Outgrown

 

We're living in a snow globe today. Big fat, heavy flakes have been pouring straight down from the sky for the last hour and with no wind, the flakes fall hard with a splat. They're adding up quickly in the branches and on the ground. 

It is a mesmerizing meditation and I'm content to watch until the last light is gone.

After a day away at auction and out picking, we are happy to be home in our little slice of heaven, all cozy and warm and quiet.

Wood's been stacked near the hearth, soup is on, laundry is going. It's nice to have a catch up day.

It's also nice to have another day with room in it to ponder, but nothing too deep today. I'm a little weary of "deep" lately.


Today I'm wondering about my "story". I've noticed the old one just doesn't seem to fit any longer. In fact, I do believe it's been filed away in the back of the closet with all the clothes I've "outgrown".

Think I'll hold that thought for a while.

Happy winter day everyone.

Seasonal Wonders

It's December 22nd and the windows are wide open. 

I'm tempted to put the plants out for a little fresh air.

 

We hit 64 at 2pm. Now where did I stash those capris? 

We are operating under a state of emergency here at Casa Moree McKinney. Presents have been procured but sadly, not shipped. We are plumb out of our seemingly never endless supply of free bubble wrap. Ken finally broke down earlier today and made an order. Family in Philly, you'll be receiving your gifts in January this year. So sorry.

Ken and I gave one another a $50 limit this year to see how many lovely, little, thoughtful things we could find for each other with a small budget. We made a list...on google.docs of course...and of course we went over said budget just a wee bit. It was fun and I managed to find everything either at auction, at FOUND or online. Can't wait for Christmas day!

Lasagne won out over Chippino this year for Christmas eve dinner. Tomorrow is sauce-making day. Tonight I'll be making one of Ken's Christmas gifts Candied Bacon Fudge. He promises to share. and I promise not to eat all of the candied bacon before I embed it in the fudge. Oh the wonders of holiday food.

As we sit here in our summer clothes enjoying the breeze, sipping wine and eating pate and crackers, I'm reminded yet again how much I love my life, how grateful I am for everything I have and how much there is to look forward to in the coming year. Happy Solstice and an early Merry Christmas to all. Cheers and eat up! Time to welcome back the light.

Wonder if I can get a walk in before winter returns...

Who Am I, if not...

I've been grappling with questions of identity ever since I lost the ability to perform due to an injury back in October 2010. Back then the question was Am I a still a musician if I can't play?

Lately I'm wondering who am I, if I'm not moree at ithaca dot edu...

I've been a college professor for more than half my life. I've been Professor Debbie, Mizz Mooohreee, Professor Moree and Ms. M. I relate the most to Ms. M in part because it's just so quick and easy to write and because it denotes perfectly that sense of formality and informality that defines me to a tee. I'm sure this moniker was confusing to some of my students. I wore jeans to class, never wore make-up unless I was on stage, occasionally swore in Rep Class, allowed my students to "friend" me on Facebook and definitely did not want to be called by my first name.

So who am I, if I'm not moree at ithaca dot edu? My colleagues think I'm the gal who gave up tenure and a nice salary for reasons that don't quite make sense. Something about being more passionate about something other than music (how unthinkable!). Many of my friends think I'm living the dream, having quit a job that made me unhappy to my core for such a long time. So what if our income is cut by more than half? I'm happy, we're happy. It's all good. 

Who am I, if I'm not moree at ithaca dot edu?  I'm the woman who craves alone time, at home in the daylight hours. I'd rather read than socialize, rather shoot and edit photos than attend a party. I'd rather have a day with my sweetie, rambling from one junk shop to the next, than shop at some fancy schmancy boutique. I don't give a damn about the latest fashions and as long as my shirts don't make me sweat, my jeans fit around the waist and my shoes don't make my feet hurt, I'm good to go. I relish tending to my home. I love to cook, tidy up and yes, I make the bed every day. Why, I even enjoy cleaning. I don't mind doing the laundry, love to tinker and fix things, and lately I've even become a little crafty.

Given a penchant for goal-setting and ladder-climbing in my former life, it's interesting to suddenly find myself comfortable with inertia. I've experienced ups and down with this inertia thing ever since I left the college. In May, June and July I was in a state of almost total euphoria. My energy knew no bounds. In August and September as the school year started I savored the fact that I wasn't there. I worked all day in the shop the day classes began, secretly gloating, knowing that less than three miles away my colleagues were running around like crazy people. As the fall went on my energy faded and a deep tired set in. I struggled to find a day-to-day routine, hoping it would make itself apparent to me. One day I finally admitted out loud that I was tired and not just a little tired, a lot tired...as in thirty years worth of tired. Though my mind was raring to go in a new direction, my body said Wait, just hold on a minute, I need to catch up!

