Skipping ahead

June/July Happenings

I did my first professional paper presentation (first two, actually) and I spent a week being a tourist in London. It was really a good trip, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I also visited my parents for their thirtieth wedding anniversary, and there was a picnic and a nice number of people came.

And now I'm still really getting caught up from all that and also have several pressing projects at work and things are getting back into swing for the fall (Adventurers and what not), so I am busy and yet still trying to figure things out.

Two weeks until I'm thirty.

April Haps

5/14/17
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So the adventures of April were a bit more on the domestic side. There's nothing wrong with that, but April was definitely a month where I had enough going on that the semi-regular events of my life had to suffice.

• I went to the eye doctor; it turns out that my eyes have gotten worse again (and in response to my question about it the doctor said that there's no way to pull apart it getting worse due to using a computer at work from it getting worse due to me being nearly thirty with a family history of poor eyesight). Buying new glasses tanked my budget for the month, though, so I should plan better for that in the future (I wasn't out of money but if things had been even tighter I would have been in trouble). Going to the eye doctor took up most of my Fridays, which are usually the days I've been adventuring.
• I was one of the members of my local church's nominating committee. We had several evening meetings, all of which I attended. It was really fascinating because I've never been on nominating committee before, and also have never seen it work in such a large church. 
• I attended the baby shower of some friends who live in Frederick, Maryland. It was my first time in Frederick--parts of it felt very Indiana-ish. The GPS took me to the wrong spot, and then past the correct spot after I re-entered the address, so that was a tiny adventure.

9.16

9/16/16

It feels like as if it's defeat, when in reality it's more of a surrendering.

It's a relief, in a way, and downright scary in another. I'm not a fan of the unknown, it's not the easiest thing for me to embrace (even when there's so little of it unknown and I know it'll all work out).

I haven't got much beyond that but that's what I've got.

5.27

Feeling pretty accomplished today. Woke up at a decent adult time for a day off. Got the oil changed in my car. Did my laundry and was done with it by 2:00 PM. Reorganized my main email inbox (because it massively needed it). Cleaned the tub. Vacuumed. Did the dishes.

I was feeling great, you know, realizing how sick I had been when I didn't even know it, and now, six days after finishing the antibiotics, I have so much energy now.

And then the dishes slid into the sink.

"Oh I hope nothing broke," I said to no one but myself because I live alone, and started to pull the drainer off the dishes.

Only one thing was broken. Just one.

It's a plate I made was working at Wakonda. I can't replace it, you know. Not unless I find some place where I can do ceramics and even then it wouldn't be the same. (It's like when my baby brother was super little and pulled down the Christmas tree as if he were a cat and the only thing that got broken was my very first Christmas ornament, the one they got me when I was still the only child rather than the oldest child. My parents got me an ornament to replace it, but it wasn't at all the same. And all my ornaments are still in the box in the closet in my parents' apartment.) And it's okay that it's different; plates are plates, regardless of how I got them. Plates can be replaced because they're, ultimately, plates. (That's what I tell myself anyway. The only things that got busted in the car crash were two cups, and one of them was also a Wakonda-original, in fact the very first thing I made during my job at Wakonda.)

But the experience wouldn't be the same, either. I don't know if I'll ever again get to be elbow-deep in liquid clay, or pouring molds, or cleaning greenware, or glazing bisque, or standing precariously on a stepstool to reach into a kiln because my short self can't reach the bottom without help.

And so all that flashed (some of it unconsciously, I'm sure) through my mind and I burst into tears.

Tears over a broken plate.

More like, tears over the inevitability of time moving forward. I can't stop it and I can't control it but sometimes I really really wish I could.

Probably should figure out why I think that way.