and lately ...
So, the end of the school year is upon us, among other things. All in all it's a transition period ... and I may be a glutton for punishment, but I really like transition periods. Maybe it's because it sort of knocks everything out of kilter a bit and in the resulting skewed landscape my natural oddball-ness is more at home. Or maybe not. Regardless, I've traditionally had an attention span with life situations that either ends around 6 mos or 3-4 yrs. This is evident in many things, including my habitual string of apts that ended with moving in with B which concluded a run of 12 living spaces in 8 yrs. (here was the 13th ... coincidentally a lucky # for me)
Church - Last week was the last Sunday of the 07-08 RE class year at church. This is significant because I have taught an RE class 2-3x/month for the past 3.5 yrs. I'm not teaching next year. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with myself as far as church involvement goes. I've avoided the Social Justice committee like the plague, a trend I intend to continue, since I've no desire to focus my volunteer energies in an area where eventually I will feel overwhelmed and under-helpful. It's just too broad an area of utter shit to not end up depressed at perceived inability to effect progress. Community Outreach doesn't seem to be doing as much as in the past. Hands on Housing in April was *awesome* and I can't _wait_ for the next one in Oct. Other than a couple of food/clothing/etc drives during the year though, I'm not sure they are doing anything else so that likely won't be enough to keep me involved. (the blood drives died with the one after I stepped out of organizing them - which made me terribly sad but the reality was that begging people to part with something that cost them nothing and being turned down 18x of 20 when you are standing there as an example of it's necessity would eventually burn *anyone* out - even my optimism has it's limits.) I'm not terribly interested in Facilities or Worship committees ... though B is *still* pestering me to give choir a shot. All in all, church life is likely to be a bit of an open opportunity for a while yet.
Girl Scouts - woah. So yesterday was our last meeting of the year. Even with the late (mid-Oct) start, last minute leadership, and the fact that splitting directional processes among 4 leaders creates as many issues as it solves - the girls still came out with great reviews. As a troop they have earned 7 badges and 2 signs (which are ≈ 1/2 of the Bronze Award requirements) in addition to scads of participation patches including special ones like Community Service and World Thinking Day. While I've no doubt next year will be *awesome* AND that it will get off to a smoother start since leaders won't be picking up the reigns at the last moment ... I'm apprehensive a bit since there will only be 2 leaders ... and I'm the official Assistant Troop Leader for next year. I know it will be ok even though I currently don't feel quite up to the task. I am, however, looking forward to assuming the role of our service unit's Community Service Coordinator. (the service unit is responsible for all ages of troops in our area and is one degree below the local Council - which is ginormous!) I've also almost completed plans for our end of the party and awards ceremony scheduled in 2 wks at Austin's Park & Pizza.
We also just found out yesterday that Alasen got into one of the horse-related Girl Scout summer camping sessions she wanted. She'll be headed to her first summer camp experience in July for 5 days for 'A Horse of a Different Color' which involves grooming, care, riding in the mornings and horse-inspired arts/crafts in the afternoon. While I envy her (having never gone to summer camp myself) I am so excited for her and I am just sure she's going to have an absolute blast! It's also very cool to me that her interest in horses has emerged ... as I was a bit obsessed myself at her age. She has never had the opportunity to go riding before so this has all sorts of first written on. It's sure to be quite the experience!
Hobbies - so I've been crafting a pile lately. Mostly it's been 'solution' items, so not crafting for crafting's sake but to solve a problem here at the house that traditional solutions annoyed me with their genericness. I've painted and customized w/ wooden shapes 2 4-peg rails of 3 for storing my bag pile. I've got a 4th lined up to do for Ala for the same purpose. I've also done a 3-D memory page for B's mom and decoupaged a custom frame for it. I loooved the way the frame turned out and am somewhat heartbroken that I forgot to get a pic of it before giving it to her. I'm about halfway through turning a wooden beer caddy thing that held a gift B got from relatives a few yrs ago into a custom dresser-top storage thing for Ala, too. It's the first time I've used a drill for anything other than screws in the wall and I've had a /blast/! I've got a hanging pocket thing to decorate/paint for Ala to take to camp and a couple of other things I may want to poke at. I'm still no closer, really, to picking a hobby/craft and sticking with it until I get *good* at it. I'm still more interested in trying a bit of everything it seems.
I've gotten back into my comics lately. Still loooove my Fables and recently found an indie comic called Polyglot & Spleen that I think I will keep up with for awhile, too. There are several more I saw over at Dragon's Lair that I may peek into eventually. We also picked up a SJ game called Killer Bunnies that I hope to give a go soon to check out it's playability. B picked up some info/starters for a couple of miniatures games, too. We gave the D&D miniatures game a whirl the other day. I thought it was going to be quite icky-dull or at the least tedious. While it does have some cobbled together aspects that are a bit tedious, over all I really had fun playing it. I'm sure that wasn't just because I won either ... ;-) I was also looking at the little landscape things you can make for some of those games and wondered about maybe trying that out therby combining my crafting AND gaming into one hobby. We shall see.
House - in addition to all that stuff, we should be getting the roofing replaced in the next couple of weeks. We're still looking for the est to paint the house, then we'll move on to seeing about replacing the HVAC. Currently, I'm waiting on a reply from the deed restriction folks to find out if we have any roofing restrictions so I can soothe B that my desire for white shingles (energystar & up to 36% reduction in absorbed heat - to tide us over until we can radiant barrier and reinsulate the attic)is not likely to get us banned from the annual potluck or fined ridiculous amounts for 'unsightlyness'. Should they decline/restrict this shingle, I think approaching the architectural controls committee over why they would *deny* an EnergyStar product might be "fun" given the trendyness of the new greening of homes thing going around. >:-)
That pretty much sums up what's been going on around here lately and a bit of a peek into where we're headed (or at least where we are headed in /my/ head ... )
Also, I am in dire need of a haircut.