Decisions...

So... what's new?  I went to D.C. with my agricultural policy class -- 15 students in a big university van descending on Capitol  Hill.

It was kind of funny, and good for the students to get to meet and talk to people involved in farm bill politics, I think. For me it was okay too, a little tiring (4 weeks to go 'til potential new baby theoretically arrives), and a little separation-anxiety-y for me not to get to see Eytani for three whole days... but he, of course, did fine, and he got to hang out much both with papa and with visiting safta... and it was good practice for all of us, I'm sure :)

What else?  Mike was accepted to a masters in teaching program (masters and teaching certificate in one year), a bachelors in nursing program (conversion from non-nursing to nursing bachelors in one year), and was wait-listed at a medical (doctor of osteopathy) school, all near pittsburgh.  So he's in the midst of deciding lots of things... (although i'd say the lean is towards teaching, so far...).

**Photo interlude of Eytan gathering his things (hat, pacifier with attached duck, and potty/briefcase), saying goodbye to us, and getting ready to leave (for work? school? outing?).  Sometimes the routine involves kissing the cat goodbye too.





Meanwhile, we're starting to look for places to move (in the area but not in the city), both because our landlord wants to rent our current apartment out to students starting this summer (he can put more students in here and presumably charge more rent) and (mostly) because urban life doesn't seem to suit us so much right now.  There are, of course, conveniences -- walking to work, Mike being closer to classes, less car time for Eytan, nearby playgrounds...

But we miss being able to walk out the front door in bare feet and be outside.  And we miss being able to have animals and gardens... not that we currently have tons of spare time, but we also don't really take advantage of city things all that much either (restaurants, movies, museums, concerts, etc.).  So it's operation look-for-housing and operation bring-the-goats-east time.  The only tricky part seems to be finding a place not too too too far a commute that will let us keep farm animals and that is more rural than suburban -- zoning seems to be, unsurprisingly, more restrictive here than in Wenatchee.

**Photo interlude: To contradict what I just said, here's a picture from a diner chain in the area that we decided to try out.  Eytan decided the best part was eating the butter.  And below a picture from the aviary where Mike and Eytan went with our neighbor and their 2-year-old.





It also looks like I'm going to be teaching a class on dairy in the fall, so I'm trying to get some leverage for housing the goats somewhere (our theoretical new place to live? the farm campus?) by building them into the class (well, and I think they'd be a really good complement to the class).  It is one of the nice things about my job, the melding of academic stuff with hands-on stuff (i.e. I can totally justify, and am encouraged to justify, having goat-milking and cheese-making be part of my syllabi just like reading and writing are part of it).  See photo below, for example, I sat in this semester on a meat production class that involved seven weeks at a lamb farm and slaughterhouse, with the last week being a lamb-cooking party.  Really interesting too to cook under the instruction of a chef who can tell you why to cook things a certain way and how...

Other than that, not much to report.  So I'll leave you til next time with a last photo interlude of pictures that daycare sent home, one of Eytan's class and the class next door eating lunch together, and one of art projects.

Not a ton to report...

Just a few little updates.

Spring semester is in full swing here for me, and it's still busy, but I'd say definitely better than it was in the fall -- reading is more manageable and I'm able to stay a little ahead on things without working at all waking hours.  I still often do some catch-up in the evenings or weekends, but we're at least heading in the right direction.

Mike is taking anatomy & physiology and pharmacology in case he decides to go to nursing school in the fall, and two educational psych classes online in case he decides to go to teaching school in the fall, and waiting to hear back from those programs as well as medical school type options.  Will be an interesting decision-making season in a few months I think...

Eytan is running around, saying more words, liking daycare a bit more it seems, being a big fan of things like cooking, music, and trying on big shoes, and generally being cute.  One of his recent favorites is to put on a hat and pick up a backpack and say bye to mike and i and head for the door (to go to work or school, presumably)...

