What it is*

I started rowing in college on some sort of whim. I’m pretty sure the whim had its roots in a summer TV show called “American High School” or something like that, where Kate Moennig (of The L Word fame) played a girl passing as a boy at a summer high school (summer high school? Weird, right?), and she (he?) was a coxswain for their rowing team.

Okay, after a little digging, I found that it was not called “American High School” (which was maybe obvious, because that would be a horrible name), but “Young Americans.” Not sure that name is much better. Here is the first episode!

What I noticed watching this after I’d been rowing for awhile is that they kind of suck. Their timing is WAY off. Unacceptable. Maybe they’re a novice high school team? Anyway…

I bring this up because it is 8:40am, I have been up for almost five hours, and I haven’t adjusted to this crazy schedule yet. My brain sort of feels like mush all day, like I can’t think straight. But what I do know is that I miss blogging, I miss you guys, and I wanted to say hello! But all my brain really processes is “I am tired” and “ROWING!!”. Thus the “Young Americans” episode.

i love boats. i try to kiss them.

On a different and hopefully more coherent note, I realized that I have more to say when I am working through things, when I am trying to make a decision, when I am considering options. And then, once I’ve made those decisions? I don’t have time to talk – I have to go make things happen! THINGS MUST HAPPEN.

So today, instead of asking you about what I should do or what you would do in [my situation of the day], I will tell you about the exciting things that are happening, about which I no longer need to make decisions:

• We got a composter and a composting pail for our kitchen.  Okay, I know that sounds sort of lame, but I am SUPER excited about it.  All those food scraps we’ve been throwing away for years that feed into my guilt about creating garbage that ends the world (okay I have some issues) and stinks up our trash? Now it goes in the pretty silver pail on our counter and then out to our beautiful tumbling composter and it turns into dirt! Dirt! And then our plants are happy.  And I am happy.
  

  Compost pail, purchased with wedding gift money, makes me SO HAPPY.

  

  Our awesome yard composter, donated by my lovely parents

• I quit my job. Eh, yes. Again.  I thought the dog walking might be the right thing for me, but it turns out that it’s not.  I am playing with the idea that dog walking might not be the wrong thing for me, but dog walking for someone else’s company IS the wrong thing for me.  After quitting my job in December and searching so hard for things that get me excited and make me feel connected, I didn’t want to waste any time doing something that made me unhappy.
• Oh yeah, and I got into grad school.  Woo hoo! Hopefully, two years from now, I’ll have a master’s degree in education in Behavior Analysis.  That’s a lot of “ins” but that’s okay.
• AND I got another job! I am coaching rowing five days a week over the summer!  It’s only a couple hours a day, so not enough to really live on, but it’s something exciting to keep doing.  And also it involves getting up at 4:15 am, which is kind of rough, but also kind of exciting.
• AND AND I have a job interview for a second coaching job during the school year.  Keep your fingers crossed!
• Lastly, I sat down and did a lot of math to send in my quarterly taxes yesterday… and it turns out I don’t even have to pay them, so hooray for that, too!

In conclusion, I remain somewhat poor, but pretty damn happy.  I am tired but satisfied, and I’m looking forward to all of the things these changes bring.  I am considering building up my current petsitting business, which is mostly watching cats while their owners are on vacation, to include a few dog walking clients.  I’m also considering trying to get a “real job”, though I’m not putting too much hope into that these days.

What are you all up to? What is going well in your lives?  Do any dog owners want to take a look at my website and tell me if you’d theoretically hire me (if you would, email me! I’ll send you the URL.)? Are you also super excited about composting?

(Also, I want to write more, but my brain is much, as I might have mentioned or implied through my amazing writing skills.  Does anyone have anything (dog-related? Crew-related?) that they want to hear about? Ask me things! Okay, I hate when bloggers do that, but I blame the mush-brain.)

*Title of the post = what my coach always used to say when he saw us: “Hey Eric, how’s it going?” “What it is. What. it. is.”

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