October was fraught with the stress of making my decision public. I agonized over the notification letter almost as much as I'd agonized over the decision itself. And then, in a click it was done. I received some amazingly beautiful messages from colleagues right after the announcement. Truly amazing. I wept loud and long over them, thinking how lovely it was to hear such sweet things and how sad it was that we never manage to say those kinds of things 'til folks are moving on or until they're dead. Wow, I aim to learn from this.

So here I am again today pondering the $64,000 question. Who the hell am I, if I'm not...Ms. M or moree at ithaca dot edu or a professional violist or that full professor with tenure and thirty years of teaching experience? I am Debra, Debbie and Deb. It matters not. I am compassionate, wholehearted, courageous and vulnerable...or at least striving to be. I am a musician, an artist, a teacher, a collector of old things with history and a story. I am me.

I am a work in progress.

A Good Thing

We are home for the weekend unexpectedly and just in time. Snow is predicted and lots of it.

Pippa has taken up residence in my lap and will not be moved.

Lillie has found the perfect spot near the fire and Peter is under the covers in our bed.

The cats have declared this an OFFICIAL snow day.

The snow plow just took out mailbox. OK, I call uncle. Call the Covered Bridge Market and order lunch. Cheesesteaks for everyone!

We just finished up another two-week stint of dog sitting for my friend Beth. It's a good gig. Poco is sweet and very well behaved. He likes to snuggle and despite a penchant for chasing kitties every once in a while, he's an all around good doggie. Beth is also my PT and we barter massage for dog sitting. It is a good thing.

On this snow day I'm looking forward to finishing Margaret Roach's book "and I shall have some peace there". In case you don't recognize her name, Margaret was once the gardening editor of Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Being the Martha fan that I am, I know her work, her garden and her beautiful photography.

The book chronicles Margaret's decision to leave her high-powered, successful publishing career in NYC in order to seek the quiet solitude of her country home and garden in upstate NY. She and I are the same age and it's a story I relate to. OK, so I don't have a second home, but I do live in the country and it is definitely idyllic and a place I retreat to daily. I don't know if I'd describe my career as "high-powered" but it certainly came with its share of drama and stress over the years and after I found myself severely burned out, I often indulged in a lot if escape fantasies. I pondered everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. In nicer weather I was convinced we should we sell everything and move to Tuscany or Provence. In the winter I wondered if we should lay claim that little piece of Moree family land in the Bahamas that has squatters living on it. I just know we could make a go of it.

Margaret climbed the ladder fiercely and voraciously, and at the expense of her personal life. I know what that's like. From the standpoint of the academic ladder I reached a good measure success...tenure, full professorship, comfortable salary, big office with a window and a view. As the patron saint of late bloomers, I count myself incredibly lucky to have found true and lasting love at the ripe old age of 47. I married a few months before I turned 50. Now it's almost impossible to wonder what my life would be like had I continued along my old solitary ladder-climbing path.

In the last few years I've done a lot of digging around trying to find out more about job burnout among college professors. Very few folks write about it publicly. Maybe it's just not the sort of thing you admit while you're on the job. I certainly didn't. I read numerous articles about burnout ranking highest among those teachers who care the most. That makes sense to me. What surprised me was the high level of burnout and job dissatisfaction reported among professors just after they received tenure and were promoted. Hmmmm...I find this so very interesting and so familiar.

I've been so inspired by Margaret's story and think I'd like to write more about my own "dropping out". I have things I need to say about academia and higher ed, teacher burnout and what it's like to quit a job in mid-life. In the meantime though, I think I'll sit right here a little longer with a snoring cat on my lap, watching the snow. I've got a lot to ponder still.

12/31/13

I went to campus earlier this week for my last official meeting with HR and left having decided to move my retirement date up to December 31st instead of waiting until May. With a quick signature it was all settled. I'll move out of my office over the winter break. All I owe the college now is $29.29 a month for dental insurance. WOW, just WOW.

Even I'm surprised at how little I miss my Ivory Tower life. On the ride in I tried to focus solely on the things I miss and found it almost impossible because inevitably it would bring up the many things I don't or won't miss. What a recipe for feeling stressed and unhappy.

So I pulled over at the four corners atop Blakslee Hill to take in the view.

I opened the windows and breathed deep like I'd done so many trips before and repeated out loud the words from Thich Nhat Hanh...

Breathing in. I know I'm breathing in.
I miss this unbelievably beautiful ride into town, especially in the early morning. I'll miss keeping track of the seasons by noting the numbers of new fawns and the hawks swirling above on the thermals. I'll miss being greeted daily by the lake. How it would appear suddenly from out of nowhere atop the ridge. How day after day after day, I was shocked by its immense beauty.

Breathing out. I know I'm breathing out.
I do not miss feeling the need to don a thick protective psychic armor just to make it through the day. And if I some how I managed to get it in place during the sixteen minute drive to campus, I quickly lost it just trying to find a place to park.

