Turned tables

When I lived in husband's postdoc town I longed for a social life. I was stuck at home all day, writing and writing (really blogging and watching online tv and eating, oh the eating). My husband would get home from a busy days work and be tired and exhausted, while I'd be so ready to leave the house. We would usually have one social outing on the week-end and that would be enough for him.

Now the tables have turned. My husband is now getting really bored at home. He doesn't even have a dissertation to write. He just searches the web for job ads, applies to some. He has taught himself a new operating system and is reading some textbooks about this and that. He is teaching himself to cook Indian food and make Italian sauces (my favorite hobby!). He goes to the climbing gym twice a week, with his friends, and is taking long bike rides and playing Frisbee golf. In short, he has lots of hobbies and is keeping himself entertained but he needs a job and needs more human interaction. His brain is totally bored.

Thus, to feed this human interaction, our week-ends are jammed back with social activities. And I am tired. I'm away from my house two days a week for my job and feel the time I'm here I'm so damn busy but am getting nothing done.

It's funny how I longed for social interactions and now I wish these people would just leave us alone once and a while. I miss my quite time.

So today I opted out of a day trip to a local national park and stayed at home. Sure I met a friend for a run but that was only 1.5 hours of my day. I did some grocery shopping, watched some online tv, organized my pants (still not happy with the organization), called some friends and was looking forward to making Indian sweet potato soup and corn muffins for dinner. Yes looking forward to. Husband comes home and declares we are meeting friends for dinner and tomorrow there is a bbq.

When will the obligations end!

I feel like skipping out on the bbq tomorrow but don't want to be a party poop. I'll just have to wait and see.

Checking In

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and a productive, healthy and happy 2009.

I also wanted to let everyone know that even though I haven't been posting I've been reading and keeping up to date on your lives.

Here is a quick update on me

• boss has told me I look pretty twice, first one I shruged off due to the holiday party, second one made me uncomfortable (and I wasn't even looking pretty, very frumpy looking), next time I am going to have to speak up.
  
• other than that work is going well, still only working about 25 hours a week. The commute was dragging on me but I was able to not commute during the holiday week and I feel refreshed.
• one of the two special journal articles has been completely accepted, no more revisions! Still to hear back on the other article.
• still working on manuscript from "long-ass" time ago: we know which journal to resubmit to, I just need to incorporate a co-authors suggestions (hope to finish this week-end)
  
• still working on manuscript from masters thesis: the pregnant student ran my samples (yeah!) but the data doesn't agree with previous analysis (b00) still need to solve this problem before I can finish the revisions (double boo)
• I'm going to speak in my sisters class about my career next week. She is in 7th grade. Should be fun, hope I don't embarrass her.
  
• husband still looking for a job, no leads yet
  
• my husband is the happiest I've see him in 7 years
• I'm loving being back here on the west coast