Simple, right?

Last night I read through my own archives.  I'm not sure why, but I'm glad I did.  For one thing, I noticed some things to edit.  But what stood out the most is how I've changed as a writer.  My Inner Critic tells me that I'll never be a real blogger, that I have no voice, that I'm an okay copy-writer but not a story-writer, that I'm not interesting whatsoever.  But reading my own words, comparing two years ago to last winter, I'm starting to see that, once again, my Inner Critic is full of shit.  I've gotten better, I'm learning to write as I think, as opposed to as I think others might want to read, I've got a bit more focus, and I'm starting to feel a bit more confident, if not prolific.  It's still hard to get motivated though.

I mentioned in a conversation on Twitter the other day that once I have something to write about, I really like the writing process.  But thinking of something worthwhile to write about is where I get stuck every damn time.  That notebook I was keeping beside the bed to write my blog ideas in has been packed (in the same box as my alarm clock, I think) and despite having plenty of time to sit down and type, I just tell myself that nothing is happening, therefore there's nothing to write about.  My blog has always been a simple journal - I share it with my family & friends through Facebook as a way to keep them in the loop on what's going on with me, so I've always had to have some sort of event to write about.  I'm trying to change that mindset, and just write for the sake of writing, to exercise my brain and exorcise some demons.

I think once life settles down and I have a routine again it'll be easier, but these past few months have been anything but settled.

***

As for news, there's nothing to report really.  B is hoping for an interview in the next week or so with a watershed organization in southwest Oregon (around Coos Bay).  He's had some great communication with the Executive Director there, so we're taking it as a good sign considering he's had nothing but form emails ("Don't call us, we've had a bazillion applicants & really don't want to hear from them all" kind of thing) or no communication at all from anyone else that he's applied with.  The supposed "Veteran's Preference" with federal jobs is apparently a load of crap, as he's gotten nothing but rejection after rejection from every department he's applied with, including the Corps of Engineers.  It's disheartening.

Me, well, I was officially terminated at the end of July (which makes sense, considering it's been six months since I was laid off), and I will finally admit that I'm a little bitter about it.  I put two years of hard frickin' work into their green program, and now what?  They're just ignoring it, I think.  I can't even think of an adequate word to describe how I feel when I still see my name on their website, see that they haven't changed any of the information there to reflect that they're not doing the programs anymore.  It's a combination of pissed, yet slightly hopeful, like maybe they're not ready to drop the idea of picking me back up just yet.  Who fricking knows??  Regardless, I've still been applying to jobs out west, but have gotten squat for real leads.  Same shit, different day.  I'd still go back to my old job in a heartbeat, though.

***

As for the move, well, if B gets called about the job in Oregon, then we'll coordinate it with that.  Otherwise, we're leaving Ohio sometime around the beginning of September, no later than the 4th.  B's mom is flying to Missoula to visit B's brother (Little B?  B-Dubz?  Shit, I hate trying to think of nicknames to ensure anonymity, especially when their initials are the same) and B's dad is driving with us, so we're going to time it so we get to Missoula on the same day.  B and I will continue on to my nephew's place outside Spokane and crash there, and our stuff will actually stay in storage here in Ohio until we know where we're going.  It keeps us from having to move our stuff more than once (or twice, really, counting the move from Toledo), and saves us a lot of effort.

So we have a couple of weeks yet for everything to change.  Since it's inevitable that something will come along to screw up our plans.

A Random Random Tuesday

I haven't been doing Random Tuesday Thoughts in a while, mainly because it wound up being the only thing I would post, and I thought that was pretty lame of me.  So instead, I just don't post.
***
Last night I dreamt that I was in Target, trying to decide if I wanted to steal a Superman action figure for a craft project.  But none of the action figures were the original Superman in tights with a red cape - they were all "futuristic" with chrome jock straps and night vision goggles, so I decided not to swipe one after all.  As I was leaving the store a little cream toy poodle walked in the door by himself, so I cornered him and was trying to find a tag with his owner's info on it, except he had so many tags on his collar I couldn't figure out which one was current.  I somehow looked up his ID number online and got a list of even more owners, and it just made me sad to think that this poor dog (who I distinctly remember had cataracts and a gray muzzle, so obviously a senior dog) had been through over a dozen homes in his life, and had been named some really stupid names like Coors Light.  I mean, what kind of jackass names a poodle Coors Light?
***
There's a 14-day backorder on our new iPhones from AT&T (yet apparently the Apple Store has them in stock - grrr) so I've been putting together my wish-list of apps in iTunes.  Seriously, Cowboys Vs Zombies?  I'm on that like white on rice, baby.  If anybody can recommend some good ones, I'd love to hear about them.  I have the basics - my bank, The Weather Channel, Mapquest, Movies, Tweetdeck - and I want a good grocery shopping app, one that scans barcodes and maintains lists.  I'm going to test Grocery Gadget Lite, and maybe Shopper too.
***
(Just checked the status of our orders, SHIPPING TODAY!!  WHOOT!!)
***
I've been loading up my Etsy shop with jewelry, some lovely things I might add.  I even had little business cards made with my shop logo (thank you Vistaprint for freebies!).  I'm going to have to slow down for a bit though, until we get settled into wherever we're going.
***
Can anybody recommend a good moving company for a cross-country move?  I'm getting quotes from United Van Lines, Mayflower, and Budget Van Lines - and of course there's U-haul as a last resort.  Is there any place else I should be looking into?
***
I can't get enough of this commercial:


Frickin' hamsters, ya'll.

