Looking Up

I wish I was better at transitions. Or maybe, really, I wish that transitions were better to me.

Unfortunately, my life as a season employee means I face at least two major transitions annually and although it really seems like the simplest transition should be going from working full-time out of the house to working from home, that's actually always the bumpiest one, where it takes me the longest to get my sea legs back under me. It can be so tricky when your schedule magically opens up and you feel like you should be able to get everything done that you'd be neglecting for the last, oh, five months, never minding the fact that there's still real actual work that needs attention. C'est la vie.

So here I am, still waiting to fall into a fairly set, but still flexible work from home schedule which allows me to make money, make/write nice things, have a clean home, and eat good, healthy food most days of the week. Today's a bit of recovery day, since I spent the weekend pounding up and down Hwy 61 and I-35 with the parents to catch the Saturday matinee of Wicked at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. It was a fabulous performance (I really do love that musical) and an excellent change of pace after a long summer season. It feels wonderful to be home again, sitting in the sun on the couch, tapping away at my iPad because I'm too lazy to get my winter "home office" set up just yet.

There are a lot of things clamoring for my attention at the moment including the mess that is my office, the dump truck load of firewood sitting in the driveway waiting to be stacked and the two last episodes of "Big Bang" theory to be watched before the disc can be sent back. It's easy to feel like I should be a multitasking extraordinaire at the moment, but instead I'm trying to take things one step at a time and try to devote my full attention to whichever task I find before me at the current moment. Since next weekend it's off to D-town again for the annual "holiday" celebration with a group of college friends, I have a feeling I'm not really going to fall into any semblance of a schedule until sometime in early November.

And speaking of Saturday's get-together, can I just state how smart we are for taking what's traditionally been a Christmastime event and doing it in early November instead. It saves us from all sorts of holiday scheduling conflicts and also (hopefully) saves us from some of the headaches of winter travel. Also, because our celebration falls over the transition out of daylight savings time, we end up with any extra hour together. Winning.

Not having a set schedule has allowed me to go for longer runs in the morning. Last Monday, I took my first run in blowing snow, as you can tell from precipitation build up on my hat. I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough to deal with sharp little snowflakes blowing into my retinas for 30+ minutes, but happily, our weather has stabilized a bit since then. I'm still hopefully I've got until late November to keep running on the road before things get too slick and nasty for running shoes. I have no idea how I'll keep running/training in the winter. The most logical winter fitness substitution is cross-country skiing. Unfortunately, I abhor cross-country skiing. Abhor it, I say!

Our little hook-up box for broadband internet was installed last week. Unfortunately, word on the street is that broadband won't be a reality up here until sometime next summer. Cue toddler inspired temper tandrum.

 

One of the brightest (and simpliest) spots in my work from home days is a return to the 3 p.m. London fog tea break time. Oh nom nom nom.

 I spent a fair amount of time last week spiffing up my Etsy shop for the holiday season. (Because, you know, that's way more important than actually working.) Things are looking pre-tee good, if I do say so myself. And yes, we had a thin coating of snow on the ground all of last week. It's gone now.

Andy forever upped the gift giving ante last Christmas when he presented me with a long desired iPad so I had to get him a decent birthday present, rather than a couple crappy cds as I am want to do. (It should be noted that when I insisted I wanted, nay, needed, an iPad for oh, the approximately 30 months between when Apple introduced the iPad and when I actually got one, I never went so far as to actually research what iPad actually was or *cough, cough* how much they cost. Apparently I am a sucker for marketing.)

Enter the trail camera. Andy's been wanting a trail camera for a couple years now to help with deer "scouting" so a couple weeks back I finally ordered him one, despite the fact that his birthday isn't until mid-November. For the last week, we've been setting up the camera all over the neighborhood, trying to catch the elusive "big buck" on camera.  Deer season starts on November 9th.