With housing squared away, one of our next steps was to figure out how we would move (ourselves and our stuff) from Ohio to Oregon. Mike and I had conversations about our various moving options, weighing the pros and cons of each.
Read More
Sunshine and blue skies have returned! Not sure how long they’ll be around so we’ve all been trying to soak up as much as possible while it’s here. There have been many trips to the park and working outside. I worked from home 4 out of 5 days this week, mainly trying to get grading done for one of my classes before the final assignments start pouring in for the second class. Grades are due on Tuesday of spring break and while I’ve already accepted the fact that I’ll be spending spring break prepping for spring courses, I’d prefer to be done with winter grades before spring break actually starts. One class down, one to go!
Read More
It’s helpful to know exactly where you’re going to be moving to (i.e., your physical address) so that when you plan your move you can determine how much stuff is going to fit in your new place, the exact directions you’ll need to get there, if a moving truck can easily get to your place, etc.
Read More
Started off the week not feeling so great. I had planned to be on campus on Monday but chose to stay home to try and get some rest, which meant cancelling office hours, rescheduling a research related meeting for later in the week, and not attending a workshop. While I didn’t actually take a sick day, I did try and get a nap in during the day… which didn’t work out so well. When I was trying to sleep Ellie was screaming, about what I’m not sure. All I know is that I got out of bed to see what was going on because it was kind of intense. I go into the living room and see her with her feet propped up on the couch, hands on the floor (in an elevated plank position) and screaming incoherently.
Read More
In early March of 2016 I flew from Ohio to Oregon for my one and only campus visit. The rest of March and most of April passed by before I received a job offer. In all honesty, I assumed that I hadn’t gotten the position and that we’d be sticking around the Midwest for a little bit longer. At ~8 months pregnant, that seemed like a good idea. I could take a leisurely approach to finishing my dissertation, enjoying our new baby, and recovering. But of course, the minute you “settle” for one thing, life says, “just kidding!” In late April I got the job offer... a month before Ellie was due.
Read More
What I’m most excited about in this month’s budget is the fact that our grocery bill is the lowest it’s been since we started tracking our spending in 2016. We budget 20.48% of our monthly income to groceries (which amounts to $935). This is still more than we’d like to spend a month on groceries (for 2 adults and 1 toddler), but we are also realistic about our spending. I don’t want to set the budget at a number that we’re going to consistently go over each month and have to figure out where to pull the extra money from. I’d rather set it at a number we can consistently achieve (based on our average from the past year of ~$900) and then slowly get it down.
Read More
This was a week where pretty much everything went the way I hoped… no major curve balls thrown my way, which felt really nice. After feeling like I couldn’t “catch up” from our January trip, it was nice to finally get to a place where the pace of work feels more manageable. So… the 5 day/4 night conference trip that we all took in January had about a month long impact on work/home life. Is that worth it? I’m not so sure. Granted, it would have looked a lot different had I not been teaching or teaching fewer classes or if both classes were 100% ready to go before the term started. Certainly helpful to think about for future conference travel and the ripple effect it has on stress levels returning home.
Read More
A few weeks ago I opened up a work email from the Textbook and Academic Authoring Association (TAA) prompting me to sign up for a webinar titled “Creative Scheduling For Those Who Have ‘All of the Time in the World’ and ‘No Time At All.’” I was intrigued by the title and even more surprised when I opened up the email and saw that the presenter was Dr. Katy Peplin of ThrivePhD, who I follow on instagram! Since I’m still quite new to the academic blogging scene, I haven’t had many instances of overlap between my blogging life and my professional life (granted, my blog is all about my professional life, so they are bound to collide at some point!).
Read More
Had my last 9-5 teaching day this past Friday (until next term) and it feels nice to know that I get a few weeks off from being on for 8 hours straight. Slowly but surely I’m infusing more research time back into my schedule as prep for my online course winds down. I’m curious to see how prep for next term’s online class goes since I’ve taught it once before. Fingers crossed that it’s not as intensive as this term. I’m continuing to do a decent job at putting boundaries around work time, not letting it slip into personal/family time. On a lot of days this means that all the things I wanted to get done don’t actually get finished… which is okay because they’ll be there tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
Read More
This will be my last post about our recent San Francisco trip/conference, I promise! In general, I’m not a huge fan of large conferences. All of the socializing is exhausting and a lot of the networking that happens feels fake (unless you’re getting connecting through people you already know). I think the most valuable thing I got from this most recent conference was having the chance to catch up with friends and mentors from my grad school days. I hadn’t seen most of these people since I graduated and it felt like one big reunion. It seemed like every corner I turned I saw someone that I hadn’t seen in years. After 2.5 years of living across the country from everyone we know, it was nice to run into so many familiar faces.
Read More