Mantras don't always help you sleep though.

I came to the conclusion the other day that goals really aren't worth having.  All they do is stress you out, make you anxious, direct your focus so tightly that you tend to miss out on a lot of other stuff, and ultimately disappoint you in some way.

Now, ideas and dreams - things we'd like to see or do or get, without hanging a lot of hope on and putting a lot of work into them, those are different.  They hang there in the air, and if the chance comes along to snatch them, then it's easy and generally painless and often more gratifying, in that you had no expectations attached to them.

Fate, I guess.  If it's gonna happen, it'll happen, regardless of how much I stress out about it.
It's an easy thing to think - not so easy to live, especially if you're a control-nut like me.  I need a plan.  I rarely leave the house to run an simple errand without a plan - where to go to first, can I save time by getting everything at one place, should I go here too while I'm out, blahdeblah.  And god forbid I don't have a list.

But when it comes to big things, like, say, moving across the friggin' country, it's so much harder to give it up to fate.  I want it to happen so bad that I fuss and stress and freak right the hell out, and I'm afraid that it's going to ruin the joy of finally getting to go.  Whenever that might be.  (Soon, dammit!)

***

B's been working on a research project for one of his professors back over in Bowling Green this past month, which has delayed us a bit but I'm not complaining because (a) it's money and (b) it's experience on his resume.  We've both been applying to every job we might be remotely qualified for, in every place in Oregon & Washington that we might like to live (Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, Eugene, Corvallis, and every little town in between) - I keep telling myself that competition in the job market is ree-frakking-diculous right now, that there are x-times as many people applying for all of these openings as there might be in normal economic times, and that every rejection email (or no response at all) isn't a reflection on us.  It's really hard not to take it personally though.

We still have some options open to us though, to just go and figure out the rest when we get there, but we still have some obligations here to fulfill.  Besides, driving through South Dakota in August is not my idea of a good time, so maybe closer to fall would be better anyway...

I just keep telling myself all of these things - let it happen... don't take it personally... we still have options... but it can still be overwhelmingly difficult to deal with sometimes.

Life, Revised

Last year I wrote my Bucket List. I thought at the time that it was pretty concise, but that's the thing with lists - they're never really done.

Ashley over at The Accidental Olympian just wrote her first "Life List" (a term I like better than Bucket List for sure, which was coined by Mighty Girl, who has a kick-ass list I might add) and so I've revisited mine and changed a few things.   

See Live:

• Flogging Molly on St. Patrick's Day
• Handel’s Messiah at Christmas
• Jimmy Buffett
• Penn & Teller
• A Seahawks game
• An NHL game (no team preference at this point)
• A bluegrass festival
• An honest-to-god Highland Games

Travel to:

• The Outer Banks, NC
• Walt Disney World/Orlando (again)
• Epcot Beers & Wines of the World Tour
• Greece, Italy, Paris, British Isles (Art History Tour)
• New Zealand
• Every National Park:  Acadia, American Samoa, Arches, Badlands, Big Bend, Biscayne, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Carlsbad Caverns, Channel Islands, Congaree, Crater Lake, Cuyahoga Valley, Death Valley, Denali, Dry Tortugas, Everglades, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier, Glacier Bay, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Basin, Great Sand Dunes, Great Smoky Mountains, Guadalupe Mountains, Haleakala, Hawaii Volcanoes, Hot Springs, Isle Royale, Joshua Tree, Katmai, Kenai Fjords, Kings Canyon, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, Lassen Volcanic, Mammoth Cave, Mesa Verde, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic, Petrified Forest, Redwood, Rocky Mountain, Saguaro, Sequoia, Shenandoah, Theodore Roosevelt, Virgin Islands, Voyageurs, Wind Cave, Wrangell – St. Elias, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion
• All the lakes Dad liked to go or wanted to go, including Christmas Island (Fly Fishing Tour)
• Boston – Sam Adams Brewery Tour
• San Francisco – New Belgium Brewery Tour
• Cape Cod (this summer!!  Which will be another post when we have it all figured out!)