This last photo is the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, which has a water exhibit, of which Mr. Eytan is a big fan because it involves water.

Winter-wise, we've had some snow, on and off, and so have learned that sleds are perhaps even more fun to use indoors than outdoors.

Although it's a little hard to push the mama on the sled indoors.

 

And we've had some winter visitors, my mama and grandpa when it was snowy and icy...

And Mike's mom a few weeks later when it was warm and green.

So, that's about it... not a ton more going on than that... perhaps more exciting stuff next month?

Back and forth

Well, we're back in Pittsburgh after nice travels back to Washington.  And it's snowy here, which is exciting, since it was more like hovering around 50 degrees when we left.  In Washington, of course, it was quite snowy too.

While Eytan had not been a big fan of snow in Minnesota (well, he was okay with it until he fell and found it cold and wet), he adjusted quite well in Washington, which was useful.  It was really nice to see the goats again, and easier with Eytan being  more mobile around them (and able to bark at them... as goats are easily confusable with dogs, you know).

 

 

Since the goats had to be moved from their temporary home in Moses Lake, we had a bit of a complicated arrival, flying into Spokane at at 2am west coast time (i.e. 5am east coast time, delays delays), sleeping a few hours, driving the couple of hours to Moses Lake, renting a Uhaul, and driving the next couple of hours to bring the goats back home.  We weren't quite sure what we would do with them when left again, though, as we hadn't been able to find another temporary home for them from afar... leading possibility was that we would leave them with friends in Wenatchee for a couple of weeks, and then a couple of students of mine would hopefully fly out in January and drive them (in a vehicle we had yet to find) across country on a winter road trip.  

Would the students be able to make the trip?  Not totally clear.  Would we find a vehicle that would work to drive them that far in winter?  Also unclear.  Would we have a place to put them when they arrived in PA?  Unclear too.  Needless to say it was all a bit of a question mark.  Luckily, shortly after arriving, we found friends of a friend in Leavenworth with too much hay and too few goats, who were excited to take them for a bit. So later in the week, we rented another Uhaul and drove them there, to spend the winter and spring with a few other goats and a goose.

 


I know, it's a lot of trouble for goats.  They are nice goats, though...

Anyway, aside from the goat dramas, our trip was good.  I got a bunch of work done for my orchard pesticide safety grant.  And we got to see some friends.  And camp out in our house.  And check out the stars.  It felt like being home... (I know, I know, we've only been in Pittsburgh 2 months, of course it doesn't feel like home yet... and all the things that we didn't like about Wenatchee are still there alongside the things we liked... and my job and Mike's school are good reasons for us to stay east for a bit... but still).

And after about a week, we packed up again and drove to Montana (with friend- and bro-visiting in Spokane along the way) to see Mike's bro and family (including new baby).  It's a pretty long drive, so luckily Eytan could help out this time.

And then back to Spokane and back to PA, where we've been transitioning back to eastern time and eastern mode.  Eytan has been saying more words (ca for car, and for cara (face in Spanish), and nana for banana, and nani for mani (peanut), and agua, and cac for sock), and walking around with his backpack on (a gift from the Pittsburgh library system -- which, I have to say, is not quite as friendly as the Wenatchee library system, in that they actually charge late fees and you have to go pick up books in person rather than having them mailed to your house... but, well, I suppose on the other hand they do give away little backpacks).

Timber was very happy to have us home, and has spent as many indoor hours as possible sleeping next to my belly.  He and Eytan have both continued batting at computers and phones and playing with strings, although Eytan has started to get a little jealous when Timber lays claim to a box he likes or goes into the little alcove that they both like to use, and Timber sometimes bats Eytan away when he feels besieged (or wants to play).  So we're all starting to talk more about sharing.

