March 1

Today is the 1st of March.  My first action plan for the day - set up some appointments.  Toby, our dog, is my first appointment of every day.  Even though it is raining, every day starts with a run.  That is my goal - it doesn't always happen, but if I aim for that, I find I make it most of the time.  I have also decided he gets at least 20 minutes of training time with me every day.  We are going to work on SIT, STAY, DOWN, and COME.  Additionally, I am hoping to teach him to STAND.  He does a pretty decent job of slack lead walking and he will heel when we are out for our morning run.  Well, sort of.  Birds are a great distraction.  For a 6 month old puppy, he is doing really well.  Wait, he is 7 months now!  Still, we have a good time together and he is full of life and joy.  I have a secondary goal (nice if we can do it) to walk Toby once a day too.  He needs the exercise and so do I.  Sitting is too unhealthy.

I am also going to make time to do some investigation into the new hunger documentary. I really want to do something that will make a difference and this seems like something worth working on.  Really, there shouldn't be anyone going hungry in this country.  If I am going to survive being retired, I am going to have to hurl myself into something that gets me out of the house and working with people.  I don't want to be just a pair of hands, though.  I have skills that could help accomplish things and I want to use them.

Then there is the loom.  This warp will drive me to distraction, no doubt.  I cannot imagine how it is going to untangle.  I may have to rewind the entire thing.  Sigh.  Luckily, my knitting is fairly uninspired and interminable garter stitch, so I am not tempted.  My spinning wheel calls.  I wonder what a good amount of time would be reasonable for each.  Once the loom is warped, maybe an hour or so weaving and an hour or so spinning?

More anon.

February 28th - the last day of the shortest month

I don't know if this is going to work or not, but I think it is time to set myself on a COURSE of some sort and I hope to use this blog to manage myself through the process.  I am currently on hiatus from my job - which is a nice way of saying that I am on paid leave until my employment is terminated because they don't have any work for me.  So I have two more months to think about what I want to do next.  I have told my children over and over, "you don't have to think about what you want to do for the rest of your life, just what you want to do next."  However, that shifts when you are a certain age and "next" and "the rest of your life" might not be that dissimilar.  Not my favorite thing to think about but there it is.

I actually have a friend who is a life coach - she has tons of really good stuff to help and lots of excellent advice.  I have started working through her workbook (here is a link if you are interested in learning more: The 4 Rooms Way) and I think I will use that some as I think through this.  The blog, however, is only about my personal journey and what I am thinking about as I bumble along.  I don't even know if I will let anyone know it exists.  We will see.

So who am I?  Well that really is the center of the question, at least for me.  I have always been pretty conservative about my work life - taking jobs that worked for me or were expedient (they paid the bills). And when people asked about me, I would identify myself that way: software engineer, graduate student, math/computer science professor, biostatistician, IT manager, etc.  On the personal side, I was a wife twice (the second time stuck) and mother in a very complicated, blended families - ah heck, they are all my kids - way.  But they are all grown, and the jobs are at an end - so the question is newly pertinent.  The last two years of my working life I spent commuting from an island in Puget Sound to Southern California every week.  The intensity of that experience, the toll it took on me and my relationships, and the stress of the job really makes this situation very sudden and something like a cold shower: shocking, but slightly invigorating.

I have made two decisions so far (as I learned about my new reality on January 13th).  Well, maybe three...

1) I am going to retire.  I cannot make myself go back to work, start over with another organization, commute 3 hours a day at least (I live on an ISLAND - you have to take a ferry), only to quit in a couple of years when I reach some arbitrary retirement age.   When I think about doing it, I shudder and break out in a cold sweat.  That tells me I should not do it, if I can manage that - a part of my conundrum is that I am not sure I can manage to quit working emotionally.  We will have to see.

2) I am going to indulge my fiber passion.  I have taught myself to spin, I am a crazed knitter, and I love weaving too.  And what about dyeing????  So I am going to explore and invest time into pushing myself to find out what I love the most.

3) A Place at the Table is inspiring to me.  I am going to figure out a way I can contribute to solving this problem.  I don't know how yet.  

Enough for today... More anon.