The Times...They Are a Changin'...

Well, I have officially transitioned from my job in Residence Life to my job in the English department. Anyone who has known me for longer than 2 days knows that I don't deal so well with transition. I'm doing OK with this one, but today was a little hard. My last day at my ResLife job was last Thursday. On Friday, I began training for my teaching position in the English department. The training has been really great and enjoyable. I'm getting really excited to start teaching next week and get back into class. I'm looking forward to having a more flexible schedule.

One of the things I noticed when I was considering making this change last spring, was that when I was in the English department with my English people (not ones from England), I wanted to do the English thing. When I was in the ResLife department with ResLife people, I wanted to stay there. Ultimately, I know this is the right decision for me. This is the career path I want to pursue. On the first day of training, we were about halfway through the day and I sat down and just had a moment of pure joy. I was so happy that this had finally become a reality. I had another moment when we were having a discussion in training and I said, "I'm not a grammar teacher, I'm a writing teacher." To actually be able to say the words "I'm a teacher" was a bit surreal. To be teaching in a college setting is even better. I'm so excited. But, at the same time, I'm struggling with leaving my old job. I liked my old job. At times, I truly loved it. I love the people I worked with. Usually I leave jobs when I have become completely miserable. Then I wait six months, until I'm even more miserable, before I reach a breaking point and have to do something about it. That didn't happen this time. Sure, there was a moment when something clicked and I realized this isn't what I should be doing. It wasn't long into my first semester of grad school (I think it was about 3 weeks) when I realized a Ph.D. would be in my future. One of the steps to that would have to be getting teaching experience.

I'm so lucky that my department was generous enough to give me a GTA position my second year. Typically those positions are what draw people to a program. They fund your education and give you a stipend. Since I was already in the program and had turned it down the previous year, they knew I wasn't going anywhere. They still decided to give it to me anyway, which means that a potential other student might not come to the program since that position went to me. (There are only a certain number of positions/funding available.)

Despite the fact that I know this is the right thing to do, I have felt some guilt about it. It's a significant pay cut for me. I no longer get benefits. It's a fixed term position. I'm going to graduate myself out of a job in May. I will be working fewer hours while Henry is still working 45+ a week and going to school. He has been nothing but supportive and I'm so appreciative of that. I still feel some guilt though.

Today was hard because it was opening day for the Residence Halls. The day we work so long, and so hard for. It was weird not being a part of the excitement and process. Two halls were remodeled this summer and I went to go look at them today, but I felt like a bit of an outsider. Tonight, we had our opening celebration. Everybody from our office gets together and goes out to eat and drink and celebrate all the hard work. The end of a summer and the start of a new year. I had so much fun. I love hanging out with my former co-workers. I've spent the last few days immersed in English world and hanging out with English people. They're wonderful and I love them. But it's hard seeing myself getting distanced from my ResLife crew. I hope it's not a great distance. I hope the friendships and relationships are able to be maintained. It shouldn't be too hard; I'm only a 5 minute walk away. But I've found that even when you think it should be easy, it isn't always easy to maintain those relationships. I've had friendships end that I NEVER thought would go away. So today was a bit hard because of that, too. Maybe, despite all the best intentions, I won't stay friends with the people I've grown so close to over the last 2 years. This is why I don't do well with transitions. It usually means the end of something, and sometimes it's the end of good things that shouldn't end. So that's why my celebration was tinged with a bit of sadness. I hope it's not the last time. I really, really hope so. I hope these friendships are maintained and grow even stronger. I hope I stop feeling the pull to occupy two worlds and am able to merge them into one totally awesome world that contains totally awesome people.

In the meantime, I have to finish writing a syllabus. That's right; I'm writing a syllabus. Because I'm a teacher.

Sacajawea Peak 2.0

Last Labor Day,I hiked Sacajawea Peak, the highest peak in the Bridgers. It's about 9700 feet high. After doing it last fall I swore I would never do it again. Once was enough. It's only 4 miles round trip, but you climb 2000 feet in the 2 miles up. And then you go down 2000 feet. I can't decide which is worse. Actually, I can. Up. Up is worse. But down isn't much of a relief.

