Sunny days

Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is clear
Can you tell me how to get, how to get...

Okay, really I just wanted to share that I really have enjoyed my sun flowers this summer, which made me think of sunny days and then Sesame Street apparently. I get excited when a new blossom starts opening up. The ones in front of my house are starting now, and the ones in the back are going by.

I think it is cool how the florets, as they are apparently called, open starting from the outside and work their way in to the middle of the bloom.

Can you see the nectar?

Pollen!

Using things up

Before moving, I try my best to use stuff up in the kitchen. That is why I had to make these cookies for work. I also continue to use my grandmother's old mixer with a two-pronged plug. They do not make these things like they used to!

Of course if you have seen any of my other recipe posts, you have probably guessed that I did not just make those exact cookies. For the flour, I used about 1 1/2 cups plus 1/2 cup oatmeal and a couple of tablespoons of flax meal. Might as well pretend there is something healthy about them! For the 2 cups of chocolate chips, I used up cookie additives - butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, slivered almonds and coconut. Why I had small amounts of all of these, I do not know.


The cookies are delish though. Now I must go finish getting a presentation ready for lab meeting

Size matters

One, get your mind out of the gutter. No personal details here.
Two, apparently it is a posting kind of day for me.

Three, the purpose of the post. It comes down to decisions and choices. With lots of small things to choose or decide, I can happily make a list and check items off as they are addressed. Right now I feel like I have too many big choices to make.

Living options (hopefully both options)
1. Smallish 2 bedroom lower level of duplex. Own driveway, patio, garden space, and fireplace (with a stack of wood outside!). Also a little musty, in unit washer and dryer are small size, built into a hill so only small windows on the sides, but a large window looking out one side. ~6 miles to work so could bike, but likely wouldn't. Therefore I wouldn't be saving myself from my car. Also a little strange because I would be splitting bills with the upstairs people.

2. Top floor of a duplex with the kitchen, living space, screened in porch and outdoor porch overlooking a lake. Yup. A lake. 2 bedrooms on the back/street side of building. Bathroom recently redone. Full-sized washer dryer in bathroom closet. All utilities are natural gas. Um. I guess the downside is that currently a few cabinet doors are not attached.

Both are currently empty. The first one they wanted me to sign a lease ASAP, but I am pretty sure I have not fully agreed to that. I will feel a little bad if I don't end up there. But it's not my problem. I really want that second one...

In the long run I won't likely save money by moving. The cost of moving will probably cancel out the spacing out of car-related costs. I will save time. Probably about an hour of my time every day and also the ability to run into work to do little things on the weekend without feeling like I am losing my day. This will be really convenient to keep my research going.

Odd

Everyone who finds out about CF's job says that is great...and then assumes that I am moving too. CF's friend was like, "Oh, that's great he got a job. So I assume you're moving there?" To which I replied that I was moving closer to work. It was a little awkward.

My lab manager was like, "OH, so I guess you'll be moving there too?" To which I replied, "I don't know."

One person actually said that she was happy he got a great job, but sorry for me that it was somewhere else. She is also from VT and said that much like me, this is about as far into the Midwest as she really would want to go.

Why doesn't anyone wonder why CF didn't take the job here? Even though the job he took is exactly the type of job he was hoping for, maybe I haven't been explicitly telling people he had a choice to live here still?

I guess people assume that if someone in a relationship takes a job that it was a joint decision.

Overwhelmed

I am completely overwhelmed by life right now. It is a daily struggle to not just waste time online to avoid the paper I should be working on, the experiments I need to do, the undergrad I do not want to deal with, the apartment/home I need to find to move into, the other details of moving (like HOW), the packing, the CF accepting a job in another state and thinking (hoping?) I would agree to move, the 50 mile walk in a few weeks, a department retreat, and other things like eating, sleeping, cleaning...

Hugs are good. Talking does not really help because I just get upset and I have done that enough in the past couple of weeks. I bet my bro and sis-in-law are REALLY excited to see me now. ;-)

K. Off to stop procrastinating again...

Good memory

CF has a good memory; I have never been a very good stereotypical woman when it comes to remembering relationship-related dates.

Three years ago today, we met in Montana!