Here We Go Again

I gave my notice at work last week; my last day in the current round of gainful employment will be January 15.  E has finished phase...2?  or 3?  of...5 phases of PhD work?  I have no idea how this should be measured; all I know is that we're headed into the phases with the least structure and no clear time constraints, namely fieldwork and, eventually, writing.

So in mid-January we're off to Jordan, making a major move for the first time in three and a half years.  It's a record for us to have stayed this long in any one place, although it should be noted that we've lived in three different apartments while we've been here. 

I have a mere 16 work days ahead of me, since we're heading to Portland for a few days over Christmas (hooray!)  So how does all of this selling/storing/packing/traveling stuff work again?

This Happened

I ventured out on a cold, windy Friday night to hear Jane Goodall speak.  I have this extremely poor quality photo to prove it:

She was, of course, magnificent.

Tennessee: Part 2

Some highlights from Gatlinburg and the cabin:

All 25 of us took a lovely drive around Cade's Cove.  E and Little Guy and I also got to explore Arrowmont and have a quick visit with Barbara, a very talented woodworker and close friend of my family. 

I Should Be 83

When I got back to work after our trip, there was an email waiting for me that said I was eligible for a free upgrade on my work cell phone.  I didn't really care too much, since my work cell gets only sporadic use, and it is, after all, for work, not for fun.  So I picked a new phone at random from the list of options available (I'm pretty sure I passed up an iPhone 4 in there, so you can tell how invested I was in this decision), and the next Monday a box arrived at my office.  I didn't even bother to open the box until Thursday morning (again, you can see how underwhelmed I was by this opportunity), which turned out to be a bit of a problem, since a coworker's new phone had been shipped along with mine, and he had been thinking for the previous three days that his phone was stolen in the mail.

Oops.

Anyway, when I finally got the new phone unwrapped and charged, this is what I was looking at:

Great, it adds a little flair to my desk.  But then I had to actually use it.

I should note here that I love technology.  If it does fancy stuff with data, images, etc. I'm all for it.  But with telecommunications, I prefer an unplugged approach.  I don't need to have constant access to my email, and if I need to call someone, I'm only looking for a phone, not a carnival of apps.  (This might be related to why I am not exactly speedy with responding to emails and why this blog is not particularly current most of the time)

So.  I have a 100% Old Woman relationship with this phone.  I do not like sorting through numerous icons that may or may not have obvious uses.  I am cranky that there isn't always a keypad visible and that, when I am using the keypad, I can't feel that I've pressed a button.  I can't seem to 'slide' the screen right to unlock it, so I occasionally miss calls and have to call people back (feel free to laugh at me here).  And the last straw for an Old Woman: I am totally confident that it is extra, EXTRA unsafe to use a smartphone while driving.

Tennessee: Part 1

It's been crazy hot here this summer, and we aren't fans of using the AC in the car for extended periods of time, so we took advantage of the fact that Little Guy wakes us up a couple of times a night and hit the road by about 5:15 AM.  We had planned to drive only halfway - about 5 1/2 hours - so we could be out of the car by the hottest part of the day.  To that end, we went online to bid on a hotel and managed to get something that was not only really cheap but also turned out to be a mostly legit establishment, with a couple of notable exceptions:

1) It appeared that a family of ducks had taken up permanent residence in the swimming pool.

2) When I asked the woman at the front desk if the hotel had a gym (as we'd been led to believe by their website), she said, "There's a fitness room on the second floor.  It's not the greatest; it's just cardio, but there's a treadmill that works.  You'll need this key for it."  And she handed me the magnetic tag to activate the treadmill.  So I took the key upstairs and found the fitness room, which had 5 cardio machines in it, 3 of which were obviously not working (e.g. control panels ripped off).  There were 2 treadmills; I was fooled into thinking that the one with the screen lit up would work.  It did not.  The second treadmill did, in fact, work when I attached the key, but it was really noisy and thumpy, and the key wouldn't really stay attached by itself, so I had to try to hold it in place while running, which made things really awkward.  I didn't last long.

The next day, we drove the rest of the way to Knoxville to stay with E's brother's family for a couple of days.  Little Guy met the first of many aunts, uncles, and cousins who continued to arrive for the reunion in bunches over the next couple of days. 

My dad also drove down from Richmond to meet Little Guy.  During his visit, we did a little hike up Clingman's Dome (we forgot our camera) and had brunch at The French Market in Knoxville, which was delicious.

Then we were off to the cabin in Gatlinburg for the reunion.

So very, very glad to be home after 12 days of comings and goings in eastern Tennessee.  Bonus: a slightly rainy afternoon in what was an extremely hot and dry neighborhood when we left it nearly 2 weeks ago.  Double bonus: beer.

Little Guy was a really good traveler but still seemed ecstatic to be lying on our bed under the fan instead of sitting in the carseat.  Now he is totally conked out in his bouncy chair, which he appears to have nearly outgrown while we've been gone.

Now to sort through all the pictures...

Photos That Say "I'm done with this"