family

The Great Escape

2 Comments / Life / February 8, 2023 / By

We moved last week!

That’s right, the move to Kansas that we had been ramping up for the last couple of months finally came to pass last week. My brother-in-law flew out to Indianapolis on Friday, January 27th, to help us finish getting packed up and loaded into the Uhaul, and a few days later on the 31st — a day later than we anticipated — we were hitting the road! I was a little nervous along the way. My brother-in-law has been a lifesaver throughout this move but riding with him in the Uhaul was kinda scary, especially since he seemed to think the truck was “pushing” back whenever he would brake. I was also worried for my three kitties, stuffed in their carriers in the backseat of the car following us in the Uhaul with my dad and brother.

In the end, though, we all made it here safely and things have even been a little fun since we arrived. We’re moving into the home that my sister and brother-in-law are eventually vacating to live out in a farmhouse that his mother left to them. Their move is still in progress, however, so we’re sort of camping out here while they get their things moved around. It means mostly living out of boxes and things for the time being, but I actually don’t mind, because it’s been nice getting to be around my entire immediate family. Maybe things will start to feel cramped after too long, but for the last week or so it has actually been kinda fun. The only thing that’s been kinda strange has been returning to work remotely this week. Working in a different location and entirely different timezone has been very weird. Because we’re an hour earlier now in Central Time, my hours were adjusted an hour earlier as well, so it’s definitely taking getting used to.

We have yet to take any family weekend exploration trips like we’re eventually planning to, but I’m excited to get to know more of my surroundings. I’m especially interested in possibly going to Atoka, Oklahoma, and visiting Reba’s Place, Reba McEntire’s establishment that she recently opened which I found via TikTok! I’m not the biggest fan of country music, but I think Reba is a great singer and actress and the bar and restaurant look really cool. I don’t exactly know what else is in the region, but I’m amped to get out there and share some more about what we discover here in the middle of the country!

Until next time…

 

The New Adventure

Leave a Comment / Life / January 21, 2023 / By

Friends and followers saw it first on social media, but I’m happy to announce that I’m still employed once we move!

In what was apparently a lengthy decision-making process by HR at the company I currently work for here in Indy, they finally notified me this past week that I’ll be able to continue working remotely once we move to Kansas after all. The state of Kansas was initially on their list of states we couldn’t work from (thus my post essentially begging someone to hire me), so I have to say that I’m really pleasantly surprised that they’ve made an exception for me! Though I was expecting to hit the reset button entirely once we made the move, it’s honestly a relief to know that I’ll still have a source of income once we’re there.

Speaking of the move, we’re moving in a little over a week! I can’t believe the time has nearly arrived! My brother-in-law, who’s flying in from Kansas to help us load up and drive the moving truck, arrives this coming Friday! It still feels a little surreal and I don’t think it has completely set in yet that I’ll have totally different surroundings in just a matter of days. There are a few things that have had me stressing out a little (including recent health worries with myself not feeling well, Tigger having another seizure, my dad and sister having new wounds, etc.), but I’m hopeful that none of them are so paramount that we wind up needing to push anything back. We’re planning to get to Kansas, get unloaded and settled, and then have a big shindig to celebrate the holidays we missed out on together these past few months. Then afterward, I’m hoping there’s a big rest on the horizon.

Until next time…

Reset Button

1 Comment / Life / January 3, 2023 / By

Happy New Year!

I wanted to make a great big post for New Year’s but couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that 2022 was already ending. Doesn’t it feel like we just had Halloween? It feels like we just had Halloween. And then just like that, the year is gone! It’s probably for the better that I wasn’t able to get a New Year’s post written anyway. My year-end post was going to round up all the great, exciting milestones in my life that happened during 2022, but when I really think back on the year, I feel like I really just went into survival mode with everything going on between work, school, and the health scare with my Dad. There really weren’t a lot of huge moments for me in 2022, and honestly, that’s okay. We have other years for big moments.

Like the one that’s upcoming.

With the move happening in just a few weeks now, 2023 is shaping up to be something of an adventure for me. Literally, everything will be changing with this move out of state. I’ll need a new job, as I wrote about in my previous post because it doesn’t look likely that my current job can keep me remote in Kansas. I’ll also eventually be enrolling in a new college out there as well since I’m not made of money and can’t just travel back to Indy whenever I need to take an exam or an entire course in person. And all of that isn’t even taking into account that I’ll need to find a way to be social too, despite pretty much only knowing my family that lives out there. I hope my friends here in Indy and elsewhere are planning on keeping communication channels open at all times because I feel like I’m going to need them.

The move does feel like an opportunity to hit the reset button on this game called life in a lot of ways though. The house we’re currently living in needs a lot of repairs done to it and rather than spend the time and energy, it’s nice to be able to start fresh instead. The house we’ll be moving into is bigger as well, and I’ll be able to have a proper office space separate from my bedroom, which is sadly not the case here in this house. There will be new roads to learn and places to go where there’s a very slim chance you’ll run into someone you know. Unlike what the theme song to Cheers would have you believe, sometimes it’s nice to go places where everybody doesn’t know your name. And, of course, we’ll be around family we don’t ordinarily get to see that often. It’ll be nice to actually be able to do things with them and celebrate this year’s holidays and special occasions with them.

I’ll miss Indiana. I’ll always be a Hoosier at heart. I have a feeling that this place will always feel a little bit like home and there will probably be times when I’ll want to come back. Hopefully, I’ll be able to visit when those times present themselves. But I feel like it’s finally time for me to get out of this place where all I do for an entire year is simply “survive.” Instead, it’s time for me to start living and flourishing. And this is the year that I’m hopefully going to be able to do it.