Breathing in. I know I am breathing in.
I miss helping people solve problems. I will really miss being present for those hard-one victories. Those successes that brought tears to my eyes, those moments where I swear I saw not just one, but a crate of light bulbs go on above a student's head. Yes, I miss that...a lot.

Breathing out. I know I am breathing out.
I do not miss having my life ruled by the clock and the academic calendar. I do not miss the incessant race to get every last bit of information conveyed inside of an hour lesson, and how confining the academic calendar felt as the years went by - so unforgiving, so unrelenting. Buck up, suck it up, march on, keep going. We just don't have time for whatever it is you think you need right now. You must not get behind.

Breathing in. I know I am breathing in. 
I miss helping young adults navigate their way through their late teens and early twenties. I will miss watching them launch into the world with wide-eyed optimism. I will miss being a confidant, a mentor and a viola mom.

Breathing out. I know I am breathing out. 
I do not miss listening to excuses. Those long lists of reasons given at the start of so many lessons meant to lower my expectations, ease my grading policy and maybe garner a little sympathy. Reasons why lessons weren't prepared and assignments weren't finished. Sadly most of them were just lame excuses, but a lot of them were out and out lies. They varied in size and importance from those little white convenience fibs to giant whoppers the size of Texas. And oh how easily those lies flowed with some students. Not every one of them by any means and not even most of them. But in the end it just got to me and I couldn't take it anymore. I will not miss this. I do not miss this. No, not one bit.

Breathing in. I know I am breathing in. 
I will come back to teaching in some way eventually. I don't know how or when. I just know that I will.

Breathing out. I know I am breathing out.

November Quiet

Slate gray skies.

Turkeys in the garden.

Gunshots in the woods out back.

A snoring cat on my lap.

Hardly any green left 'cept the grass.

Ken working from home.

Soup on the stove.

One more ornament wreath finished.

Four quilt stockings sewn.

I love my newly quiet life.

Crafty

We had one last balmy evening walk last night. This morning a cold front is moving through and the temps are falling fast.  Down 10 degrees already this morning.

 Time to settle in and peruse Thanksgiving recipes.

Our storage unit is almost impassable and the garage is still full of crap...um, excuse me I mispoke, I meant to say antiques... The house looks like a bomb went off in the dining room and yes that would be a church pew squatting right in the middle of the kitchen. Why there you ask? Well it goes with the cast iron Christmas tree stand and the box of enamelware living on our front porch, the eight or ten other boxes parked near the front door and the chamber pot sitting on the stove that's full of plastic Santas.

Heaven help us. 

 Maybe I'm getting used to this level of clutter or maybe I've just given up. Either way, some how I managed to hunker down and get something done right in the thick of it all. 

Yep, those be Christmas wreaths. Today I'll be re-purposing those wire cages that go on old chicken feeders into hanging lamps and tomorrow who knows, maybe I'll make dirt from scratch!! I know I'm not exactly the crafty type and I don't know where this sudden surge of glue gun energy came from, but I'm going with it for now and it I must admit, I'm enjoying my crafty self!

Holding Fast

I'm inspired by this little lone maple.

Holding fast to its leaves despite the wind

Straight and proud amidst brambles and goldenrod

Brave and courageous somehow

An Auspicious Day

Today is my dad's birthday. Had he lived to see the day, he would've turned 88.

I am honoring his birthday by choosing this date to officially let the world know I'm retiring from my job at the ivory tower to pursue those things I'm most passionate about - growing a business, selling antiques, making beautiful photographs, writing, and living wholeheartedly.

This is the biggest decision I've ever made in my entire life and it wouldn't be possible without my dad. Way back at the ripe old age of 24 and newly out in the professional world, my dad encouraged me to start a retirement account right away. He knew I couldn't imagine where my life would take me but that one day I might just want to retire at 55. And how wise he was.

Thank you dad. As I leap wholeheartedly into the world of self-employment, 

self-empowerment and true fulfillment I honor you.

Holding Firm

Oh boy, when that 6:30 alarm goes off it is ((shudder)) dark outside! 

So grateful K lets me sleep 'til the sun starts to peek through the blinds.

The cold front came in with a vengance but mercifully left us a few leaves to still enjoy. Temps are consistently in the 60's during the day now and well into the 40's at night. Perfect sleeping weather.

The twilights have been extraordinary lately too - crisp with a fingernail of a moon and a clear shot of Venus nearby. And when there are clouds,  the sight will take your breath away.

Our cardinals and jays will have plenty to eat this winter, but I can't focus on that. No not yet.

I'm holding firm on the idea that there are still a few weeks of Fall left. 

Letting Go

Here is the view from my office this morning as I make my way to the auction hall to pick up some recent treasures. Grateful for back road travel and glorious distant views.

