Scientific Ink

Category: Life

  • Job changes, once removed (gratitude #43)

    My husband changed jobs. He wasn’t unhappy at the old one, just the opposite, but he got an opportunity for growth from a former employer and, after a fair bit of reflection, decided to take it. I’m happy for him and proud of him and all that. Really.

    I have also been anxious about it, and worried. Most of it is selfish worry, he’ll be gone more, with regular travel to Chicago and to Prague and to England and even farther afield like China and Korea. And I’m…here, working.

    Kitzbuhel city wallNot that I mind working really, after a few years of angst and searching I’ve found a place where I can stay, where I know my efforts make a difference, and where work on a smart team to do quality work for great clients. No complaints there. And, during my time of bouncing around and soul-searching, my husband was bedrock. Unflappable, confident I’d find my way, not in a rush for me to show results, he supported me without question.

    I suppose now it is my turn to cheerlead and support. And he’s going to be fine, more than fine. So I think it is more me I’m worried about than him. I think I’m feeling a little left behind. He started the new job last Friday, and went on the road immediately (left town Sunday). Today was his birthday and I wrapped and had him pack a small present (not beautifully wrapped, in case TSA wanted a peek) into his luggage for him to open.

    He’s going to have lots of travel, and several adventures, and I will be here, working, hanging with the cat and maybe we’ll Skype more but see each other less. I was really blue about this for a while, and my stress level has been all over the place. But this week, with him gone, has been alright, much better than I’d built it up to be in my head. I’ve been more than busy, attending social events after work and professional society events, so busy that I really really had to take tonight off and collect my head and do nothing because I was a very bent out of shape introvert. I always forget how much I like being alone.

    So, I’m still grateful for time alone despite my worries to the contrary, been chatting with my sister and college friends on the phone a little more, and I’ve had more dinner requests than I can capitalize on during his quick trip. So, there’s hope for friendships, local and distant, to fill in the gaps a little bit as the travel continues. I’m also contemplating what I can open the door to now that I’ll have more time available. Focusing on opportunity not anxiety. Really. Mostly.

  • Considering Commitment – How to Choose?

    I must confess, I have been an exercise dilletante. I am following my whims and switching between my Iyengar-based Yoga for Scoliosis DVD, cycling outdoors or spinning at Vie, and then rope yoga at the Ann Arbor RussaYog studio. I’ve been attempting balance – the scoliosis yoga once a week, and something else (Russa Yog or spinning) once. And in between, I might binge on stress or food or computer work or volunteer work or all four together.

    I talked with Jasprit at RussaYog yesterday. He said that if I was to focus on RussaYog, I should do it three times a week. I recall when I researched the requirements to teach Iyengar Yoga, I read I needed to be in three classes a week to prepare. What’s magic about three? Three seemed impossible to me at the time, but with other life changes, it might be do-able, if I focus and work to eliminate another obligation or two…But it would soak up any time I’d otherwise give to a cardio activity.

    I also have the sense that yoga elongates me, stretches my body, and derotates the spine, but spinning is good for my heart and being more vigorous, it releases pent up nervous energy. Spinning does aggravate my neck, tho. I am leaning towards yoga in some form, but I am concerned about missing any cardio. I do walk to work, and I suppose I can go back to walking up the stairs to my 5th Floor office….

    I’m doing a little reading online, and the argument is perhaps alternating between the two – so three times a week of EACH yoga and of spinning, but I think jumping from twice a week to six times a week is simply impossible, especially with work and other non-athletic volunteer/service activities. Sigh. Hard to choose.

  • Writing a letter to my five-year-old nephew (gratitude #42)

    So, my nephew is sad when he doesn’t get mail, and my sister asked if I would write him a letter. I was happy to, as he’s one of my absolute favorite humans, though I was also mildly stumped. What should I write?

    Kite tail

    I decided a letter at all was more important than the perfection of its contents, and I let my editor relax a bit.

    I know he just moved, from the Atlanta suburbs to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and I’m going to visit in early December, so I asked him how his new school was, and what he could see from his bedroom window. I asked him if he was an Atlanta Falcons or a Tennessee Titans fan. I told him how much I was looking forward to seeing him, and I asked if we could go on a walk together when I arrived.

    It was sweet to write him and I am excited to mail my letter tomorrow. My husband will send one in maybe a week.

    I was reminded of myself as a child, how I envied my parents getting their junk mail and bills. I longed to get mail as a sign that I was alive as well. And I was reminded of the letters my grandfather Heinrich wrote me. He used to write me handwritten letters that I was thrilled to receive, and I was touched by his thoughtfulness. My sister mentioned he used to give us stationery. I forgot that part, but I still have the letters he sent me. Maybe it is time to review them and learn how to write a letter to a child you love, so I can pass along that tradition to my nephew.

  • My desert island item – a stack of freshly laundered kitchen towels (gratitude #40)

    You might think I’m reaching the dregs in the gratitude barrel, but no, this is actually one of the things for which I’m actually, sincerely, really-really grateful.

