Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger. In fairness, I have an excuse, or I think I have an excuse. Um, work, stress, life? Ok, no actual excuse. L and I are trying to figure out what we are going to do after he finishes his PhD this Aug/Sept. The good is that we have offers. The great is that both offers are really good. The difficult is deciding between the two. One would put us atop a mountain and near skiing for 2 years - a real change, lower cost of living, and hopefully some fun adventures. The other would keep us here - with better work for him, sticking to the high cost of living (groan), but also giving me the resources "available" from being within "commuting distance" of all the universities in the greater Bay Area.*

Thinking through the implications is really exhausting and has left me wanting to eat cookies until I pass out from a sugar induced coma b/c then I actually wouldn't be able to think anymore. So that's why I've been off the blogosphere.

In the meanwhile, I've started lecturing my own all-by-myself course. for those who haven't done it before, designing lectures for a full class is a lot of freakin' work and I have a new appreciation for every lecture I've sat through. It's going pretty well though, and I enjoy the work even if it's a bit daunting at times. After my first Friday I actually left class thinking "what if I just never come back, but give them all As, would anyone notice?" Needless to say I'm sticking with it, but the run-and-hide feeling is pretty strong. Especially when you're giving a lecture that you know is collapsing all around you, the students are lost, you're lost and you still have 6 more pages of material to go.

Anyhoo, for now I will leave you with some fabulous knitting pics of things I've made but never posted on.  I have detailed descriptions on Ravelry (find me!), but here are the FOs. They're all things I would love to wear here in SC, if it ever gets above 60.

For those who care, the first 2 are 2 versions of Wendy Bernard's Karma Tank from Custom Knits (in Rowan all-seasons cotton, and Cashcotton) and the shrug is a Vine Lace Shrug pattern I found on Ravelry (Knit Picks, Stroll yarn.

*The Bay Area is one of those funny places that is humongous, but people assume is all part of some greater community. I can't count the number of times I have heard people talking about just "popping over the hill to Berkeley" - as if it weren't almost a 2 hour drive up and down a mountain and in heavy commuting traffic. Regardless Bay = more schools = more adjunct/lecturer positions for me in case I don't score a job my first year on the market. For those who don't know, getting a job your first year on the market is about as likely as winning the lottery.