Try:

• Snowboarding
• Sea kayaking
• Hike-in camping
• Cooking a turkey
• A new food or recipe once a month at least
• Writing short stories

Learn to:

• Cast a flyrod (better)
• Ride a horse again
• Quilt  
• -- Hand-quilt
• -- Applique
• Crochet
• -- Granny Squares
• Make cheese
• Sew clothing, not just handbags

Do:

• Collect furniture from yard sales & thrift stores, and refinish it
• Throw an honest-to-god dinner party that doesn’t involve chips & salsa
• Design & build our own energy-efficient & eco-friendly house
• Use my camera more
• Try selling photos & other crafty things on Etsy
• Be in shape enough to run for an hour at a steady pace
• Run an animal sanctuary for pets that wouldn’t be adopted otherwise
• Own & operate a gift shop in a touristy town, selling my handmade items
• Stop drinking pop
• Start drinking more wine
• Work for a college/university in the art department, event coordinator, sustainability, whatever
• Have a self-sustaining homestead/hobby farm
• Have a booth at a farmer's market
• Have a big, sunny, airy studio in the upper story of B's shop
• Take a pottery class
• Take a stained glass class
• Get at least one meaningful tattoo

Bonus: There aren't any assholes with loud stereos here!

We made it over to the Lovely In-Law's place in once piece - considering it was only a two hour trip, that's not really saying much.  But there were concerns about being able to fit in the truck and then in the storage unit, and there were concerns about getting the pets transported.  The first two concerns were valid - it was a tight squeeze, but we got everything into the truck or the FIL's van, and then into the storage unit or the IL's garage (we're refinishing our dining room set, and B is sorting through some of his stuff while we're here, so we had quite a load to bring to the house).  Granted, we couldn't find anything in the storage unit if our lives depended on it, but at least it's in there.

The cats, however... that's a more interesting story.  I got some sedatives from the vet a few weeks ago, mainly for Gyro.  When we made the trip to Toledo three years ago, he was a hot mess the whole way.  Drooling, yowling, peeing, hyperventilating - I did not want a repeat performance, for both my sanity and his health.  So first we made the decision to take the pets to the IL's a couple of days before our stuff to save them that stress.  I crushed up one of the little pink pills and mixed it with half a can of wet food, gave Gyro the dosed half & Lily the rest.  She'd always been fine in the car, curled up and quiet, so I didn't want to dose her.  Well, except I didn't take into account the fact that she's a pig, and she finished off the last few bites of Gyro's drugged food.  So Gyro got nearly a full dose, and Lily got a very small dose... and this time, Lily was the hot mess.  Gyro was quiet and relaxed, nearly konked out.  But Lily was stoned, and it scared her.  It was like The Exorcist in her carrier - she'd lay on her back and push off all sides with her feet until she was spinning around like a demented banshee, and yowling like one too.  She didn't pee, thank god, but she was in bad shape.  She finally calmed down when we were 20 minutes from the house, and once we got inside she was fine.  Beyond that, they've both adapted pretty well to the little apartment, and are enjoying the windows and the birds outside.  Jake, of course, is happy as a dog can be with a humongous yard to run in.  He's only gotten lost once or twice I think, which is pretty good.  His recall is getting better, although it still takes some raised voices to break his concentration when his nose is to the ground.

As for us, we still aren't sure what our time-frame is for heading out west.  We've got a free month of storage, so if we wanted to leave at the end of June we'd save ourselves some money, but I don't know if we're going to be able to swing that schedule.  B picked up a job for June, helping one of his professors from BG with a study on Lake Erie, so he's going to be spending a couple of days each week back over near Toledo.  So trying to work out logistics would be tough with that going on.  We're trying to sell a few more things too - we got rid of the extra bed last week, and B has ordered the parts he needs for the Buell so it can be sold too.  He might sell the Yamaha parts he has, but he hasn't decided if he wants to give up on that project yet.  The point is, our list of things to do before The Big Move is changing a little - not growing a ton, but definitely changing - so we might push it out a little bit.

We're both still job-hunting - B is getting frustrated with the hiring process for federal jobs - it's very slow and he's very impatient.  I applied for my dream job the other day, so I'm really crossing my fingers on it (Sustainability Director at University of Oregon!), and a few others too.  I really hate the job-hunting process though, it makes me feel horribly un-qualified.  My experience is so widely spread - I have very little in-depth in any one area.  It's making my enthusiasm for this whole idea start to fizzle.  And then I start thinking too much and worrying - we're 31 years old, neither of us have jobs, we don't have a home, we hardly have any savings, good god are we even fit to call ourselves adults?! - but then reality and common sense kick in and I remember - B sacrificed the better part of a decade to serving his country which required putting the rest of our lives completely on hold.  We don't have a mortgage hanging over our heads.  We're not tied down to a city that we absolutely hate.  We can find something to pay the bills until we find something that will help fulfill our goals.  It'll all work out.

I hope.