The Things That Keep Me Up at Night

Big rain this morning; now the sun is coming out. We need to mow and I need to touch-up the new paint on the deck, so this is a good thing. (I guess. I hate mowing. But we need to make the house look super pretty all the time so someone will buy it.)

There are things happening that I urgently want to blog about but can't, yet. Work-related things. Once I know what's what, I'll share. It's a big, stressful mess.

Other stresses:

• The selling of the house, of course! It's our first time doing this, and, given the adorableness of our home, we're trying the FSBO route. In a week, we've had three people look at it and several dozen take our fliers (also more than 250 visits to the weblink). I think this is good traffic, but I'm still anxious about getting it sold.
• I seem to have injured an ankle, and I'm signed up to run my first (and probably only, let's be realistic) "race" in a week and a half. It's only four miles, which is about the longest I've ever run. I'm not sure what's wrong with the ankle; it's sort of tender when I walk on it much, and it may be a little swollen. I blame all the walking in non-supportive shoes that I did at Kalamazoo! 
• I have an article due at the end of the summer and, not only have I not started it, I'm not even sure what my primary texts are. On the docket this morning: WORK ON THIS ARTICLE.
• Bonaventure got into an all-day preschool on my new university's campus, which is great. But the all-day costs a fortune (of course), and I have great big guilt feelings about sending him to an all-day school. (Priority for part-time slots is given to the children of students and lower income families, which is wonderful, of course, but....) We don't know whether, where, or during what hours TM will be working, so we don't want to bank on him as full-time child-carer. And a part of me finds the idea of all-day care divine. I could actually do my job from 9-4 every day! Even non-teaching days! (And what a glorious ring "non-teaching days" has to it, as clunky as the phrase actually is....) So my inner conflict is leaving me a bit stressed. As is the money issue.
• This work-related thing, which is so appalling I just...ugh. It's to do with Field College, not New University (which is in need of a pseudonym. I might need to wait until I'm there and have sussed it out). I hope to share the story with you once it's resolved, and--I hope--resolved for the better.

OK: Mowing and painting will happen when it dries up out there, so now I'm going to read my article's abstract and figure out what the hell it's supposed to be about.

(Oh, and Kalamazoo was fabulous this year. I may need a separate post about what a better-than-usual experience it was for me. I think that I finally have a little medievalist cohort, which is so very satisfying!)

Everything is different now

I did the impossible.

I published my way out.

The waiting is over, and I won't be in Field Town until I retire.

I got a new job--at a Northeast R1. With a 2/2 teaching load. Research money. A salary that's...well, a lot more than I make now. And I'll be living two hours away from my family--thirteen hours closer than I am now.

Oh, and it's in a beautiful part of the country.

I'm going to have to re-subtitle my blog.

I don't feel as over-the-moon happy as I thought I would, but that's a consequence of the complexity of this change: TM is leaving his job for prospects unknown; I may or may not owe Field College a lot of money because I'm departing after my sabbatical. And I'll miss some things here, of course, and quite a few people.

We've been here for eight years. TM and I met here. A lot is going to change.

I find change unsettling, which is something that I'll have to remember this summer. I only got the offer six days ago; I think I'm still realizing that it's real. (And yes, I've signed something with New University and officially resigned from Field. That's why it took me six days to tell you all.)

I'm going to have a lot to say about this transition, I think, and the terms of the offer and the whole search thing at this stage in my career. But that'll be a whole other series of posts. Right now, my almost-three-year-old is calling for me to join him on the porch, so that's what I'm going to do.