back to school

As I was preparing to leave work one framing I had for the time off was as a post-college gap year postponed for over a decade after graduation. I probably could have taken the time then, but the ebbs and flows produced it now instead. Given the prospect of a snow day one of my professors remarked about students paying for classes then celebrating not having to attend them. As I travel backwards through time I feel like I've fallen out the other side of the gap, back to school stretched thin pulled in every academic direction and paying to hang around.

I went to church on Tuesday for a discussion group. The topic was "What is my religion?", which was helpful to reflect on because I haven't yet. I was asked to speak about my experience joining the church at a service in March, so I've been processing through that as an exercise in unpacking as well. I stopped at the DMV after, which would have been unremarkable if not for the packed room I zipped through. I thought the number of people waiting would mean I'd be spending the day there, but my number was called as soon as I checked in. I felt a sort of guilt and hoped nobody thought I was cutting in front of them. I could have made a pronouncement in front of them all to assure them I'm a Good Guy, but that seemed tacky so I thought I'd politely whisper the anxiety to the Internet here. I picked up a few groceries on the way home then made peanut butter and hummus. I forgot to price the prepared hummus, but the peanuts were almost half the cost of the peanut butter so we can eat twice as much. Now I have to find somewhere to bulk buy them to avoid the extra plastic packaging the nuts are sold in or pay the premium for convenience and a recyclable glass jar. The freest lunch might be to grow the peanuts and chickpeas myself, but I might have to wait for more climate change before that's practical. Even then I'd still need calories to labor harvesting and processing them so I might also have to wait until chloroplast injections are more readily available, too.

We went walking around the boro Wednesday afternoon then I started a Tree Tenders training that evening. I learned about the course through my Shade Tree work and one night in I'm already excited to plant trees all over town. It rained all day Thursday so I swung by the historical society for reading material. I spent a few hours there glued to old pamphlets and advertisements then moved to the home library to read with the dogs. After dinner I knocked out more work on blog tooling, which is seeing its first action importing the images for this post. On Friday, I think inspired by the fun of blending things earlier in the week, I made carrot and ginger soup, which came out decent but needed more carrots and less curry powder.

Yesterday I read in the paper about how after Shapiro was sworn in as governor his first act was to lift a college degree requirement from various state jobs. I was curious what was available and found environmental science work nearby that piqued my interest. I'm having a friend over for dinner tonight so I spent the day preparing, daydreaming about environmental work, a commute to the county, and packed lunches and food trucks. The dogs and I walked some more then I met friends to watch the Eagles win the first round of the playoffs.