Aside from that, here are a few other pictures from pre-travels -- one from the local conservatory, on a fake tree climbing thingie...

one from Chanukah candle lighting time...

one of Eytan's daycare class painting (they are way more craft-y there than we are at home, which is lovely, although they do seem to spend an awful lot of time taking pictures presumably for the parents... but I guess there are worse things)...

 one leftover from Thanksgiving in Minnesota...

and one really leftover from summer that a friend just gave us when we were back in Wenatchee.  But maybe winter is a good time for reminders of summer anyway.

I think that's pretty much it from here.  I'm getting ready to start classes in another week or so (agricultural policy and research methods), and Mike is getting ready to start classes in another two weeks (prerequisites for teaching and nursing programs, should he decide to go one of those directions in fall), and Eytan will keep doing daycare a couple of days a week.

We are scheduled to have some visitors coming in January, so you'll probably get updates there next time, as well as on how our new somewhat more structured semester is proceeding :)  Best wishes until then!

Wow

So, I've never really liked the cycle and pace of academic school years -- you know, the being crazy crazy crazy busy, then stopping abruptly for a bit, and starting over.  My job here might end up being an improvement over this normal university rhythm, but, well... not quite yet.  As you might be able to tell from my longer-than-usual delay on writing, it's been super busy.  I think it's mostly because the classes I am teaching/co-teaching were originally designed by a sociologist with the humanities-like tendency to assign several hundred pages of reading a week per class (I had had a say in the syllabi too, of course, but I had forgotten, I think, what it takes to read so much at once).  And so, I've been kind of drowning in reading the last two months. 

But I think that if I'm smart in writing my syllabi for next semester (agricultural policy class and research methods), I can make it a bunch more manageable.  At least that's the goal.  Because I don't mind working, but my sticking with this job for any length of time is going to be somewhat contingent on finding a better balance than the probably more typical academic-y-ness of working just about every evening and weekend...  I'll let you know how it goes.

Aside from the workload, though, I think my job is actually pretty good.  It's hard to say because it's still new, but so far, it seems about a million times better than my last job (which wasn't bad, but ended up being kind of boring and pointless-feeling a lot of the time) -- the stuff I'm doing is more interesting to me, and more interesting to the people I work with, the people I interact with are interested in somewhat similar things, or at least things that are more of interest to me, and so it's probably just easier for me to see the point of what I'm doing on a daily basis...

And even though for the last 10 years I kind of sought out being the lone "person thinking about social/societal issues" in a sea of natural scientists, it's really nice not to have to play that role here at all.  There's a lot of interest in and potential for hands-on stuff alongside the book learning (applied classes, farm campus work, travel courses (?)), and people collaborate and brainstorm together a lot, which was something I had hoped for other places but rarely saw (at least not in the way I might have liked).  Not to say it's perfect or anything, but there's potential.

Meanwhile, I had promised you in previous posts a view of our place from outside -- we're the second floor of windows in the house on the right in this picture.  Down the block is a nice park with a playground. 



And I've attached a video of Eytan walking around mostly because it shows a lot of the layout inside.



So, it's very nice, although I think have to stick with my last assessment of ultimately probably too urban for us... I'll keep you posted on the more-rural-place-to-move-to-next-summer search.

You may also have noticed above that Eytan was kind of excited to be walking around in shoes.  He has in fact gotten quite adjusted to shoes, and really likes putting them on and taking them off, especially if they are about 15 sizes too big.





Other recent developments include taking our hands or holding onto our pant legs to lead us places he wants to go, and as previously, continuing to get along pretty nicely with Timber, pulling his tail and kindly offering to share his pacifier.



Eytan also continues to be super excited about anything that looks or seems like a phone (which is interesting, because while Mike and I do talk on the phone, it's not super often -- but it is, I suppose, something which rings and we go to it, a compelling sequence in and of itself).  So we often end up leaving old (unconnected) phones around the house for playing with.  The following is one he picked up at a friend's when we visited Minnesota for Thanksgiving.