    I’m not someone who stockpiles; I’m an under-buyer. Normally, I tend to run out and go run an errand to refill my supply of (important item here). But, along with piles of books, I stockpile kitchen towels. There are few things better or more satisfying to me than a stack of freshly laundered kitchen towels.
    dishtowels

    I haven’t actually bought many of them – several were gifts from my mom, others from friends with various wedding (yes, 8 years ago) presents, my husband’s grandmother wove some of what I use, my mother-in-law likes giving tea towels as gifts – so I can use the excuse that I didn’t intentionally acquire the set I have now. I blundered into my stockpile of dish towels. And they give me a disproportionate happiness. Yes, dishtowels.

    There’s just something abundant in the waiting stack. I like having a stack because in a weekend of a lot of cooking, say my canning fun, I can keep on tossing dirty and sodden dishtowels down into the basement (our staircase is our laundry chute) and reload the oven handle with another clean, dry towel. So, after my weekend of canning, I’d exhausted my stack of towels and needed to launder the set. There was something abundant about that too. Felt like an accomplishment.

    I use one to line underneath the bins that hold the potatoes, onions, and garlic. One is always looped over the handle of the oven, for drying washed hands or wiping up the counter. When we’re cooking, one of us has a dishtowel jauntily tossed over one shoulder, at the ready for drying a hand-washed dish or grabbing a pot handle. I suppose they’re some kind of tangible reminder of the joy we take in our kitchen, in cooking with and for friends.

    So, want to make my day? Give me a dish towel.

  • Not having to blow dry my hair – the power of a well-placed complaint (gratitude #39)

    Hair Drier...!, originally uploaded by murrus

    I really dislike blowing my hair dry. My hair is wavy, and drying it makes it flyaway, but its really about the boredom of drying it more than the end product.

    When I was a kid, I remember going out in the winter with wet hair. Now, my hair was inches below my shoulders, and so the Michigan winter would freeze it into little icicles and then it would unfreeze when I got to school. Little popsicle-dreadlocks. Probably not a good look for me, and I dimly realized that was probably socially unacceptable so I’ve been trying to fit in ever since by using a hairdryer.

    To this day, I can think of little more boring than waiting for my hair to dry under a loud hot blowing thing. Well, I always assumed I had to deal with it, and I suppose in the winter time I do. This summer, I finally thought to mention this to the one person who could do something about it – the woman who determines my hairstyle – my “beauty operator”. Maureen let me off the hook. She assured me that the simple application of some styling goo could free me from the obligation to blow my hair dry. I could style it wet and not look like a resentful 9-year-old.

    It’s funny. I’ve noticed in work that sometimes things that are really basic might feel too basic to be expressed. Yet, expressing them can unlock a thing or two. It’s the little things, I suppose.

  • Out on a limb – a friend helps rescue me from myself (gratitude #37)

    I like computers. I have worked in IT since before I left graduate school. I’m comfortable around really technical people: software developers/coders and the like. I am usually careful to say that I know my way around technical folks, but I’m not technical myself. I have an iPhone, I use my laptop wirelessly at work, at home, and even at the “cabin”, but I rely on smart colleagues and family members to give me access.

    All that to say, I’m not really all that technical. I’ll readily admit this, or at least that’s what I thought. A few weeks ago, friends called and asked if I’d help them get one of their computers onto the other’s wireless network. I tried to beg off on the phone, I made excuses such as “my husband takes care of that for me”. They instantly said it was fine if he came too. Sigh. Knowing I’d never get him over to their home, I gave in and went to their place to play computer admin, knowing better.

    Merrivale range, DartmoorYeah, right.

    So, it all started innocently enough. I messed around with their computer and indeed verified that they weren’t talking to each other. At that point, it would have been wise to raise my hands and say, “wow, I’m stumped, I really don’t know how to help. Gotta go!”

    Instead, drawn in by their faith in me and their desperation, I kept trying. You see, the one that wasn’t communicating was a PC, so I looked up various “my PC won’t talk to my AirPort network” and hacked around. Eventually, I had hacked around enough that the AirPort network was completely inaccessible. At that point (thanks to the iPhone) I learned how to reboot an AirPort Extreme network with default settings.

    At the end of the evening, after having torched and then re-setup my innocent friends’ wireless network without having given the PC access, I retreated home. Relieved to have gotten myself out of it.

    That is, until the support phone call. “Hey, so I can’t print anymore, and I’m leaving in 20 minutes to go up north and I need the directions that are in my email”. Ummmmm. Wow. Yeah. Whoops. I tried to help, she elected to just hand copy the directions and said she’d get back to me when she returned from vacation.

    I am guessing her printer was trying to talk to the wireless network I torched, and wasn’t electing to switch to the new network. How to fix that was completely beyond me. I complained to my husband, regretting and lamenting my own foolishness. He recommended I call a friend who actually is good at this kind of thing, and see if I could wheedle him into helping me. Eric agreed to help. The two of us went over, I stayed for a while, and then I left while I got it sorted out. I am grateful I didn’t do more harm, and grateful for Eric to have saved me and my innocent friends from my “helpfulness”.

    I think the lessons I learned were:

    1. Be more clear about my limits.
    2. Ask for help.
    3. Eric rocks.

    Thanks Eric!