I thought I would come by to let you all know that I passed my dissertation defense and only need to make minor revisions to my proposal. I need to add a few details to my abstract and a couple of documents to my appendices, and then I will resubmit it to my chair by this weekend. The next step is to start working on my IRB application. I imagine that it will not be approved until after the first of the year, but that is fine. I do not plan on doing much between now and then anyway.
I realized that I forgot to mention that we decided to refinance our mortgage, and we closed on the new loan today. When we closed on our first mortgage 2 1/2 years ago, our interest rate was 4.75%, and I was able to get it down to 2.75%. We also went from a 30 year to a 15 year mortgage, and our payment will only be about $150 more a month than what I was paying. Oddly, we did not have to bring any money to closing--in fact, the title company is going to mail us a $500 check on Tuesday. It does not make any sense to me that we had to borrow money to pay ourselves, but I guess that's an extra $500 I can put toward my principle in February.
I think that is all I have to say at the the moment. Tomorrow is Friday, and I get off work at 3:00, so Dan and I will probably grab an early dinner and then watch Christmas movies. Sunday I would like to try to get my office painted and my house cleaned up so it's in order for Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to all of you!
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Defense Day
I am off work today because at 5:00 I am going to be defending my dissertation proposal. I was supposed to do it last Thursday, but I was not ready. I am nervous and will be happy when it is over, but I am pretty sure I will pass. The next step is my instituional review board application and then I will put my survey together and send out the link so I can get my results. After I have about 200 survey replies, I can run my statistics, write up my results, defend my dissertation, and be finished with school forever!!!
Other than that, there is not much going on at the moment. There is a lot in the works for after Christmas, though. I got my new countertops a week ago, and they have really brightened up my kitchen a lot. My old countertops were black granite. Apparently they were very popular in the early 2000s. I hated them because they always looked dirty and I could not find things I set down on them. It's like the item would get sucked into a black hole. My new countertops are white quartz with a gray pattern. After I take my Christmas tree down, we are going to rip out my floors and lay new vinyl planks down in the whole house. We already ripped carpet out of two of the bedrooms. Only my bedroom still has carpet. After we get the floors laid, we plan to paint, but only because I am not 100% sure of about what color will go best with the flooring I have chosen. If I can nail that down before we lay the flooring, then I might paint first, which would actually be better. We bought a sprayer, so that should make quick work of it. After those two big projects, there will just be small projects to do, and after I finish my dissertation, for the first time since 2014 I will not have anything big hanging over my head. It will be nice to have weekends to just go do fun things and not think about how I should be writing rather than playing Animal Crossing or cleaning my house.
Christmas is 10 days away and I feel like I have not really done much to prepare for it. My tree is up and I have decorated the inside and outside of my house a bit, but I have only bought a couple of presents. I bought April an Animal Crossing Switch and Dan wanted Game of Thrones DVDs. Ben will want money, and last year I bought Matt an Amazon gift card that he never redeemed, so I will regift that to him, lol. I also bought my nieces an Amazon gift card last year that their dad did not redeem, so guess who will be getting another regifted gift card. I bought my mom an Amazon gift card when I went to visit in October, so she is taken care of. Those are really the only people I need to buy for. I pretty much buy what I need when I need it, so I do not ever know what to tell people I want. I prefer just to enjoy the company of my small family. I will host Christmas Eve at my house and April is hosting Christmas dinner at her house. She is very proud of her new home and loves when Dan and I come to vist. She and Ben are making it really cute. I am glad that they get along so well.
Well, I really need to go and study. My defense is in eight hours and I want to be very well prepared. I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!
Other than that, there is not much going on at the moment. There is a lot in the works for after Christmas, though. I got my new countertops a week ago, and they have really brightened up my kitchen a lot. My old countertops were black granite. Apparently they were very popular in the early 2000s. I hated them because they always looked dirty and I could not find things I set down on them. It's like the item would get sucked into a black hole. My new countertops are white quartz with a gray pattern. After I take my Christmas tree down, we are going to rip out my floors and lay new vinyl planks down in the whole house. We already ripped carpet out of two of the bedrooms. Only my bedroom still has carpet. After we get the floors laid, we plan to paint, but only because I am not 100% sure of about what color will go best with the flooring I have chosen. If I can nail that down before we lay the flooring, then I might paint first, which would actually be better. We bought a sprayer, so that should make quick work of it. After those two big projects, there will just be small projects to do, and after I finish my dissertation, for the first time since 2014 I will not have anything big hanging over my head. It will be nice to have weekends to just go do fun things and not think about how I should be writing rather than playing Animal Crossing or cleaning my house.
