Light and Momentary

Wait

I've been in a funk, my friends. I've been trying to find a part-time academic job for next year with no success and it's been weighing on me. I've been thinking, "Maybe it wasn't a calling to go get a PhD. Maybe it was a hallucination. Maybe I should have kept right on homeschooling but instead I've subjected my children to five years of public school and intermittently distracted mothering and whatever is wrong with them in the future will be all my fault."

I kept going into the Adoration chapel on Thursday mornings and saying, "I need a job for next year." And I kept hearing the same thing: "Wait."

"Wait" is not my favorite thing to hear. I am bad at waiting. I like strategies, and Plans A/B/C. Ask me to choose between action and waiting and I'll pick action, hands down.

"Wait" leaves you vulnerable. Noah built an ark on dry land and waited for the rain -- can you imagine what his neighbors said? Jesus left the planet and kept the apostles waiting for ten days before the mysterious Comforter put in an appearance -- did they have moments of wondering what he could have been talking about?

Last night my phone rang in the middle of the kids' section at Barnes & Noble, a number I didn't recognize. The caller identified herself over the background of my noisy daughter: the chair of the department here in town. She asked if it would be better to talk the next day. Mercifully, providentially, I didn't try to have a conversation then, because Stella lost her mind, wailing and shrieking in the floor, about two minutes later. (She likes to rearrange the merchandise. She wanted to take some children's books over to the fitness section, and a children's backpack to the rack of adult bags. I said no because she hates it when I return things to the kids' section and I'm not going to leave stuff in random places for employees to deal with later; drama ensued.)

This Thursday my Adoration hour fell right before our schedule phone call. This Thursday I knelt down to pray and I heard something different: "It's for you." I hesitate even to tell you that, because people do ALL KINDS of wacky things based on what they think the Lord told them. But listen to what happened next--

You might remember that I knew one of the faculty here in town had applied for an administrative job, and that if she got it there would be some gaps in the teaching lineup for fall. I had begun to assume this hadn't happened, though, since it's getting pretty late in the summer. That's what I was expecting to hear about when I talked to the chair this morning, but it turns out a completely different faculty member is making a surprise move and giving her just a few week's notice to get things sorted out.

She asked if I could teach a class outside my area of expertise and I assured her I could. She asked if the scheduled time could work for me and I assured her it could.

She offered me the position over the phone: one class in the fall and one in the spring.

A part-time academic position, that elusive beast, in the department that's less than a ten-minute walk from my house.

It's exactly the thing I've spent five years hoping for, dropped into my lap just as I was beginning to think gloomily that I'd need to find a part-time clinical job.

I am so overwhelmingly grateful it brings tears to my eyes.

Off the Needles

I made a Baby Surprise Jacket for my officemate's baby. You might remember how happily I chirped about this project when I first started it. Things went south from there. Whenever I make stripes I worry that I am doing them wrong, and I spent a big chunk of my knitting time on this little jacket convinced that there was too much black in the middle section.

It took me some time to warm to the BSJ. I ended up throwing away my first-ever attempt, in part because I was using cheap dishcloth cotton that developed a nasty snarl, but also because I am more a product knitter than a process knitter and I could not for the life of me see a nascent product in the first few dozen rows of the BSJ. Now I know that for each row in the beginning you knit around one wrist and then up to the shoulder, across the neck and down the other arm, ending with a circuit around the opposite wrist. You're knitting a little bolero, which you'll lengthen later.

I was carefully weighing my yarn as I went along so I didn't run out in the middle of a row, and can you guess what happened? Somehow, mysteriously, I ran out of lavender yarn about 40 stitches from the end of the bind-off. Oh, I was SO mad. I thought about throwing it on the compost heap, and was restrained from doing so solely by the unfortunate fact that I have no compost heap. (Yet. Maybe that's an August project.)

I devised a solution involving a provisionally cast-on I-cord bind-off, and then I-corded all the rest of the way around so I could graft my two batches of I-cord together. It worked, even though I spent a couple of weeks thinking of it as the Blasted Stinking Jacket, and I hope my officemate enjoys it.

I know a girl named Moany McGroany

Ooohhh, you guys, it's been a tough week. The toddler is sleeping terribly, I was trying to get a manuscript draft finished, my other manuscript got rejected after I spent MANY MANY HOURS making the changes they requested, and I'm weary of being on my own with only the slavering Rottweiler and the shrieking home security system for company. Today my 9yo woke up sick and got worse, until I wondered if he might have meningitis: fever rising sharply in defiance of the ibuprofen, headache, neck pain, no appetite.

Blessings to be counted: (1) He's much better now and the doctor's office was very helpful over the phone. (2) I did send off the manuscript draft to one of my co-authors, even though Figures 1 and 2 still need to be smacked around. (3) My 11yo comes home tomorrow -- hurray! (4) There is ice cream in the freezer and I'm going to eat a little more of it. For medicinal purposes, you understand. (5) Oh! And! I found out today that my current contract might be extended for a year, possibly. Not sure if it will come through since the bureaucrats in DC have to sign off on it, and not sure if it's best even if it comes through, but I had been feeling really weighed down by the fact that I was almost double digit days into July and still I had no idea what I'd be doing with myself after August. I had almost persuaded myself that I ought to write a book but really the postdoc option would be more prudent.

I have about 45 blog posts kicking around in my head but oh goodness I am not feeling very energetic just now. Buona notte.

Solo

I am on my own here while Elwood is backpacking with Alex and friends in the wilds of New Mexico. (On my own, that is, except for the slavering Rottweiler and the shrieking home security system which I have set to "guillotine." Just in case you were getting any ideas, creepy internet stalkers. The rest of you, feel free to come by for coffee -- I'd love some adult conversation. Never fear, I'll dial back the security system settings so we can have a corpse-free kaffeeklatsch.)

Linda was just writing about the trials of solo parenting, and I totally agree. I had grand ideas about what I'd do while we were on our own but instead I am just muddling through, keeping kids fed and clothed and trying to get my work done. People often talk about how much work it must be to have five kids, but really the two oldest ones are immensely helpful most of the time. When they are gone (and my 11yo is home tonight but away most of the rest of the time his older brother is backpacking), I am jolted into seeing how much they help me keep things running smoothly around here.

I cannot remember how often I have posted about Stella's sleep issues, and I hesitate to blog about sleep because the next thing you know I'll be posting about poop, but OH the sleep thing is crushing me. She has the same weird wiring that my 11yo had as a toddler, where sometimes she'll just wake up in the middle of the night and -- SPROING! -- not be able to get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Dr. Weissbluth (of Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems infamy) would tell me to let her cry for as long as it takes, and Dr. White (husband of Mary White, one of the La Leche League founders) would tell me that I can surely muster the gumption to meet the nighttime needs of my very own child.

I'm feeling a little short on gumption at the moment.

Coming up empty

What should I write about? In the past I haven't been the best about responding to questions, but I'll give it a shot.