Reasons why I haven't been blogging lately...

Its been two months today that I wrote the last entry on this little piece of the internet. I needed the break! If you know me at all you know that I DON'T LIKE CHANGE!!! I hate it and if you don't know me well, then I most certainly don't want you to watch me hate it while I'm in the middle of being miserable. So while we moved, I kept silent to many so that I could maintain some level of decorum here in my little corner of the interwebs and so that I could have time to process how I really feel about the whole thing before I regurgitate my feelings about it all here. What I can say for certain is that I certain don't hate it here in the land just north of Syracuse, but it isn't winter yet and I reserve the right to change my mind when the lake effect snow arrives in full force. I quite like it here actually, except for that pesky part where all of the awesome family support that I enjoyed so much is just too far away for the emergency swoop in for back up support. The area is cute, there are tons of things around and we aren't far at all from Syracuse where there are even more things to do. The restaurant scene is pretty decent, but being spoiled in Boston with an almost unlimited amount of online takeout options, the eat in scene here is nothing short of pathetic...one major adjustment to get over. The town house is really nice in terms of what we have seen at a lot of other rental properties around the area. The quality of the place is very nice even if the size is a bit minimal. My position has been a nice transition for me. I really needed a new work plan. All research all the time was not the right fit for me. For the moment it is all teaching all the time, but hopefully once I get my initial semester of all new courses to prep and teach, I will be able to find the right balance. My work colleagues are absolutely great, lovely people who have all made me feel very welcome. The students are students...undergrads who may or may not be afflicted with a "the world revolves around me" complex, but there are a few great ones who have made it fun. Noah has finally begun to settle into his new daycare setting. We picked another family based daycare with an ex-preschool teacher, Miss Lori. There are 3 other boys, one only a couple months younger than Noah, his 1 year old brother, and Noah's new best bud Owen who is 16 months or so. It was a UGLY transition and there were many weeks there where I wondered what I had done to our happy, nicely functioning routine, and man did we ever (still do) miss Nana Lou! Once the school schedule started though and we got into a regular routine, things settled nicely and he seems to really like it there during the days. We still have mornings of listening to the little guy announce that he isn't going to Miss Lori's house today, but they are getting less frequent and significantly less insistent. I must say, I still miss Nana Lou in ways I will never be able to express, but we are hobbling along for now unscathed. So as you can imagine its been a whirlwind couple of months for us, months I will never be able to fully catch up on in this blog format. But what I can do is provide a list of all of the reasons why I haven't blogged for the last 2 months...

• packing, unpacking, & cleaning...pretty much covers everything
• we still don't have functioning health insurance even though we will theoretically have coverage retroactively through Tim's work until my coverage picks up in mid-October
• we are on attempt 3 to register my car in this state and we still have yet to be successful...thanks MA for not having hard copies of titles...thanks NY for requiring titles for cars still under payment (even though most other states don't), thanks JP Morgan Chase for continuing to accept our car payments even though you can't manage to produce an accurately addressed permission to register letter
• did I mention the part where I had to start a new job doing something completely different. I now have no time for research since I am teaching 3 sections of 2 different new courses that I have never taught before
• I am now responsible for the drama of 116 undergraduate students, some of whom suffer from a terrible disease known as the "what do you mean I'm not the center of your universe-itis"
• that pesky part of starting a new job known as social networking. I'm the new kid (one of 2 thankfully), so everyone wants to say Hi, introduce themselves, and make sure I haven't spontaneously combusted yet. Love all the new colleagues, but I don't intend on combusting any time soon, thankyouverymuch!
• we spend our weekends trying to find fun things to do to get out of the house and to convince ourselves (okay mainly me) that this is a nice long-term location and we can settle here and not do this again.
• did I mention the part about prepping 2 new courses. I lost count of how many nights I have been up until midnight prepping lectures for the next day only to be up at 6am to be out of the door and on the road in time bright and early.

Yeah, things have been crazy... not much time or motivation in the blogging department, but I am hoping that once I finish this first semester of chaotic prepping and I am teaching the same classes again next semester, we'll have more room to breathe and will have more fun to share and update here.