Christmas is 10 days away and I feel like I have not really done much to prepare for it. My tree is up and I have decorated the inside and outside of my house a bit, but I have only bought a couple of presents. I bought April an Animal Crossing Switch and Dan wanted Game of Thrones DVDs. Ben will want money, and last year I bought Matt an Amazon gift card that he never redeemed, so I will regift that to him, lol. I also bought my nieces an Amazon gift card last year that their dad did not redeem, so guess who will be getting another regifted gift card. I bought my mom an Amazon gift card when I went to visit in October, so she is taken care of. Those are really the only people I need to buy for. I pretty much buy what I need when I need it, so I do not ever know what to tell people I want. I prefer just to enjoy the company of my small family. I will host Christmas Eve at my house and April is hosting Christmas dinner at her house. She is very proud of her new home and loves when Dan and I come to vist. She and Ben are making it really cute. I am glad that they get along so well.
Well, I really need to go and study. My defense is in eight hours and I want to be very well prepared. I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Lots of News to Share
I have become the worst blogger in the world. I am sorry I didn't update sooner. Life just stays super busy and throws me surprises left and right. After Hurricane Sally, we had a few other threats, but everything stayed to the west (poor Louisiana!) Eta was a potential threat, but it looks like it made landfall in north-central Florida and is now heading out to the Atlantic. Hurricane season officially ends in 18 days, but with the way 2020 is going, I wouldn't be surprised to see storms forming right up until New Year's Eve.
In other news, April and her boyfriend broke up shortly after Hurricane Sally, and she decided to buy a house. That has been a whirlwind. She found a really cute house not too far from where I live and put an offer on it, but the seller was not really ready to sell and so he tried to give her the run-around to buy some time. She wasn't having any of that and instead put an offer on a house three or four doors down that is the exact same floorplan but is brand new and a bit less expensive. The only disadvantage to the new house is that the driveway is steep, much like the driveway we had in Belleuve. The upside is that we don't get snow here, so she will never have trouble getting into her garage. She also had to buy a refrigerator and will have to buy window coverings. Today at 9:00am was her walk through and she will close next Friday at 1:00pm. Understandably, she is happy, sad, and stressed all at once. She really loves her boyfriend and she wanted to marry him, but there are some issues that she just couldn't see past, so she decided to make the break. I think it is a good thing to be honest. He is a really nice guy and I like him, but I never felt that he was right for her. She wants to stay friends with him, but it is doubtful that they will since they will not see each other very often.
April has always been very financially responsible, so this big purchase also has her pretty stressed out. I suggested that maybe she could have Ben move in with her, but she was not excited about that idea after living with him in the apartment they shared last year. Let's just say that he is not a very good housekeeper. She started rethinking things and finally decided to ask him to move in with her late last week, so once again, Dan and I will be empty nesters as of next weekend. It really is the best situation for everyone. April and Ben can share expenses because if they each lived alone, they would be stretching themselves financially. Ben has a steady paycheck now, but he is at the lower end of making of living wage. April can afford the house, but she, too, would be stretched, so this is a good answer to the problem. I have already spoken with Ben about being a responsible roommate, and April is giving him some creative license with the house in an endeavor to give him the feeling that it is his home too. I think that as long as Ben holds up his end of the bargain, everything will work out fine.
Going out looking at houses with April really gave me the itch to do some remodeling, so I hit that head on. The first thing we did was replace my old refrigerator and stove (FINALLY!) I bought a refrigerator over a year ago, but it was delivered banged up and dusty, so we sent it back. After that I just kind of gave up. We also had to replace our HVAC system because there was a leak in the coil area that was spilling water into Ben's room. The timing was a bit unexpected, although we knew that eventually it would have to be done. We also had to replace the hot water heater because it has been acting up for some time. I finally got tired of not knowing whether I'd have hot water or not and persuaded Dan to replace it. Yesterday someone came to measure my counters because I want to get rid of the black granite countertops in my kitchen. It's not that I utterly hate them, but my whole kitchen was dark: black appliances, black countertops, and darkish cherrywood colored cabinets. On top of that, the living room floor is a darker-colored wood color, the front door had a stained-glass looking film on it for privacy (which I removed yesterday), and my back porch is screened in, so I do not get a ton of light in my house. After the beginning of the year, we are going to paint the walls and replace all of the floors except the bathrooms. Dan is thrilled to have such a big project coming up (she says facetiously, lol). I keep telling him that we can hire someone, he insists on doing it himself. Ben said he'd help, and I will do what I can, so I hope that it goes fairly smoothly.
