205 Days Later

Wow! I am impressed that my last blog was 205 days ago. More than half a year! A lot has happened, but some days my perspective's been lousy and it's felt like not a lot has happened. 

While our '17 summer was at times excruciating with ongoing drama, the first six months in Azulita were a slow-moving, uneventful time and pretty relaxing. Some days, knowing I was (still am) job hunting, we both felt down that we couldn't quite appreciate the new house. And without having a deadline, the transition to settling in to the house moved at a 🐌snail's pace. Some projects were put off for financial costs, but a lot of things were just my feet-dragging or lacking motivation. I must admit I donated a ton of stuff to Goodwill and to More Than Words before tax season though, and that was a great weight lifted!!

Mural-gazing one weekday in JP last month.

From November through January, I spent four days a week on job-search tasks in my day, even if it just meant updating and revising my LinkedIn connections and information. I usually also hiked with the dogs two or three days a week to wipe them out. I tried to do at least one thing networking-related per week and/or volunteered one day a week to feel current and contributing.

one of my nostalgic posters
from Nashville, on our indoor porch

In late January, job postings slowed down significantly so it was a pretty dreadful February, and at the farthest end of that month, I paid a visit to California to see my sister who has been 100% physically in a dire mood since Christmas (no exaggeration). I came back feeling a bit hopeless and useless because she wasn't really affected by my visit, and I wondered if it had been worth the effort. Since April, she's doing better and I think sending her an ipod of upbeat music, along with letters at least twice a week (only positive messages) has made a difference.

One thing that kept me smiling through winter though, was I volunteered to help draft and submit grants for my local CDC, the Hyde Park-Roslindale Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation, and although none of the grants were awarded yet, it felt fantastic to try a skill I had never done before, and also become more fluent in the affordable housing, community organizing, and youth outreach work that SWBCDC does.

In early April, I signed myself up to attend an affordable housing dialogue hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber and suddenly realized that since the audience was designated young professionals (21 to 39) I am no longer in the young professionals category, having turned 40 in March! It was a little funny, but kind of a stark revelation, too (one of those where you don't realize how much time has passed). They still let me come, and it was fun. I have also been attending a few She Geeks Out events which have no target age, and have helped out many candidates at my favorite volunteer position, career coaching at Career Collaborative.

this is one print I'm thinking of getting
for the new house, at the sake of over-doing
our worship of blue (ig: @livingpattern).

Although I've been silent on blogger, I have been actively photo-journaling every day via instagram and in fact recently started a new environmentalist-localist feed called BostonLitterisUgly 🚯 to urge folks in greater Boston to pick up litter, add more trash barrels in public places, and not drop litter on the ground in the first place. I didn't ever think of instagram previously as a job or skill, but it can definitely be a mission-driving social tool. There's a surprising amount (thousands) of other instagram accounts all over the world whose pet peeve is litter and they (like my mom and me) pick it up daily, journal and photograph it, too, which is hella #encouraging and #inspiring! I am now following them and joining in the shared experience.

Since March, I have also joined my neighbors in-person in a Keep Hyde Park Beautiful committee and I have been litter-collecting at least four times a month, which is great exercise, makes you feel grateful, compassionate and connected to the neighbors who "pitch in", and it does make a visible difference, if only for a short while. There is a great deal of positive strength and power in groups, I've learned. It's great to be part of that since we moved.

View of just-sprung trees near the public library in Hyde Park

The renewing mojo of spring weather (which arrived pretty early this year) somehow moved me to hang up art in the house, spend time outdoors in the yard, and look for the small blessings every day.

Speaking of which, Jose was offered a new job in April that we both didn't see coming, although he probably missed a few signals about it a few months before. He is elated, since it's an incredible opportunity to contribute to changes in the world of hospital diagnostics and treatment, and it's still within the MIT campus.
Although the highs and lows of the past seven months were one reason, the MAIN reason I have not been blogging is that all my blog posts prior to 2015 seem to have broken links where there had been images, and I don't know how to recover these images. I will try and reach out to blogger soon about it. If my promise of the word "soon" can be trusted!
😆

sketch from my sister 🐶

post note
<---- I forgot to write on this blog's first draft that Lucille's separation anxiety has finally turned a corner even though her amount of high-border collie-ish activity is just as high as ever. She used to convulse and quiver and pace whenever we were getting dressed in the morning, which was awful. Our vet proposed a different medication that works for dogs who have severe thunderstorm anxiety (she doesn't) and the med seems to be working thank heaven. Buster has been a troublemaker and breaking out of our fenced in yard through a little spot, but we recently had it reinforced/extended and feel much betta.