Until next time…

Big Moves

4 Comments / Life / November 1, 2022 / By

Dad’s in the hospital and we’re moving, y’all!

Yeah, things have been a little wild. Let’s rewind a little and take you back a couple weeks to Dad being hospitalized again. Without giving away too many details that he might not exactly want out on the world wide web, Dad has had a recurring issue with his legs that cause him some severe pain, open sores, swelling, inability to walk, and some other health problems. A couple of weeks ago, this issue flared back up, resulting in his regular wound care physician recommending that he go to the emergency room instead. He stayed in the hospital for about a week as they not only got his leg issue but also his respiratory system (he had been neglecting using a CPAP machine) back under control and now he’s at a rehabilitation facility regaining strength so that he can walk again. Considering the very terrible shape he was in when he was admitted to the hospital, he’s doing much better now and is going to be just fine. I want to make that emphasis for anyone who might be alarmed that they didn’t know this was going on at all. He will need to wear a BiPAP machine whenever he sleeps, likely for the rest of his life, but he should be fine otherwise.

This is actually the second time we’ve been through this routine, the last hospitalization and rehab trip having taken place in late 2020. As Dad gets older and my brother and I cannot properly care for him by ourselves, we’ve all decided that we’re going to move to southeast Kansas in the spring once he’s doing better and winter and the holidays have passed. That’s the other important point to this writing; not only letting any readers know that Dad’s doing okay but also making the formal announcement that we’ll soon be leaving Indiana. My older sister, brother-in-law, and nephew all live in a small town out there and rather than trying to scrounge to find the money to put Dad into an assisted living facility (which none of us want to do anyway), we’re going to move to an area where we’ll be bolstered by additional members of the family. It’ll probably wind up being better for all of us, not just Dad, since we’re also living in a place right now that needs multiple repairs that we also can’t afford.

My sister couldn’t be more thrilled — she’s basically been trying to convince us to move out there near them since the moment they arrived themselves — but I’ve got mixed feelings myself. A big move such as the one we’re facing definitely has its pros and cons. With the exception of the brief time Dad’s job had us living in Wisconsin for a few of my younger years, central Indiana has always been my home. Although I do both online these days, I have a job here and go to school here. Though I rarely see them anymore, I also like to think that I still have several friends here, too. But while Kansas isn’t exactly the most interesting state in the union, I’m excited to be near family again and for the complete change of scenery. I’m beyond ready for something new and different. So hopefully, by this time next year, I’ll be living that new and different life! The whole family probably will be! Besides, I can always come home to Indy and visit, right? Not to mention I’m always a text message, video, or phone call away!

In the meantime, I’ve created a money pool that we’re going to contribute toward moving expenses and things since it’s going to cost a whole bunch of money! While it’s mostly just for the family to throw our extra money into to get things going (so no pressure whatsoever), feel free to help us out by contributing here if you’re feeling generous!

Until next time…

Take A Picture

Leave a Comment / Education / October 2, 2022 / By

Well, September came and went, didn’t it?

Work has been somewhat stressful, school has picked up, and I discovered an addictive life-sim game called Disney Dreamlight Valley that has consumed basically any of my free time that isn’t spent working or schooling. And I guess just somehow, some way, the entire month slipped away from me without much to say about it.

Portrait of my father.

I will say that my photography class has been great. Learning how to actually use my camera in manual mode rather than just shooting everything in automatic has been incredible. We’ve taken on several assignments so far including blurred motion, short depth of field, high contrast, and all kinds of other technical projects that have occasionally made me go, “Wow, I can’t believe I did that!” Without a doubt though, the series that I was most proud of and that I impressed myself the most with, was this most recent assignment where we had to do a little bit of low-key, high contrast, black-and-white portraiture. I chose to photograph my father for the assignment. For posterity mostly, but also because he just so happened to be nearby and available, so why not utilize him as a subject model? As of this writing, the assignment is still ungraded, but I already know these will be photos that we hang onto of him, whether the academic world likes them or not.

Photography isn’t exactly something that I was looking into doing professionally. I wouldn’t necessarily mind it as a career choice, but taking this course wasn’t really my decision. I had taken Photography in high school and, with the exception of the awesome field trip to shoot in Brown County, I hated developing prints in the dark room and trying to find interesting things to capture. I like taking photos, but I’ve always pretty much been an amateur. I take selfies and photos of friends and maybe a landscape or two. I’ve never been great at the “art” of anything and that definitely includes photography. Plus, I really didn’t want to have to shell out the money for an expensive DSLR camera. But since it turns out that Photography is one of the requirements in the Visual Communications program that I’m enrolled in at the college, I didn’t have much choice. Surprisingly, the subject has been way better and more interesting this time around. No more dark rooms with smelly chemicals with digital photography, for starters. And I guess just generally taking it more seriously this time around and learning what different settings do has been an eye-opener.

It kinda makes me glad that I bought my camera after all. Assuming I don’t break the thing somehow, it should last for years and definitely provide for a new hobby. I don’t know whether I’ll ever pursue any professional photography gigs or not because, quite frankly, I’m still learning and I don’t know how good I am at the whole thing, objectively speaking. I’ll need to put together some sort of portfolio or something. We’ve scratched the surface a little bit in this class, but later this semester, I’m also taking a course learning how to work in Photoshop, so I’m excited to learn how to not only take the picture but also do more interesting things with them later on in the editing process.

That’s where my head’s been lately. Now unless you want to learn how to maximize your island’s profits growing canola in Dreamlight Valley, get on outta here! But remember — just in case I disappear from this blog for another month or so — Twitter is probably the best place to keep up with what’s going on with me. I’m the most active there so be sure to give me a follow.

Until next time…