So that is about all of my news except for one new piece that I got about three hours ago. My employer is making my position permanently remote, so I will not be going back to the office! It was very welcome news, but I have to admit that it feels a little weird to know that this is permanent. It is definitely a good thing, though, because one of my coworkers moved to Illinois a few months ago, and I think she was very hopeful that we would be allowed to continue working remotely so that she would not need to find a new job. I think that this covid thing has demonstrated to a lot of employers that people can work from home and remain productive. I think that it probably also helps with retention, and it definitely helps with expenses. People are going to save money on clothes, gas, and going out for lunch, and fewer people driving to work every day will help with the environmental footprint impact. I am not sure if all departments are going to be allowed to work from home, though. My director started advocating for us to work from home before covid, so the fact that we have proven we can do it likely helped her cause.
Well, my lunch break is over, so it's back to work for me. Based on my blogging record, I might as well wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year right now, lol. Love you all!
In other news, April and her boyfriend broke up shortly after Hurricane Sally, and she decided to buy a house. That has been a whirlwind. She found a really cute house not too far from where I live and put an offer on it, but the seller was not really ready to sell and so he tried to give her the run-around to buy some time. She wasn't having any of that and instead put an offer on a house three or four doors down that is the exact same floorplan but is brand new and a bit less expensive. The only disadvantage to the new house is that the driveway is steep, much like the driveway we had in Belleuve. The upside is that we don't get snow here, so she will never have trouble getting into her garage. She also had to buy a refrigerator and will have to buy window coverings. Today at 9:00am was her walk through and she will close next Friday at 1:00pm. Understandably, she is happy, sad, and stressed all at once. She really loves her boyfriend and she wanted to marry him, but there are some issues that she just couldn't see past, so she decided to make the break. I think it is a good thing to be honest. He is a really nice guy and I like him, but I never felt that he was right for her. She wants to stay friends with him, but it is doubtful that they will since they will not see each other very often.
April has always been very financially responsible, so this big purchase also has her pretty stressed out. I suggested that maybe she could have Ben move in with her, but she was not excited about that idea after living with him in the apartment they shared last year. Let's just say that he is not a very good housekeeper. She started rethinking things and finally decided to ask him to move in with her late last week, so once again, Dan and I will be empty nesters as of next weekend. It really is the best situation for everyone. April and Ben can share expenses because if they each lived alone, they would be stretching themselves financially. Ben has a steady paycheck now, but he is at the lower end of making of living wage. April can afford the house, but she, too, would be stretched, so this is a good answer to the problem. I have already spoken with Ben about being a responsible roommate, and April is giving him some creative license with the house in an endeavor to give him the feeling that it is his home too. I think that as long as Ben holds up his end of the bargain, everything will work out fine.
Going out looking at houses with April really gave me the itch to do some remodeling, so I hit that head on. The first thing we did was replace my old refrigerator and stove (FINALLY!) I bought a refrigerator over a year ago, but it was delivered banged up and dusty, so we sent it back. After that I just kind of gave up. We also had to replace our HVAC system because there was a leak in the coil area that was spilling water into Ben's room. The timing was a bit unexpected, although we knew that eventually it would have to be done. We also had to replace the hot water heater because it has been acting up for some time. I finally got tired of not knowing whether I'd have hot water or not and persuaded Dan to replace it. Yesterday someone came to measure my counters because I want to get rid of the black granite countertops in my kitchen. It's not that I utterly hate them, but my whole kitchen was dark: black appliances, black countertops, and darkish cherrywood colored cabinets. On top of that, the living room floor is a darker-colored wood color, the front door had a stained-glass looking film on it for privacy (which I removed yesterday), and my back porch is screened in, so I do not get a ton of light in my house. After the beginning of the year, we are going to paint the walls and replace all of the floors except the bathrooms. Dan is thrilled to have such a big project coming up (she says facetiously, lol). I keep telling him that we can hire someone, he insists on doing it himself. Ben said he'd help, and I will do what I can, so I hope that it goes fairly smoothly.
