Turkey Day

Or I guess I should say roast day. We decided not to do turkey this year. Jim cooked a roast out in the smoker, coated with a rub made from his own special recipe. His mom brought a spiral cut ham. I cooked broccoli and rice casserole. My mom fixed chicken and dressing. We had gluten free bread and pecan pies. Numerous bottles of wine went to their reward. It is now almost 6 hours since we ate dinner and I am still stuffed.

All in all, it was a day to be thankful for family and friends. It was a really great day.

I think I need to be my own boss

I've decided I will never be happy until I can control my day myself. I'm not happy with the new job--it is not at all what I was led to believe it would be. I'll stop there--the internet is not a good place to air dirty laundry about your job if you want to stay employed. I do need to stay employed. But I need more autonomy. One of the basic tenets of managing professionals is to give them a goal...then get the hell outa the way. We seem kinda short on long range goals and there is no autonomy to speak of. Stifling, for want of a better word.

More as my sojourn into self employment unfolds. I have lots of ground to cover--how to set up the business, setting up a web site, sketching out a business plan of some kind. Two things really interest me--writing and evaluation. I have some experience in both and a big shiny PhD that ought to be worth something---we'll see!

Dancing with Ike

We survived Ike. What a week it has been! And I know that our straits were not nearly as dire as some folks. We live in Richmond, which was on the "clean" side of the storm and didn't have nearly the bad winds that folks like my brother had in Houston. Today is Monday and we are still without power. We have a generator, thank the good Lord above, so we have the basic amenities--fridge, news, lights, fans, clean water from our well. We had only a little rain and are not in a surge area, so we had no flooding.

My work was closed on Friday and I ended up standing in line for 4 hours at Home Depot to get plywood for our windows. But it made such a difference!! I barely heard the wind and slept like a baby. Which is hard to believe because I am usually a storm watcher. We got up Saturday morning to a different world. The big Arizona ash in our back yard was split in about 3 pieces and one huge branch was upside down in our pool. That branch took out a small grapefruit tree by the pool fence. There were a few more split branches on some of our trees, but that was about it for damage. A little bit of damage around the fireplace on the ceiling, I guess from the wind hitting the fireplace. And we will have to build a new fence sooner than we had originally planned.

It is costing us about $40-50 a day for gas for the generator, but having a fridge and fresh food is one of those things that is hard to put a price on during a time like this. We will just continue to hunker down and make the best of it. We are some of the lucky ones and we know it only too well. Galveston looks like a war zone...I can't even imagine what it must be like down there.

I'll write a little more when I have time. My brother had quite a time in the Heights....flooded roads kept him trapped. No power, no water, little information. He had quite a hard time but no damage to his house like many of his neighbors had. All in all, our family fared well in this storm. Thank you, God!!