So, anyway, I decided once was enough and I didn't need to do it again. Enter Amber and Mark. Amber is a good friend of mine from my English program. She and her husband (Mark) decided they wanted to hike it and invited me and Henry. Henry just laughed when I invited him. He did that hike years ago and knew it was a one timer. I, however, seem to be a bit of a masochist. (Hence the triathlon, marathon, triathlon situation I had a few years ago. And the nagging desire I have to do a half Iron. I digress.)

So, yes, I decided to hike it again and Mark, Amber, Sirius, and I set out on a beautiful summer day to scale the Bridgers. We had a great time and the hike was beautiful. Hard, but beautiful. It was nice hiking it with human companions this time, and it was even nicer when they needed a break, too. I may be a masochist, but my athletic strength lies in being able to suffer for long periods of time, not being able to do anything quickly. (Truly, a 10 minute mile is CRUISING for me.) I read a training book one time and it talked about how some muscles are genetically designed to be sprinters, and some are designed to be endurance. Apparently, I got the endurance muscles in excess and absolutely no speed ability. So when other people go my speed it makes me feel more normal.

We had a PERFECT day for the hike. It was warm, but not too hot. Enough of a breeze to cool us down, but not remotely cold. The sky was perfectly clear, until we got home and it started raining. Perfect. When we were hanging out at the peak, there was a glider going by! There were a lot of thermals and updrafts that day so the glider was able to go around for a really long time. He circled the peak about 4 or 5 times over the course of 30-40 minutes. Very cool. Then, when we were coming down, a lady down the trail was shouting and waving her arms at us. Finally, Mark turned around and figured out that she was telling us there were mountain goats behind us! It was very cool. There was a mom and a baby walking up to the peak. I was almost tempted to go back up there. We had stayed for about half an hour and 5 minutes after we left, the goats came. However, it was going to take a lot more than goats to get me to climb back up that mountain. Maybe goats who were giving away money might have done it. Not much else though. So we stood and watched the goats for awhile. I was so happy we got to see them.

Getting close to the top.

Amazing view

The AEGS gavel! Amber and I are the President and Vice President of AEGS this year and we thought it was fitting to bring the gavel to the top of the mountain.

One of my favorite views of all time. I could stare at this for days.

Siri on top of the world!

The glider.

Glider again.

We were exhausted, and Siri is starting to show his age a bit. He was limping by the time we got down and I'm not sure if it was from sore paws or sore muscles. The trail is really rocky and my feet were hurting, so I can only imagine what his felt like. He slept all day the next day (the day we were painting) and I gave him some anti-inflammatory meds. He was doing fine by Sunday night but it was a bit of a rude awakening for me. My little dog isn't as young as he used to be! The trail is also pretty hard on him because there is only water in one spot at the beginning. I have to pack water in for him and he drinks a lot. He did a great job though and was a joy to have around. He also likes to pretend he is part mountain goat and climb down steep parts of the mountain and scare the crap out of me.

Speaking of mountain goats, none of my attempted pictures of the goats turned out. I'll have to see if Mark and Amber got any good ones I can use to put up.

It was a great day and we had so much fun. I may even do this hike again!

Office Remodel

This seems to be the summer of house projects! One of the things we wanted to do this summer was to re-do our office. We spend a lot of time in this room and it's never been very comfortable or inviting. With my schedule change to GTA next year, and working on a thesis, I'm going to be spending even more time in this room. That made it a big priority to get redone during the summer. We've learned the hard way about attempting to get things done during the semester. It doesn't happen. Luckily, we're beginning to form (somewhat) realistic expectations for ourselves.

Here are some pictures of the office before we did the work:

Our computer set up. Blech.

Our bookshelves. I forgot to take before pictures until after I started packing the books, hence the boxes on the ground.

Looking out into the house.