So that is about all of my news except for one new piece that I got about three hours ago. My employer is making my position permanently remote, so I will not be going back to the office! It was very welcome news, but I have to admit that it feels a little weird to know that this is permanent. It is definitely a good thing, though, because one of my coworkers moved to Illinois a few months ago, and I think she was very hopeful that we would be allowed to continue working remotely so that she would not need to find a new job. I think that this covid thing has demonstrated to a lot of employers that people can work from home and remain productive. I think that it probably also helps with retention, and it definitely helps with expenses. People are going to save money on clothes, gas, and going out for lunch, and fewer people driving to work every day will help with the environmental footprint impact. I am not sure if all departments are going to be allowed to work from home, though. My director started advocating for us to work from home before covid, so the fact that we have proven we can do it likely helped her cause.
Well, my lunch break is over, so it's back to work for me. Based on my blogging record, I might as well wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year right now, lol. Love you all!
Thursday, September 17, 2020
Hurricane Sally
I survived my first "real" hurricane. When I moved to Fairhope back in November of 2009, Ida was a thing, but we laughed at the storm. We experienced much worse weather in Nebraska. Over the past two summers, there was never any threat of anything hitting us, but this summer has been very active and back in June, Cristobal hit to the west of Gulf Shores and brought us a nice amount of rain without the destruction. As the summer progressed, there werw other storms in the area, but the National Hurrican Center always did a fantastic job of predicting where they would hit. I was amazed at their accuracy. It looked like either Laura or Marco had the potential to affect my area, but both meandered well to the west, and I began to feel very sorry for Louisiana. When Sally entered the Gulf, it too was proejcted to hit somewhere in Louisiana. By this time, I had total faith in the NHC's forecasts and was not at all concerned. But as the days went on, the storm seemed to inching closer and closer to Gulf Shores. I was still not concerned, though, because Sally was such a slow moving storm that it was forecast to weaken to a tropical storm before making landfall due to it stirring up colder Gulf water and encountering wind sheer and land friction. All I can say is that Sally was a very fickle lady and defied the forecasters at every turn. Not only did she meander some 200 miles east of where she was originally forecast to hit, but she also made landfull (right on top of Gulf Shores at 4:45am on Wedensday, September 16th) as a very strong category 2 hurricane.
Three years ago a tornado formed over my neighborhood in Nebraka and we lost so many trees and limbs. I remember standing in my kitchen and looking out the window at the wind, and as I stared, a tree fell over. It was then that Dan yelled to get into the basement. By the time I rounded up the animals, the threat was past. It didn't occur to me that a tornado was coming through until it was too late. Fortunately, it was a minor F0 that strengthened just a bit to an F1 before disapating, but it scared me enough to never want to experience another one. Sally was very much like that brief moment when I watched the tree fall. It sounded like a locomotive outside my house for hours. I went to bed grateful that it was a weak storm. Little did I know...
I woke up about 5:00am to dead silence. We were in the eye of the hurricane. It was surreal. I walked outside about 6:30 and already my neighbors were out assessing the damage. My next door neighbor to my right had a tree on the roof. Neighbors on the other side lost most of the shingles off the front of their roof. A very large palm tree in the front of a house up the street was split in half horizontally. My back fence had blown down and was under a foot or so of water. And 95% of Baldwin County was without power. After a couple of hours, the wind started to pick up and we were warned that the backside of the storm had yet to come through. Thankfully, once Sally made landfall, the backside of the storm began falling apart, and aside from some wind and a few light showers, the worst was over for me.
Dan wanted to venture out and try to find gas for our generator. Unfortunately, since this storm was forecast to hit well to our west with relatively minor impacts to our area, very few people were prepared for a nearly major hurricane. We sat in a line for nearly a half an hour waiting for a gas pump. We needed to buy oil, but the convenience shop had lines out the door and around the building, so we decided to find another store. Every place that was open had the same issue--lines for days. We were able to borrow a quart of oil from a neighbor, so our generator is functional. It is doubtful that we have enough gas to last until the power comes back, but we are hopeful that more businesses will be open today.
Obviously, I will not be working until at least next week. Ben finally got hired at CSU, and he was supposed to start his new job yesterday. Now that has been pushed back to the 30th. If the electricty comes back on this weekend, I will be able to work on Monday. I am not looking forward to the number of papers in the queue. There were close to 50 left when I left work on Tuesday. Our new writing specialist was supposed to start yesterday too, so now she will be two weeks behind in her training. Also, my and Dan's 30th wedding anniversary was Tuesday. That is one we will never forget.
