Bad news on the moving front today. First, I found out yesterday that the job I had placed many of my hopes on has been put on hold for the unforeseeable future due to a hiring freeze. Come on, Obama! Quit bailing out worthless car companies, and bail out universities instead! What is this particular university going to do with no one to deal with misbehaving students? And does anyone know anyone in higher ed in southern California?

Second, I had gotten a quote on a moving truck about 4 months ago. Today, I went online to make the reservation (since we now have a definite move date), and holy moly! The quote has tripled! Something about the difference in winter rates vs. summer rates. Moral of the story, don't wait to hear about a specific job- just pick a stinkin' move date and reserve the truck!

In happier news, I had a fire in my fireplace last night. It was toasty and mesmerizing and lovely. For those of you in Texas, a fire in June sounds awful. But Taos nights are freezing! Literally- it gets down into the 30s!

If you haven't heard, we're moving to California so Richard can start a PhD program at Claremont Graduate University. His degree will be through the Religious Studies department, and he will specialize in New Testament- specifically in anthropology and archeology. He could (and, I guarantee you, would) tell you more, but he's not writing this post, so there's that. It looks like our move date will be July 27. Or at least that's the assumption I'm operating on right now.

Since we're moving away, I thought it would be nice to have a way to keep everyone updated on our lives- what we're doing, how we're doing, and what we're thinking about. Some of you may not care, but the beauty of a blog is that you can easily look away- you are under no obligation to read- unlike if I called each and every one of you and gabbed about the monotony of daily life. All of my previous blog attempts have been dismal failures, but hopefully, I'll be able to keep this one up.


I like blog posts with pictures included, so here's an entirely unrelated picture of Charlie (aka Sir Chuckles). He's so handsome!