Mid-March Monte Report

Well, I'm still having a rough time of it, but packing has been a good distraction. My apartment is a maze of boxes -- and yet there is still so much left to pack that it's kinda hard to tell that anything has been packed at all!

My job is taking a major toll on me. There are essential tasks that I simply cannot do anymore. Add to that the fact that our new computer system at work has left me feeling like a brand new employee for the past nine months, and what you get is an ego-crushing effect that makes it hard to just get out of bed. We just had a wonderful weather weekend, and I barely got out of the house. And I followed that up with calling in sick on Monday and Tuesday. I just couldn't bear to face the demands at work. I did manage a half-day yesterday, and am feeling energetic enough to finish out the week. After that, it's just two more weeks and then I'm done. I may still do a little bit of behind the scenes work for a short while thereafter, until I'm actually out of town -- but at this point I'm not yet sure when that will be.

A number of people have wondered if I'm dooming myself by moving to "the middle of nowhere" and just isolating myself even further. Possibly. If that's the case, then I'll face that bridge when I come to it. It doesn't change the fact that I MUST make a change now if I'm simply to survive -- without trying to sound melodramatic, I'm more confident that I'll survive living in the boonies than if I stay put where I am (and it's not like I'll be all alone in the boonies -- I've got more than fifty Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and other miscellaneous relatives in the vicinity of where I'm going -- not to mention my parents and my sister's family who are also moving up there in the near future).

Today's good omen bird-of-the-day is a Red-breasted Sapsucker that I saw outside my bedroom window just now -- the first one I've seen here in my "yard" since I moved here four years ago. (photo from the files of the United States Forest Service)