Our plan was to build a big desk that both of us could use at the same time. We wanted to make better use of the room and have more attractive furniture. After some convincing, Henry got me to agree that he could build a desk. It took us a REALLY long time to agree on style, size, function, etc. Henry had grand plans of a desk where everything was built in, hidden away, and massively huge. I had grand plans of something that would fit inside the room and allow room for my legs. It took us awhile to meet in the middle. :)

We finally found some plans online that we thought could work and went to the store a few weeks ago to get some lumber and start building this table! Here we are in progress:

Henry sanding the boards.

The Kreg jig system he used to put the whole table together. No wood glue needed!

The pile of lumber to become a table!

That can't be right.

Much better! But there's a person in the middle of it.

 We had some minor mishaps with the lumber. We ordered 4 2"x10"x12'. They gave us 4 2"x8"x12'. When we went to put the table top together, it was 8 inches too narrow. So Henry went down there and convinced them to give us a board for free. Unfortunately, he was very tired after working on the table all day and had them cut it to 5 feet instead of 6 feet. Oops! That's when we decided to call it for the day.

Sad table. :(

Henry celebrating the solidity of his table!

Finished product!

It took us a while to get the table done! I had little interest in the tedious parts like sanding, and finishing. So Henry did the vast amount of work himself. I would come out and help hold pieces together and decide what should be facing out. Well done, Hank! It's a beautiful table!

Next, we needed to paint the room. We decided on a nice blue color and on Sunday (yesterday), we moved everything out of the room, and painted it!

Here it is! I love the blue with the white trim that was already in the room.

Where the computers used to be.

Where the bookshelves used to be.

We painted the room in one day and put the last coat of poly on the table the night before. That gave us just enough time to get it dry, sanded, and moved into the room on Sunday night!

Here is the finished room:

We love the way the room is now. It makes better use of the space, the window, and we don't feel like we're shoved in a dark hole any more. Siri likes the table too! That has become a frequented spot by him in the last day. He loves hanging out under there!

Bookshelves put back and less cluttered.

We have about500 books, and no room for any more! Unfortunately, (or fortunately) with my career trajectory, it looks like we will be buying many more. I had to buy 17 just for classes this semester! If this continues to a Ph.D., we're going to need a full fledged library.


We absolutely love the new room and I'm looking forward to doing a lot of work in here this winter!

We did take a short break during one of our project days and had Matt and Katrina over for brunch. Henry mad AMAZING pancakes with the sourdough starter we got as wedding present. My mom has been trying to keep it alive for us (I can only keep animals and humans alive, not plants or bacteria) and we finally decided to use it for ourselves. The pancakes were so good and it gave me a chance to use the butter set from the 1920s that Mom in Law gave me!

I got lots of compliments on setting a pretty table - thanks Zana!! And thanks, Mom, for keeping our bacteria alive. The gift givers told us the starter was 40 years old and I'm glad we didn't lose it! We'll try to be more responsible. (Should be easy, I'm hooked on these pancakes! Especially since Henry does all the work!)

DIY Fever

This whole weekend has been filled with DIY projects and home improvement. There are a lot of things we have been wanting to do in our house and it seems like many of the barriers preventing it have gone away and we are enjoying making our home more comfortable and more of what we want. Our laundry room is really more of a laundry closet and it had just a wire rack above the washer and dryer for us to store things. It wasn't the best use of space and didn't look that nice. We have to leave the door open all the time because it's where we keep the cat food and it has the little kitty door to the garage where his litter box is. So making it look nicer AND giving us more storage space is something we've been wanting to do. We've been wanting to put in cabinets. We were at Home Depot the other day (on of our many recent trips) and they were having a sale of 20% off all instock cabinets. We decided to get some unfinished cabinets (which were half the price of the finished ones), bought a quart of stain, spent $3 on stain brushes, and finished the cabinets ourselves. We stained them last night and hung them this morning. We even bought some fancy little knobs to put on them because I thought they were cute.

Henry staining a cabinet.

Henry installing the cabinet.

The mess on our table that is going to be stored in the cabinets.

Ta Da!!!! We are going to put little shelves with baskets in the space between them. But now we're tired. Maybe next weekend.

