Some New News I Won't be Advertising Elsewhere

Yes, I have secrets this year, which is weird for me.
One is that I'm quitting the senate at the end of this year.  Not just the executive committee, but the whole shebang.  I'm just not re-upping for another three-year term.  I may return to statewide service later, but for now, I need a break.  The only downside to this is that I will have to win a separate election to stay on my home campus's executive committee, on which I love to serve.  I'll cross that bridge later, I suppose; ultimately, it doesn't qualify as enough of a "con" to worry about now.
I'm tired of traveling to LA.
I'm tired of the politics, and as I have zero aspiration to be promoted into a statewide academic affairs job...really, any administrative job, WTF am I doing besides getting drunk a lot and buying books?
I've been missing my family, and want to minimize the number of days away...
Because the other secret is that I'm taking students to Taiwan and Japan for three weeks in April.  Jeff will accompany us for part of the trip, which is extra-special, since he's had to sit on the sidelines while the girls were too young to be without both parents.  I have always loved the idea of Japan, and can do it all-expenses-paid, this way.
(I really want to travel WITH the girls, but they are still too young...we'll get to that later.)
Anyway, and I will go back to teach in Vietnam later in the summer--CHA CHING--because we need the money for our house.

Anyway, AND I will apply for a sabbatical when the deadlines come around this fall.  I am really, ultimately, trying to clear a little space around my head for writing some kind of book.

There are a few other secrets which may surface this year.  My daughters are growing and flourishing, and part of it is because Jeff's willingness to stay at home with them while I'm off on these trips and on my gigantic--but doable--commute.  Our new life is awesome, but it is new, and it has come with some odd stress.  Things that didn't seem so bad last year are suddenly really bad now, and vice-versa.  I guess this is what it means to change inside-out!

The whole family is traveling to Houston over Christmas, too, which is very very exciting to me.  Leaving town for a week will no doubt give us some perspective on the often too-close-for-comfort stuff happening within my immediate family, as well as allow us to see dearly missed people.

On the domestic front, I am rehabilitating plants (mostly succulents stolen from LA) on my kitchen windowsill, which is a really good place to have plants, due to the sink squirter.  I haven't had indoor plants since I lived in Barcelona...for real.  None in Texas, none in any part of California, until now.

Word of the week: monocot.

I'm also thinking a lot about low-rent fun: things I love to do that have little to no fiscal impact:  lie in bed talking to Jeff, reading used books, drinking coffee, walking, listening to music, gardening.  These are things that anyone can do, if one has any free time (which is problematic, I know).

The Eleventh Month

Funny how things change:  sometimes top-down, sometimes inside-out.  The move was a success, though there were several anxious months as we were smashed up against my mother's world.  The barn remodel took a lot longer than we'd thought, so we didn't get in there until a few weeks ago, and even that wasn't totally settled until the other day, when we finally sat back and relaxed in our own space.  Rent is paid for a  year, things are put away, kids transitioned well into their new school, etc.  We're getting used to major supermarkets being 30 miles away.  We keep a full gas can in the shed, and have needed it twice after driving up the hill on an almost empty tank.  Jeff has applied for a few jobs, had a few interviews, but nothing has panned out yet.  He's definitely needed the time off, but as it's occurred to us that we probably can't get a building loan on one income, he's been looking.

We are slowly meeting people, but I've been traveling a lot for work, and our schedule has been very wonky.  Jeff has befriended a carpenter down the road who seems to want to build our house; the carpenter is married to an ex-CSU faculty member whom I'd met years ago and who has mutual friends in the senate.  There is also a woman two doors down who has a little boy who likes to play with S. & L.  The social thing is slowly improving.

I'm getting used to the 88-mile each way drive to work.  It's not a big deal except when I don't leave myself a margin for traffic issues, which don't seem to pop up unless I'm already pushing it.  Everyone thought it was going to be an issue, but it really isn't.

Last week, a 100-foot trench was dug in our property, and we got an informal ok on the seismic/geologic conditions...we can't build exactly where we wanted, but we can build close by.  I've been reacquainting myself with a 3D building program so I can sketch out the terrain: big time-sink, but fun, and we are still thinking about the barn house.  The next step will be the septic percolation test and then water and power.  

Something I've been thinking about lately is this:  How does life change when one gets what one wants?  I remember sitting in my in-laws' dining table in Houston in 2004, trying to explain to them why RIGHT NOW was a good time to sell my house, because it would allow us to pay off most of our lot loan, and why RIGHT NOW was a good time to move West...because we would then be closer to the lot.  I'm sure we seemed crazy: that was ten years ago.  Then, when we lived in the cavernous and dangerous storefront in Oakland while Jeff worked his first social work job and I was a lecturer.  Then the seemingly illogical move farther north to Napa, where we hunted down the elusive short sale and had our kids.  Then, selling it and moving into my mom's house last summer.  We are fucking crazy!  We have certainly sucked it up in pursuit of this goal.  But now we are actually within range of achieving it, and it's a weird feeling.  I feel stable in ways I haven't ever felt stable.  And nuts in ways I hadn't predicted.  I still drive up Skyland Road and feel like I'm visiting my own soul.  Just visiting.  

We are certainly eccentric; this I've also realized.  Our lifestyle is not for everyone.  We've been in a fishbowl for the last four months, and everyone's looked in: my mother, her boyfriend, our neighbors.  They think we sleep too much, don't spend enough time on grooming, are not giving our children enough routine.  They are probably right in some ways, but not right enough for us to recast ourselves as Better Parents.  The girls are happy and strong, and I'm proud of them (and us).  I can't wait to unpack it all in our own space.