Okay. I've been busy, or maybe just lazy. At least lazy with this blog. Time to get back into then habit of writing here.
Now for a quick synopsis of what the last month has brought.
Currently I am putting together my CV, so that I can send out some applications to a few universities. I would like to be able to teach for real, rather than just being an unofficial faculty member. Right now other faculty members ask me to help teach their courses, but the university will not consider hiring me as faculty. I am fed up with it.
Abelisto is also fed up with the university too. His sabbatical was turned down, and not for a good reason. Read here, and here, and here. We need to find a school that needs a sociologist and an artist.
The website redesign at work is just now getting started. This past week my fellow team members and I filled out a fairly detailed questionnaire for the discovery phase. We meet with the Atomic Playpen team on the 3rd.
Daughter-2 has gone back to Las Vegas, enrolled in UNLV and hopes to get the 7 credits necessary to finish her BA there. The registrar at our university was wonderful when daughter-2 went to speak with her about the options.
Daughter-2 was due to fly out of La Crosse on Christmas day - at 6:30 pm on the last flight heading to Minneapolis/St. Paul. I love flying out of the La Crosse airport - it's 25 minutes from our house (unless we get stuck on the wrong side of the railroad tracks). All flights go out of gate 2... I don't think there is a gate 1. I know there's not gate 3... It's great - they actually have an area where you can wait with your loved ones up until maybe 20 or 25 minutes before their flight leaves. Then they go through a short and quick security check and get on the plane. No more driving two and a half hours, dropping someone off and giving them a quick hug on the street, trying not to get hit by the crazy drivers or yelled at by security.
Anyway, when we got to the airport around 5:30 on Christmas day, we stood outside for a little while (it was not very cold, compared to the previous few days) while daughter-2 and daughter-3 shared a last cigarette together and then wheeled, dragged, carried the luggage into the airport. They ended up coming back out, dragging the luggage with them. Turns out the flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul was canceled, not due to weather - which was our first assumption - but due to a mechanical problem with the plane. Since it was to be the last flight out that day, the best we could do was come back at 4 am for the first flight of the next day. Daughter-2 was not happy at all, and actually I did not relish getting up at 3 am to make the trip all over again. The clerk, seeing our faces, said "what a shame, the only ticket left on that flight is in first class..." Daughter-2 promptly stated that she would take it. So she got to fly not only between La Crosse and Minneapolis/St. Paul, but all the way to Vegas in a first class seat.
Since she left I have been a bit sad. I really did not get to spend much time with her while she was here. All her old friends kept her quite busy. I had forgotten (and I think she had too) how many firends she has here and what a social creature she was (is). I am hoping that everything works out in LV school-wise. She really wants to finish her BA.
I have a few projects in process right now
- a 4 yard swath of linen/rayon/cotton fabric that I am weaving. It will end up being a garment of some sort. I have about 2 feet of it woven as of tonight.
- two encaustic projects - one on driftwood and one on heavy watercolor papers
- a quilted vest for Abelisto. We keep our house between 60 and 62 degrees and sometimes a sweater, sweatshirt or jacket is too much, but a turtleneck is not enough.
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