Once again, I forgot to take a before picture. But you can imagine. In between the painting and cabinet project, we also installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom. It's so much nicer now. Our house doesn't have air conditioning (like many houses in Montana) so it's nice to have a way to help the air move. We also went to the farmer's market and did some other shopping this weekend. We are exhausted, but so happy with everything we have been getting done!

Painting and a Doggy Birthday

 For a long time, we have been needing curtain pullbacks for the curtains over our sliding glass back door. We were at Home Depot and thought we should get some. Then I found some curtains I liked and we decided to get those, too. We came home and installed the curtain pullbacks and when I hung the curtains, we realized they were the exact same color as the wall. We thought it looked stupid. So I put the curtains away and we were going to bring them back. I jokingly said to Henry, "You know, we could just paint the wall and keep the curtains." Little did I know he would be up for the task. So the next day, we went to Lowe's, picked out paint and supplies and spent the next few evenings painting the wall. On Monday, we picked up all the supplies. On Tuesday, we cleaned and prepped the wall. On Wednesday, we taped and painted. I forgot to take a true "before" picture but here are some "during" pictures.

Here is the wall after I started taping.

Siri was banished to the back yard so he got to have a picnic outside.

Siri looking longingly inside. He was distracted by his frisbee shortly after this picture was taken. You can see it in the background behind him. :)

Here it is! The first non-beige paint in our house!

Henry painting away.

More painting.

We took a few nights off after we got the first coat on. On Thursday it was Siri's 7th birthday. It's hard to believe my sweet little dog is already 7 years old! We celebrated a lot that day. I took him to work with me after lunch and he relaxed outside in the shade while I finished my last few hours of work. He got lots of attention and was a very good dog. Then I took him to the special doggy store that has a little bakery and toys. We picked out a fun new toy and he got a special birthday cupcake. Then he joined me and some friends for some after work margaritas. After that, we headed home, picked up Henry and went to our favorite park and took Siri swimming. He came home and zonked out. It was a very busy afternoon for the birthday boy.

View at the park. I love this place. You can see Siri as a little black dot in the water.

His presents - cupcake, cookie that says D-O-G, new toy from West Paw Designs, and skunk with no stuffing, but 2 squeakers.

Henry feeding Siri his treat. I love the action shot of Siri licking his lips. He's so funny.

Kitty skulking around acting indignant that his birthday isn't as big a fuss.

There he is! My most precious dog. This picture makes me smile every time.

 

 

After the birthday celebrations concluded, I put a quick second coat of paint on the wall. The next night, Friday, we went to Shakespeare in the Parks and saw their production of Twelfth Night. The week before we saw Hamlet. Both productions were great! It's one of my favorite Bozeman summer events. On Saturday we were finally ready to put the finishing touches on the paint. When we had pulled the tape off, there were some imperfections we didn't like. So we got hobby brushes and went in there to perfect the lines. I'm SOOOOO glad we did! It looks amazing. We also redid the caulk around the door since it was really hard to get a straight tape line on the caulk. We both agreed that taking the time to do those extra steps really helped make it look professional and polished. Then we remounted the curtain rod and finally hung the curtains that started it all! Here is the final product.

Yay! Done!

 

 

We love the outcome and it is making us want to paint more and more in our house. It has taken us 3.5 years to get the first paint on our walls and I think it's the start of a flood of paint!

Playing Catch Up...again.

Hmmm.. I am not the best blogger. I get busy and don't post, and then I feel behind and think it will take forever to catch up which makes me intimidated with trying to get caught up with posts. So, I'm just going to give up on being a perfect blogger and just post when I can.