Since returning home the weather has taken an abrupt turn. There are tornado watches out for our county with threats of heavy rain and 70 mph wind gusts.

Pippa and Lillie have been contentedly (and surprisingly) sharing my lap as I type. I've got chicken soup on the stove. It'll be hard to leave home today, but unfortunately I've got places to be.

I'm not really the crafty type so I'm especially proud of what I accomplished this morning. I bought this sweet tiger oak rocker recently for a few bucks.

Thankfully it had no structural issues (unless you count the barn dirt & pigeon poop). A good oiling and a new seat cover et voila! You may now refer to me as the staple gun goddess!

Not quite ready to let go of Fall just yet...

Welcome

Hello, October.

Welcome, Autumn.

Nice to see your true colors,

your comforting fog

and weathered imperfections.

Welcome, thorns and all.

Welcome.

To Do

It's our last full day at the lake. 

It's almost time to head home, time to move forward with grand plans and time to get back to work.

In the meantime, today we'll do all the things we said we'd do while here and haven't yet accomplished...we'll take the kayak out for a spin, have dinner at the Pines, spend an entire day reading the New York Times on the porch.

Ready

It's our last couple of days on the lake and a mixture of sadness and excitement has set in. I'll be immensely sad to leave this sweet place with it's drafty doors and windows, its uneven and creaky floors, the bedroom with the million dollar view and a porch to match. Sad to leave the sight, smell and sound of the water. Sad to have the rhythm of our days ruled by the clock and calendar again. I'm excited though to be home again with our kitties, our cozy rural woods, the distant view of the lake valley, our big comfy bed and my kitchen.

Ready to head home soon.

Dreaming

We are fully recovered from our twelve hour work day on Tuesday and all settled back in at the lake. It is a typical day for us. K is busily perusing lake cottages for sale online and I'm on pinterest checking out photography tips and shooting photos. We are a modern couple we are...each of us here with our laptops humming, sitting on the porch, eating lunch, taking in the view and dreaming. And we do dream a lot. Why just this morning we drove up the lake to the village of Romulus to do a casual drive-by of a house for sale. It's just a squeak out of our price range but it ticks off four big things on our dream house list - it's a Greek Revival, it has lake frontage, a barn with a heated workshop and acreage.

Sadly the 40 minute commute to FOUND and the 60 minute commute to K's office are major deal breakers for us (and that's 40 and 60 minutes EACH way!). So back to the dream drawing board we go...

Just before our little excursion up the lake we were back in the shop bright and early this morning to replace the white harvest table we put in the shop on Tuesday. 

After a little reshuffle, here's our new look...

Temp is headed towards 70 today and the sky is full of big puffy white clouds. The lake is calm and none of our neighbors are around. The breeze is so gentle and refreshing. Chili is bubbling away on the stove and cornbread is just about to go into the oven. Friends are expected any minute. Can we just do stay here forever?

Intrusions

We knew there was a chance that work would intrude on our staycation

...and so it did.

Unload previous night's auction haul at the storage unit...check

Retrieve items at home for FOUND...check

Head to Elmira to retrieve consignment...check

Unload consignment at FOUND...check

Shoot new photos for the website...check

Re-arrange BOTH booths...check

Grocery shop for the week...check

Edit photos for Thursday night post...

We left the cottage at 7:30am and were back by 7:30pm. 

I was asleep by 9. Put a fork in me, I'm toast.

Thankfully, the lake was still here when we returned,

 and we are determined to fend off any future intrusions...
until the next auction!

Sailing

The sun's peeking through gray skies again today. 

We've got the heat on downstairs and the coffee perking.

I've really been enjoying the distant view of the ivory towers while

  mulling over what the future holds.

 It's definitely time to sail in a new direction. 

Determined to keep a positive perspective.

 

Corn

Gray has a unique beauty all its own here at the lake...

It's one week away from home and like clockwork I'm a little homesick. I really miss the kitties on days like today where they would provide contented company as long as I made a lap for them. We've got a chicken roasting in oven and hot cider on the stove. It's a nutella and graham crackers for breakfast kind of day. Welcome Fall.

 ***

So the auction yesterday was a bit of a bust...the taxidermy was posed a little too cutely and the furniture was all the stuff no one wanted. Thankfully (at least for the consignor) there were guns. "Better buy 'em here while you can before the government takes them all away" kind of guns...

We came away with a handful of interesting things - a nice flat-top trunk, a fabulous postcard album and some great old glass storage jars. Lunch at a diner in Oxford with soda fountain and lunch counter made the trip worthwhile.

And then there was this...

 We couldn't decide if this was the CORN of the Apocalypse or a Zombie Corn Farmerstand. 

On closer inspection it was way more interesting than we could've ever imagined...

Of course.

 Okay, now get your mind out of the gutter...

And just so you know, we bought a dozen just so I could take photos. 

 Zombie corn for dinner tonight!