Well Hello There

Yes, it's been too long.

And while I can't promise I'll be around more often, I do at least intend to be.  And I do owe an explanation of what's been up the last, oh, 9 months?

First off, I have a new job.  My old job, where I was for about a year, lead into a new job.  The business was closing, or at least transferring half of itself to another company, a major marine chandlery here on the West Coast.  My boss had already moved over, and he was selling half of the company, the repair side, to a new owner.  I was given job offers by the new owner as well as the chandlery.

I decided, for a few reasons, to go with the new chandlery.  For one thing, it's a very large chandlery with multiple locations up and down the coast, and some large warehouses through out the west and mid-west.  While their current internet presence is not a storefront for any but wholesale customers, It Is Coming.  And when it comes, it will be big.  While they mostly cater to the local commercial fishing fleet, their industrial side does also cater to many of the industrial companies that run the west coast.  There just isn't anyone else around, I guess.  I have concerns about the future of the commercial fishing fleet's viability after new USCG regulations come into effect in the next few years.  Overall, it just offered stability that my other option didn't have.  What my other option really offered, that I will miss, was flexibility, face-time with customers, and the ability to learn more about the management side.  I may come to that eventually in my new job, but it's not certain.

I do like my new job, and I like the company I work for.  I do have some flashbacks about my old-old job, and I have some quirks that are a result.  Like leaving notes in 20 different places to remind people I'll be out because a certain ex-boss would accuse me of not telling him.  And, working an extra half hour every day and not charging for it.  Ultimately, because I do not want to end up in a situation like I was in so long ago, I have been trying my utmost to go above and beyond the call of duty.  I was worried about the fact that for the first time in my life I'd be working with mostly all women.  It's been ok.  Everyone has a different personality, but they're all rock-stars at certain things, and you gotta take the good with the bad.

I'm worried that I'm getting further from what I originally thought I'd do in life.  It even came up in my interview.  "Two advanced degrees, you really want to give that up?"  I've been worried about it for awhile. How can I take myself seriously to be doing "only" this, when I originally meant to be doing "all" of that.  I'd mentioned it to R along the way.  He thinks it counts that I'm doing anything related to boats.  And that he's continuing to do what he's doing, and even if I'm not directly involved, I can't fail to be indirectly involved.  I think his feeling is that as long as I'm happy, productive, and fending for myself, he doesn't think I should feel like a failure.  And for now, it seems like he's right.  I look at when I fought for my career as I originally intended it and wonder, was it worth the angst?  The hysterical panic attacks?  The nausea of a Sunday?  I don't know that it was.  Maybe I'm content to let that chapter of serious NAME work close.  Not from a lack of interest.  Maybe the career had fallen into a riptide... where no matter how much I was swimming for the beach, I was getting dragged away.  And maybe it's just time for me to go sideways, and see where we end up.

I don't know that I want to leave the career for ever, but I don't have a way that we feel is comfortable for me to continue as a serious NAME in the future.  While I have background in stability, it is NOT in fishing boat stability. And I know all too well that those loading conditions you write down in the books and send in to ABS/USCG probably have very little bearing on the reality of crab season.  Especially given the general lack of serious education of the fleet's captains.  It's not to say they're not generally wonderful folks, and very knowledgeable, but there's few I'd trust with my life.  Or, say, my stamp, should I ever get one.

As far as a stamp is concerned, I'm not sure if I'll chose to get one.  I suppose in some way it would be optimal to keep that door open.  But at the same time, I'm not certain I'd be comfortable using it.  Who knows.

In the meantime, I do intend to keep working on boats, and using them, and loving them.  In particular, I've been working on a dinghy design on and off for a long time, and I would like to build it sometime.  It's going to have to wait till after we move into the apartment, but that just means I have the meanwhile to noodle the design some more.

All my love...

K

Full speed ahead

Happy New Year!  Cliche resolution that I refuse to make:  posting to the blog more.  However, I have a word for the year:  thrive.  It seems like a good word to live by.  All the changes that last year brought deserve a go- getter plan to make some sense of it all.