Quick recap from New Year's (the last time I posted):
We're busy. Always busy. Henry and I had a full spring semester. I was in my second semester of grad school and he is now in his senior year of college. Toward the end of the semester we decided I might be happier and have a better chance of using my degree if I accepted a graduate teaching assistant position (GTA) with my grad program. Since I want to teach at the college level, this seems like a logical thing for me to do. I was offered it last year but we didn't feel like we were in a financial position for me to take the pay cut of me quitting my full time job. However, this year we decided we were would be able to do it. So as of August 16th, I'll be leaving my job and begin training to become a GTA. After a few days of training, I'll be set loose on a section of college freshman taking Writing 101. Along with teaching, I'll be tutoring in the writing lab a few hours a week. And that's it. It's scary and exciting at the same time. My work load will substantially reduced, which is nice, since I'll be writing my thesis this year. I will graduate in May, and also graduate myself out of a job. So I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Meanwhile, Henry only has a few classes left to take. His original plan was to graduate in December. However, in early June he got a promotion at work which is now taking up a lot more of his time. He accepted the position of Operations Supervisor at the security company where he works. Because of that, and after much discussion, we decided he would slow down his schooling. He is going to go down to part time which means he'll be taking 1 class per term instead of 2. (Each term is 8 weeks long so there are 2 terms per semester). This means he'll also graduate in May, at the same time I do. we thought it would be better for both of us to enter this transitional stage at the same time. There is a chance that we might have to move and if we are both transitioning at the same time, it will be much easier for us.

On that topic...yes...we might move. I would like to continue on to a Ph.D. program and there aren't any English Ph.D. programs in the state of Montana. Henry's job prospects (and pay) are also better outside of the state. So it's something we're considering, but nothing is decided or set in stone.

We finished our spring semester in the first week of May and have been going strong ever since. The day after the semester ended, we went to Boise for a week to visit my mom. Her husband passed away at the end of April so we went to spend some time with her and go to the memorial service. After that trip, we spent a week at home and then went to visit Henry's parents for Memorial Day weekend. The following weekend, my mom came to Bozeman for a week and stayed with us. A family friend was getting married and she came to town for the wedding. That week, on June 7th, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been four years.

Here is our annual family picture that we take every year on our anniversary:


Our anniversary fell on a Thursday this year so we didn't do much. We went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants over in Livingston called Second Street Bistro. The food there is AMAZING and we had a lot of fun. We spent some time reflecting on the last year and making predictions for the next year. It will be interesting to see if they come true!

A few days after that, I left for a week in California and Oregon. My stepmom was taking my nieces to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and my dad offered to send me on the girl's trip. So I flew down to CA on Sunday morning. On Monday, my dad and I visited UC Davis as a potential Ph.D. location. I enjoyed the visit, although I was very intimidated. It's a large school (32,000 students - about the size of the town of Bozeman), and their acceptance rate isn't that high. Also, the idea of Ph.D. program intimidates me. On Tuesday, Karen,, Lexi, Brittney and I drove up to Ashland, OR. We spent a 3 days there and I was able to see 4 plays. I went to see Henry V the night we got there. On Wednesday, I was able to get a ticket to Troilus and Cressida. I was so excited by this because they were sold out for the entire month of June when I tried to buy tickets in advance. I studied this play last semester and wrote a paper on it. It's a fascinating play full of complex issues (like all of Shakespeare's plays) and I was really excited to see it on stage. My seat was in the front row and it was a thrust stage (meaning the audience surrounded three sides of it) so I was ridiculously close to the action. I could tell the kisses were real kisses, not stage kisses. I could have stuck out my foot and tripped the actors. I didn't. That night, we all went to see The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, which is an adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was HILARIOUS! The next day, on Thursday, we all saw Romeo and Juliet.  All the plays were so good. We had so much fun, and I loved getting to spend time with my nieces. On Friday we drove back to Sacramento and then on Saturday I flew back home.It was a great trip and I had a blast.

The stage at Henry V - I was in the second row!

The stage at Troilus and Cressida - from my front row seat.

The stage at The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa.

Romeo and Juliet

The delicious pizza we had for dinner. Mmmmmm...I want some now...

A statue man in Ashland who scared us and we screamed.

Ever since I got back, Henry and I have stayed busy with house projects and enjoying the beautiful Montana summer! More on that in following posts!

Happy New Year!

