Saturday, February 26, 2011

Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Jules

So it's been awhile.  It's sort of been awhile since the fall, really.  I am not complaining, but grad school is a different animal for both the student and his wife!  It's not for sissys, and your typically helpful, contributory husband literally cannot help because he is slammed with studying, group work, and excel assignments so complex they could likely crack the code for time travel.   I do not exaggerate their complexity...  One assignment took him 30 hours.   All this is OK; we are here for school.   (well the 30 hours on one assignment isn't really OK.  It's ridiculous)  It's just that I occasionally feel like a chicken without its head.   I expressed this to my sister last week and she inquired "What in your life is actually out of order?" and when I went into more details she explained that sort of thing is normal for most people.  So...  I'm a perfectionist?   News flash there.  I am a teensy bit crazy?   Probably, yes.   So perhaps even though I am not a student, I am still learning things during our year* in Ithaca.  Namely: old bathrooms and carpets can be cleaned daily and still look awful.  Sinks with scratches will always be sinks with scratches.   You cannot erase them.  I should relax and adopt the mantra "Que sera, sera."  Et cetera.

This chicken without its head feeling has actually risen to a new level in 2011 because....  I once again have a Full!  Time!  Job!   Woooooooo.   For those of you keeping track, I have not had full-time employment since I voluntarily left my DC job in May 2008 and we moved to Florida.  If you know anything about finance or wall street or just read the paper at any point in the 2nd half of 2008 you know why I did not find a full-time gig afterwards.  Anyhoo, I have a job now.   Who'd have thunk we'd move to Ithaca for a year and I would find a job?!   Not me.  It's a good job with a base salary and commission.   The commission bit is a first for me, but I am enjoying it because when you work a lot and work hard, you make more money.   I am usually a fast worker, so I suppose I can work 'more' in a typical day, and I like to think I am a hard worker, too.   In other words, I think this commission thing might be kind of fun.   This job is a little different than most in that I:
a) Work 44 hours in a week
b) Work 10 hours Monday - Thursday, and 4 Friday morning
c) Feel like I am barely home M-Th
d) Really enjoy Friday afternoons

It's taking some getting used to.  For example, I get home from work at 5:45 and work out.  This means we never eat dinner before 7.   We might take our first bite at 6:55, but dinner is a 7:00 event.  Again, this has not happened since we were in DC in 2008, when we both worked and got home around 6 and then went to the gym and then had dinner.

But Jules, you might say,  why don't you work out in the morning?   Well, because I start work at 7:30.  I am a morning person and always have been, but for me to make it to work at 7:30 and get in a workout I would probably have to wake up at 5 AM in order to not only shower, but dry my hair.  I would also have to go to bed obscenely early.

I enjoy this schedule because I have Friday afternoon completely free and it almost feels like a 3 days weekend.  But there are many things I feel I cannot do in the evenings.   Clean the house.   Laundry (because it's far away... if it were in my house I'd be fine)  Grocery store.  Read more than 15 pages of a book.   Return email.   Talk to loved ones on the phone.  BLOG.  The list continues.   So at this juncture, and probably until we move in June, I will figure out how to juggle my slightly odd schedule while also keeping the apartment quasi-functional for my smarty pants husband to finish grad school.   My prediction: I will figure it all out and then we'll move and I'll have to readjust all over again.  But that's ok.  You know I enjoy a challenge.

*We had a year in May 2010.  We have less than 100 days left, which is crazy!  So much to get rid of!  (a story for another time)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Winter in Ithaca

After spending a GLORIOUS three week stint in Orlando, we are back to the realities of the northeast.  Michael's externship was fun, I worked from our spare bedroom, and we went to both Disney and Universal.  It was great, and made us realize, again, that we really do enjoy our old stomping grounds.

Ithaca welcomed us with single digit temperatures when we arrived three Sundays ago, and we've been decked out in hats and gloves ever since.  Last week we were part of the treacherous snow storm that hit 30-some states.  It was ridiculous.  My 3 mile, 9 minute drive to work turned into a 25 minute nightmare on Tuesday, and I worked from Wednesday.  It was sort of like a snow day, but I could not watch all the trashy daytime TV.... I had to work!

This weekend has presented two highlights to wintry weekends in Ithaca.  You see, I have some fantastic co-workers.   On Thursday, one of them invited me to go sledding with him at the Cornell Plantations (read: big snowy hills)  I accepted immediately and there were 4 of us ranging in age from 27-52 (and a large dog) sledding down the hills.  It was great fun, as you'd imagine.   This weekend I was wearing ski pants and coat, mittens, etc. so I stayed warm and dry despite the 'wintry mix' falling from the sky.  Wintry mix, you see, is a fancy way of saying wet rainy snow.  It is NOT ideal for sledding, but the excursion was a blast.  I texted my sister to tell her what I was doing.  Her response: Haha, watch your chin.   You see, the last time I went sledding was probably sometime in the mid-90s, which was also about the time Al bashed her chin open on the ice when she fell off a sled.  I am pleased to report no injuries from the afternoon.

On Friday morning, another co-worker gave me her season tickets for last night's Cornell University men's hockey game.  I didn't know much about Lynah Rink and the Lynah faithful, but am proud to say I am now among them!  Cornell Hockey is a historically strong team and tickets are very hard to come by, with each game selling out well before face-off.  We saw a come from behind overtime victory last night.  It was great!   Our seats were behind the goal where Cornell scored the game-winner which was pretty exciting.  My favorite part of the night was when Michael leaned over and said "We're going to have to start going to NHL games.   This is fun!"  

We're toping off the local winter fun with the big game tonight.   One of the few good things about February: The Super Bowl!  And this year, Glee to follow.  I must now go make chili.

And because no matter where I live, you cannot take the Cleveland (and Pittsburg hatred) out of the girl.......   GO PACKERS!