Below are a few more pictures from that trip.  The backstory to them is that the jumpsuit Eytan is wearing was Mike's from when he was little, and Mike was trying to get a parallel picture to one he has of his grandma holding him in that jumpsuit.  Eytan wasn't quite ready to sit still for it, but this was one attempt.

And he (and we) did get to spend some time hanging out with bunches of relatives and friends.

What else?  I guess a lot of the rest of what we've been doing has been continuing to adjust and settle in.  We've gotten used to buying eggs again rather than getting them from our chickens, and have found a way to bring our food scraps to the farm campus of my school to compost rather than have to adjust to throwing them out.  I'm probably used to the fact by now that when I go running and hear a rustle beside the path, it's more likely to be a squirrel than a snake. 

Eytan's front tooth (which had been pushed back up into his gums a couple of months ago when he fell face first onto a bucket as we were packing to leave Wenatchee (in a scary bleedy episode where we had thought it had been knocked out until the dentist did an x-ray and found it hidden back way up there)), has been coming back down quite nicely into its normal spot.  He has also started daycare twice a week, which has let him hang out with more kids and let Mike have a little more time to work on things on his end.  Mike will be taking classes in January and then ideally starting some more official yet-to-be-determined school program in the fall.

Although Mike and Eytan have probably seen a bit more of the city than I have so far, I have done a little bit of Pittsburgh area exploring through work, primarily agricultural/food tourism on class field trips -- one to a pig/cow farm, and a coffee roaster, and a lamb farm (which turned into a surprise visit to a slaughterhouse in West Virginia, which freaked out a few of my especially vegetarian students -- see third photo below).

So, what else can I say?  I guess there are pluses and minuses so far of life in Pittsburgh.  There are aspects that are certainly more convenient than living in Olalla Canyon -- eating Thai food on occasion (even takeout), for example, or walking to a supermarket, or having universities nearby where Mike can go back to school, or having much much much shorter flights to anywhere east of the west coast or mountain region. 

But I would say on the whole, "quality of life" is probably not as good here as it was in Wenatchee -- in terms of open-space, traffic, affordability, access to medical care, etc. (the care itself I think is better here, probably technologically and knowledge-wise several years ahead of Wenatchee, but the beaurocracy of having to wait forever in crowded waiting rooms and having the office misplace your appointment and not be willing to do much about it and having to go from one department to the other trying to find lost paperwork feels like a long way from showing up at the doctor's office where you know everyone, and being in and out in 20 minutes -- I guess the moral of the story is that if you have something requiring serious or complicated medical attention you're probably better off being here (which I guess is why in Wenatchee they would send you to Seattle for that), but for routine care I'd choose Wenatchee hands down). 

I guess, in short, I miss our old digs.  There are definitely parts I don't miss -- work, other odds and ends -- and those are probably many of the reasons why we came.  But there are times where a geographical transporter machine would come in handy :) :).  But, kind of along those lines, we head back to WA next week, and again next summer for lingering grant commitments.  And who knows, perhaps with some workload management at my job and a potential move outside the city proper, Pittsburgh will grow on us too.

Meanwhile, one second-to-last bit of news, which I will as usual bury deep in the middle of a long post, is that assuming all continues to go well, Mike and Eytan and I are all expecting the arrival of another kiddo in early to mid April (well, Eytan may or may not quite be expecting it per se, but...).  We are excited, and so far all seems good on that front, as I am just starting not to fit into normal clothes any more.  Ah well.

Last but not least, I'm leaving you with a few more Eytan videos.  He has gotten super fond recently of music, and has figured out that when you put a CD into the big brown box (or more accurately ask someone taller than you to do that), music comes out.  The dancing started as back and forth swaying whenever there's any sort of recorded music or people singing...

 

...and has recently become more complex.

The most recent move, as you can see below, is a squat, which is always better when someone else does it with you.

So that's it for now.  Hope to send you more pictures and updates when we get back from trip west.