Phew. My last blog post was right before the fall semester started and it shouldn't be a surprise that I didn't post again until the semester ended. This past fall semester was incredibly busy for me and Henry. It was my first semester of grad school and Henry had his usual heavy load of classes and work. I loved my classes but they kept me very busy. There was LOTS of reading and writing, but that's to be expected in an English program. Each class met one night a week and met for three hours. So on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I worked from 8-5 and then had class from 6-9. It made for some very long days and it was tough essentially being away from home 2 days a week. It also made me pretty tired afterwards and made homework time limited. Hence the no blog posts. Henry takes 2 classes at a time and they last for 8 weeks. That's how he gets 12 credits a semester. So his last term consisted of 2 really hard classes and kept him very busy. Knowing he would have a 3 week break at the end of it is one of the reasons we planned it that way. He is know officially a senior and should be graduated by this coming Christmas! So he'll be going to school straight through the year with only a week break in May which is one of the reasons he tried to plan out some hard classes before a break.

So here is a quick recap of the last 4 months. September and October were pretty "quiet" and just consisted of us going to work and getting back in the groove of school. (We both took the summer off, as I'm sure you all remember.) Once November hit things got crazy! I decided I wanted a birthday party this year so we threw a really fun party and had about 30 people over! It was a lot of fun and we had a Mexican theme with tacos and margaritas. A bunch of my new friends from school came (how elementary school does that sound!) as well as a bunch of our other friends. A few days later was Thanksgiving, which was the same day as Henry's birthday this year, and I hosted it! I took the Wednesday off to spend the day cooking and prepping. I had a great moment when I sat down at the table on Thursday and realized that every single food item had been made from scratch! I was very proud of myself. Henry's parents came and stayed with us for dinner and the weekend. We had some other local Bitzes and a few friends who didn't have family around and it was a lot of fun. I also made my first successful pie - Henry loves apple pie and since it was his birthday, I made him an apple pie with a cheddar cheese crust. It turned out wonderfully and I'm looking forward to making it again sometime and doing an even better job!

A picture of my beautiful table:


Thanksgiving derailed us a bit and we really struggled getting back on track with school after that. Then Henry got really sick and was home from work for about 3 days. I had 2 fifteen page research papers to write so we were both pretty stressed and busy. Not only that, but work was very busy for both of us at the time. So we were both very stressed and exhausted. We also weren't really able to prepare for Christmas until school was out so we didn't do too much this year. Henry's parents come down and stayed with us for Christmas weekend. We had Christmas dinner with some family here in town. As much as I LOVE cooking the holiday meals, it was REALLY nice having someone do it for me this year!

Henry and I both took the week between Christmas and New Year off so we could have a true vacation! The day after Christmas we drove over to Spokane to go pick up our car. Our car had to have some warranty work done and the closest dealership was in Spokane. So they were INCREDIBLY nice and paid to tow our car to Spokane and gave us a brand new loaner car for free! It was really fun and we had it for about 3 weeks until we had time to go pick up our car. So we packed up and drove over to Spokane and spent the night. We went to dinner at The Melting Pot and had a great time. It was so delicious! The next day we drove to Coeur d'Alene to go to a breakfast spot we saw in Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. We went for the pecan rolls, literally as big as your head, but they were out! Their next batch wasn't going to be ready for awhile and we debated hanging out and waiting but decided we just wanted to get home. So we'll have to plan another trip that takes us through there so we can get one. We made it home and have spent our vacation relaxing and hanging out at home. It's been so wonderful! We had a couple days of pajama wearing before we were ready to emerge into the world again. For New Year's Eve, we had a party with some friends. We had a bacon themed party and called it Bacon Bitz! It was great. Everybody was very creative with their bacon dishes.

Here is a picture of the baked brie I made. It had bacon and caramelized onions under the crust.


We still have one more day off before we go back to work and about a week or so before we go back to school. I'm glad I have another 10 days before school starts; I'm not quite ready yet! I still feel like I'm recovering so hopefully I'll be able to turn it around by the time school starts again!

2011 was a great year for us full of changes and adventures and 2012 should be another great year! It should bring Henry's degree to our family and I'm sure there will be many more fun adventures!

Happy New Year from the Bitzes!