Speaking of wedding, Dan and I honeymooned on the Carnival Fantasy cruise ship back in September of 1990, just months after she was set to sail, and this past January, we took a cruise out of Mobile on the Fantasy--almonst 30 years after our first one. It was quite a walk down memory lane. Last night Dan told me that the Fantasy is being scrapped. I found it a bit coincidental that our first cruise was one of the first on the brand new Fantasy and our last cruise was one of the last. 2020 has been quite a year.
I will try to post pictures of the damage in my next blog post. I am currently running my laptop on battery and need to end this for now. I appreciate prayers as Gulf Shores and surrounding communities begin to clean up and put lives back together. We were very lucky--our damage was minor, but others were not so lucky. My director lost part of her roof and a wall in her condo collapsed. My supervisor has 6 trees down and she lost her shed and her lawnmower. Most larger cities are under curfews until further notice. We have a relatively long road ahead of us. (BTW, I apologize for any typos. I will clean them up when I have a better internet connection.)
Three years ago a tornado formed over my neighborhood in Nebraka and we lost so many trees and limbs. I remember standing in my kitchen and looking out the window at the wind, and as I stared, a tree fell over. It was then that Dan yelled to get into the basement. By the time I rounded up the animals, the threat was past. It didn't occur to me that a tornado was coming through until it was too late. Fortunately, it was a minor F0 that strengthened just a bit to an F1 before disapating, but it scared me enough to never want to experience another one. Sally was very much like that brief moment when I watched the tree fall. It sounded like a locomotive outside my house for hours. I went to bed grateful that it was a weak storm. Little did I know...
I woke up about 5:00am to dead silence. We were in the eye of the hurricane. It was surreal. I walked outside about 6:30 and already my neighbors were out assessing the damage. My next door neighbor to my right had a tree on the roof. Neighbors on the other side lost most of the shingles off the front of their roof. A very large palm tree in the front of a house up the street was split in half horizontally. My back fence had blown down and was under a foot or so of water. And 95% of Baldwin County was without power. After a couple of hours, the wind started to pick up and we were warned that the backside of the storm had yet to come through. Thankfully, once Sally made landfall, the backside of the storm began falling apart, and aside from some wind and a few light showers, the worst was over for me.
Dan wanted to venture out and try to find gas for our generator. Unfortunately, since this storm was forecast to hit well to our west with relatively minor impacts to our area, very few people were prepared for a nearly major hurricane. We sat in a line for nearly a half an hour waiting for a gas pump. We needed to buy oil, but the convenience shop had lines out the door and around the building, so we decided to find another store. Every place that was open had the same issue--lines for days. We were able to borrow a quart of oil from a neighbor, so our generator is functional. It is doubtful that we have enough gas to last until the power comes back, but we are hopeful that more businesses will be open today.
Obviously, I will not be working until at least next week. Ben finally got hired at CSU, and he was supposed to start his new job yesterday. Now that has been pushed back to the 30th. If the electricty comes back on this weekend, I will be able to work on Monday. I am not looking forward to the number of papers in the queue. There were close to 50 left when I left work on Tuesday. Our new writing specialist was supposed to start yesterday too, so now she will be two weeks behind in her training. Also, my and Dan's 30th wedding anniversary was Tuesday. That is one we will never forget.
Speaking of wedding, Dan and I honeymooned on the Carnival Fantasy cruise ship back in September of 1990, just months after she was set to sail, and this past January, we took a cruise out of Mobile on the Fantasy--almonst 30 years after our first one. It was quite a walk down memory lane. Last night Dan told me that the Fantasy is being scrapped. I found it a bit coincidental that our first cruise was one of the first on the brand new Fantasy and our last cruise was one of the last. 2020 has been quite a year.
I will try to post pictures of the damage in my next blog post. I am currently running my laptop on battery and need to end this for now. I appreciate prayers as Gulf Shores and surrounding communities begin to clean up and put lives back together. We were very lucky--our damage was minor, but others were not so lucky. My director lost part of her roof and a wall in her condo collapsed. My supervisor has 6 trees down and she lost her shed and her lawnmower. Most larger cities are under curfews until further notice. We have a relatively long road ahead of us. (BTW, I apologize for any typos. I will clean them up when I have a better internet connection.)
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