There are any number of things I'd like to accomplish this year but resolutions don't seem to work, so I think the small goal routine is more in order.

1. Move into the shop with R.
2. Solidify my job for the long run.
3. Be fit.
4. Pay off/down debts.
5. Make more jewelry, and sell it.
6. Get the catboat together.
7. Visit home.
8. Do more fun stuff with R.
9. Do more fun stuff with the dogs.
10. Get more of my power squadron classes done.

Some of those are truly quantifiable, or could be made to do so... Some are more, what, touchy feely.  For example, "be fit" could mean, oh, lose one million pounds, or gain muscle, or do a triathlon, or something.  I haven't decided what for that topic, but not for a lack of noodling on the it.  Create healthy habits?  And how do you quantify that a thing is a habit?  That you generally always do it?

Quantifying that you paid down debts isn't so hard.  I could measure my debt today and again later and say, yes, the X of today and the Y of tomorrow have this relationship:  X > Y.

More fun stuff with R and the dogs... I can't quantify where I am with that now... but I do want to make an effort.

Moving into the shop with R involves more than my time, so it can't happen at the rate I'd like for it to, but it's at least quantifiable.  I made pretty much no jewelry last year, so anything is an improvement over that.  Unfortunately, it's a bit at odds with paying down debt, so I'll have to be a better seller.

Getting the catboat together involves more than myself, since it involves our paint room and R and his tools and expertise.  But maybe if I can work on breaking the project up into small goals we' 'll get somewhere.  But, get moved in first.  Then my boat will be way easier to work on.

Visit home:  like I've always said, you can take the girl out of Texas but you can't take the Texas out of the girl.   I miss home, and my parents, my best friend, our boat, and Galveston, and the food, and the Sun.  That way it shines and warms you to the bones.  I miss having a tan and lighter hair and a need to wear shorts and, and, and.  I mind Oregon less and less and enjoy the month or two of normal weather during the summer, but, I do miss home.  Now that I have a normal sleep schedule the storms keep me awake and edgy, and there's so little thunder and lightning.  Let's face it, a good thunderstorm is downright cathartic.  The rain here is so... constant.  If the split between the good weather and bad weather months was more 50/50, maybe that wouldn't make me so homesick.  But, here we are.

Last year wasn't a bad year.  There were some surprises, some challenges, some disappointments.  But overall, I'm thankful for the changes it brought.  I loved my time with OWSA and I miss it.  I love that I am involved with boats and fishing vessels more.  I love that I'm being challenged and asked to learn in the job I found.  I love that I'm near my husband and can sneak more moments with him.  I loved our attempts to get away.  And the fishing trips were pretty exciting.  I always enjoy doing new and different things with him.  College forced us to be so adaptive in some ways that it's nice to stretch the adaptive muscles and go experience life.

Highlights:  telling new ex-coworkers I'd be just fine, and trying to make a graceful exit in a disgraceful situation.  Whether I pulled it off, I was proud of myself for not saying every thing I'd ever dreamed of saying in that situation.  The boat trip the next day, steering that huge Hans into grey confused seas on the bar.  Did R know I needed a good bash into weather for some catharsis?  I suppose so, and silently thank him for not reclaiming the helm.  The next boat trip:  being told to pick R up at the marina to get him back to his truck, and instead getting picked up for a sunset cruise with 900 hp.  Seeing my family in St. Louis.  I'm in love with my nephew!  The crabpot tree lighting in Ilwaco:  the weather was horrid but I enjoyed tromping around with R.  And further back, my birthday boat ride/sea trial, and our vacation in March.  OWSA classes, USPS classes.  Including that nefarious fuel incident on a certain surveyors boat during Cool Maneuvers that necessitated an awesome assist from Captain Ron.  Outings with on the club boats with my OWSA girls and docking practice.  I was so nervous!  And a million small quiet moments, watching my little family:  Chloe snoozing innocently, Captain doodling in the yard or staring out at his kingdom.  R engaged in some physical or mental combat with some boaty matter.

But I'll never get anywhere with this year if I keep focusing on last year.  So, off I go!