Chastized

I have been informed that without my blogging, my neighbor's daughter has no clue what her parents are up to. Not that I blog about them, but apparently she is living vicariously through my blog and watching her parents' house in the background of my pictures.

Really, though, I have been so busy that I can't see straight.

I took a new job in March and have been driving an hour each way since then for work. My old job was disappearing, as the Federal facility I was working in was forced to close down all laboratory operations. I cleaned out, closed, and mothballed every lab under my control before I left, leaving significant resources to rot in labs that the government decided were no longer necessary.

My new job keeps me busy - I'm now supervising a small staff of trace analysts and a mass spectromoter. I am now a manager of my old self, pluralized. Which means I am on call 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, even when I'm on vacation or sick or whatever. It was incredibly challenging getting into the new job, but I'm enjoying it.

I bought a new car in June. My poor old 1998 minivan couldn't take the 110 mile per day beating, so I bought a super-safe, very efficient, comfortable little car. With Bluetooth, so I can make my phone calls while driving without ever picking up, looking at, or touching my phone. It all goes right through the dash on the car.

In August I went to Allegan again, with friends from downriver. We had a lovely time - we went on Friday, not on rainy Saturday. I was sick all the way home, though, from the wonderful seafood course of the fabulous French meal the night before. I guess I still have that shellfish allergy...

In September my Little Boy went into Middle School. He's actually doing much better than in elementary school. I chalk it up to a support staff that knows him well, and four minutes in between classes to run around and be loud.

In October we finally got my tiny little boat in the water. We sailed it all of twice before it was time to take it out for the winter. The shrouds needed shortened and it took weeks, leaving my little boat sitting mast-less in the water.

In November we started working on the Boar's Head Festival, a local all-churches madrigal/Christmas pageant that only happens every four (or five) years. I blogged about it taking over my house last time, and it once again consumed house, home, and life. And yet we love it.

The day after Thanksgiving brought daily Boar's Head work, and that went solid through, every day of the week, until two weeks before Christmas. The next week was spent in a panic that Christmas was only two weeks away, and the last week was spent doing everything that should have been done in the previous two months.

Merry Christmas!

I'm back!