Moved

Well, I can't say it has been a particularly smooth move, but we're here.

Before we left Washington, Mike & Eytan & I managed to harvest some broccoli and dry beans (and yes, moved the beans with us!) (oh and apologies ahead of time, several of these photos are cell phone pictures and a little washed out).

 We carried some buckets and tried to clean out the yard a little.



We split up Falkor and Gigi to finally get Falkor weaned (she was getting enormous and Gigi was wasting away with this whole nursing-way-past-goats-are-supposed-to thing), and then drove them to Moses Lake for the year, a couple of hours away from our place (although we have since learned that our goat foster care lady never actually okayed the foster care arrangement with her husband, who turns out to be unhappy about it, so she'll only keep them until we can find another spot for them... complicated from across the country.)






We used a U-pack moving truck, where you pack and unload but don't have to drive it cross country yourself.  It worked okay except that the trailer came a day late and it took us a day longer than we thought it would to load it, so we ended up missing good friends who were passing through Seattle (from England) that we had hoped to get to see.





But our house is pretty much emptied out (although not sold or rented yet), so I guess at the end of the day what needed to get done got done.




Our flight out of Wenatchee got delayed 5 hours and we missed all our connections, so we ended up on a red-eye from Seattle to D.C. and then a morning flight to Pittsburgh, with Eytan and Timber (the cat) both in tow.  And arrived to find that the apartment we had rented was not quite yet finished being renovated.  So we spent an extra week and a half trying to stay out of the place as much as possible so the crew could finish... which made getting Eytan naps a little tricky (Timber did okay for naps).  Partway through that time, the moving truck arrived and so we took to unpacking.

We're still unpacking, but the kitchen is unburied, and the smell of polyurethane (which made all of us stuffy and hard to breathe overnight for a couple of weeks) is almost dissipated, just in time to close all the windows and turn off all the ceiling fans in preparation for the snow forecasted this week (until now it's been mostly quite warm).



Meanwhile, I've started my job, which seems good so far, except for being a lot of work.  Part of the problem is coming in halfway through the semester and having to catch up for the classes I'm teaching or co-teaching (although I still can't see having been able to get here in August).  Part of it is just being in a new place where you don't know how anything works yet.  And part of it is probably just the nature of the beast.  Mike is trying to finish unpacking and manage the house and Eytan and keep writing his applications to schools.  So we're stretched pretty thin, but hoping that improves sooner or later (preferably sooner).  

Meanwhile, how's Pittsburgh itself, you ask?  Well, I don't really know yet.  Urban, I guess.  There's a lot of noise and light at night.  Convenient in some ways, not to have to drive everywhere or go long distances to the supermarket or playgrounds or restaurants... although turns out we may just not be such eaty-outy type people anyway.  And you have to put shoes on to go outside.

I find the weather (i.e. the lack of dryness) confusing, although I shouldn't, having spent most of my life in the east.  But somehow I can't figure out how the temperature corresponds to what clothes I should put on, and so I seem to keep getting it wrong.  Timber is stir crazy and attacking all our feet for lack of mice.  We live on a pretty busy street and haven't wanted to let him out the front door, but once the back porch is rebuilt (soon?) we'll probably try and hope he figures out to avoid cars.

The campus where I work is pretty, though, and I have to say that in contrast to when I got to Washington and visited the main campus of Washington State University and was incredibly thankful that my job was *not* located on a university campus, I am finding a campus to be pretty convenient this time -- it even has its own post office, and a gym (with a pool), and it's walkable...  Interestingly, I see more high heeled shoes here than I did in Wenatchee (which probably says more about Wenatchee than anything else, but still).

Overall assessment so far?  Well, I don't think we're going to remain urban dwellers for terribly long.  But I guess it's a good experiment.  Meanwhile, I'll try to get you a photo of the outside of our building too one of these days just so you get a visual...  But until then you'll have to make do with a video of Eytan and one of his current favorite words.