm on essentially a low-carb diet again. I am NOT doing it to lose weight, but I anticipate that I might, which would not be terrible (I am at my highest weight ever, and I hate it). We can't afford Nia, and while I try to get out for a walk or bike ride every once in a while, it's not very consistent. I also do some meditation on my own, but again not as consistently as I'd like (and there is nothing that offers meditation classes or meeting anywhere near me). That's one of my main motivations for wanting to move, actually... I want to get into a neighborhood where there is even a remote possibility of finding a friend who might want to do this kind of thing with me. Right now, in Santorum Land, it's not happening.
I have been playing around with calligraphy and illumination, and when I do it, I love it. The craft area downstairs is not working for me, though. I need a lot of natural light to do it... maybe I should move that table up to the living room (we moved some furniture down to the basement after the flood, now the living room is pretty empty). That's another reason to move... so that I can have a craft/writing/yoga/meditation area to myself.
Hm... I guess that was more of a downer than I meant it to be. It's all true, though, so I'm not going to try to glam it up.
I want you all to know I pop into LJ and read here fairly often, so please keep posting. I'm on G+ and FB and Twitter and Pinterest but LJ is where I can put forth longer and more thoughtful posts. Should I port to a blogging site? I know a lot of you are doing Dreamwidth and so on... I don't know. Is anyone even reading my LJ anymore?