Whoops

So, when I spoke of my triumphant return to bloggy land, did I fail to mention that I was currently spending time with friends who were in town and then subsequently leave Buffalo for a week and a half of vacation? No? Not even a little bit. Hmmm...

Well, sorry for getting your hopes up only to dash them again. I am recently returned from many adventures in the West, which kept me from the beloved blog, but were entirely worth it, as they were as rough and wild as the Old West itself. A sampling of our great exploits:

--A leisurely afternoon viewing the house of the Unsinkable Molly Brown and the capital building of Denver with my historically minded sis.
--Spending a few days among the hummingbirds in a cabin on the river
--Horseback riding through the mountains
--White water rafting on the Poudre River (one of the coolest things I have ever done, may have to expand on this in another post)
--A scenic drive up one of the most trecherous, unpaved, hairpin-turny, steep-drop-offy, serpentinest roads we have ever driven, for grand, glorious and oh so worth it views of the Rocky Mountains and the alpine tundra biosphere
--Waffles for breakfast in a castle
--Climbing the rocks in the Garden of the Gods and a quick hike to see Siamese Twins
--A train ride past Douglas Firs, marmots, and the Sangre de Cristo mountains, up to the tippy top of Pike's Peak (upon which America the Beautiful was composed, dontcha know?)
--A side splitting visit to a modest Old West museum that nonetheless provided the backdrop for some very fun photo ops
--a concert of Rogers and Hammerstein's classics (don't get me started!)
--Finally, collapsing in a friend's condo by a mountain lake for some well earned R&R, including a wonderful night of pizza and SYTYCD, a pool with a sauna and a eucalyptus scented steam room (!) and possibly the most hilariously swash-buckling paddleboat ride that was ever embarked on the high seas.

I love lists. I hope you love them too. They are the only way I know of to cover ten days of awesome in a way that doesn't put everyone but the participants to sleep. Perhaps I will post some more pictures soon. But for now I'm back in the Buff and on to more adventures!

S.

Reporting for Duty

Finally, finally! The long month of quasi-quiet is over and the chatter can resume full force. Oh, and do I ever have things to tell you today.

So I am full of joy because not only am I in my new room, but I have pretty much all my furniture and things are basically the way I want them, with the major exception being my workspace, which I think requires a little more furniture for the sake of organization. And maybe a bigger chair. That would be nice. Not necessary, but nice. And I am settling in nicely to my new home and daily discovering more delights. For example, just recently I discovered that the piano bench actually rests on legs that are shaped like a bird's claw clutching a glass ball. Who would expect such a fantastical, Lord of the Ringsy sort of furnishing in a commonplace house such as ours? But this is clearly a place of many secrets.

But, aside from all that, today's topic is the long promised, long awaited one in which I finally fill you in on the job situation! Aren't you so excited? I knew you would be! So I have not gone far from the sheltering nest of Americorps work, but I have made a very significant switch from Americorps VISTA to Americorps ABLE. The most significant differences are that ABLEs get to be more hands on in their work, and they have a lot less paperwork to worry about. Both big bonuses in my view. So I ended up being able to create the project plan for my new job, a circumstance which has come about in the most circuitous way that I won't even tell you the story because there are so many steps and dead ends and yet every step was completely necessary to get where I have ended up. But that is also a great gift to be able to insist, in a way, on what I want to do.

The new job basically has three components: 1.) To bring collaborative, large scale art projects to Grant St., an endeavor which has, as I understand it, already been started, but just needs a little more juice to get finished. Grant St. is really close to my neighborhood, but is also kind of infamous for not being such a good section of town. 2.) Work to connect the Houghton College arts community to the Buffalo arts community, both by bringing Buffalo artists to Houghton for workshops/lectures/exhibits and by bringing Houghton to Buffalo through keeping students informed about the different things happening in Buffalo and trying to arrange internships or jobs in the arts field for Houghton students. And the very best part is part 3.) Freelance work for different arts non-profit groups which could include anything from helping them with a marketing campaign or designing a new brochure or helping them recruit volunteers to helping as a teacher's aid in an arts-in-education classroom. I am very open to working with all kinds of groups, but of course I'm particularly excited about working with dance groups. The great thing about my job description is that it is very flexible and I can adapt it to the opportunities that present themselves and what catches my interest.

I'm a little nervous about the whole enterprise, though, to be perfectly honest. Sometimes I do wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew, but I feel like that feeling comes from the fact that right now I'm thinking about the job instead of doing it. And besides, I need a challenge. Oh, do I ever. I won't be starting until after the 13th of this month because I leave next week for a little vacation with the fam in the great state of Colorado. I have to say at this point I don't know that it's a well deserved rest since this vacation comes promptly following two weeks of...vacation. And I can't say it's been a terribly productive vacation either. But I think of these two weeks as a time of rest, whereas our time in Colorado promises to be more of a time of adventure. We need all three, I think, work, rest, and play, so I should have all my bases covered.

Hopefully I should be able to check in before I go, but lately the most interesting news behind my new job is the absurd amount of time I've spent watching the first season of House since I finished my last job. Thanks a lot, Netflix! Oh, but then there was that one day I spent exploring caves and wrangling turkeys. Maybe that will be the meat of my next post...

Until then,
S.