airplanes and chickens

*tap, tap*  …is this thing on?

Well - I knew I'd take some time off from blogging, but never guessed more than a year would go by.

A year.

And what a difference that year has made.  So much has changed that I'm not even sure where to start.  New job, new car, new house…our lives are so much different than October 2012, when I last posted here.  Losing my dad was a blow I did not expect - nor did I expect the aftermath.  It took nearly a year before I felt anywhere close to normal again…and I still have my days, though they are more and more rare.

After spending some time just breathing again, life started to get back to normal.  I still didn't sew much, but would try to start a project or two.  Work had become fairly dull, with the big project I was on downsizing to a smaller one.   Then, in March, I finally succumbed to a friend's long-time pestering about working with him and I left my job at the local medical school…one month shy of being there twenty years!  I now work in the medical device industry, monitoring aortic heart valve studies.

Part of that job is travel.  A big part.  Like, 70% part.  Most weeks I leave on Sunday and am gone through Wednesday.  Lots of plane rides.  In fact, I just reached Platinum status with Delta last week (woohoo!).  I used to think the frequent-flier program was silly, but now I get it.  Boy, do I get it.

A few short months after that, we moved.  A friend had decided to sell his house and, knowing we would be interested, texted out of the blue one night.  I'll expand in a later post, but to keep it short here - we ended up trading houses.  He bought ours and we bought his.  We now live on a ten-acre piece of property with a huge field and…chickens!

I'm a chicken farmer now.  We get about seven eggs a day, though they have slowed down now that it's cold.  The chickens came with the house as the previous owner had them and had built a coop.  They are so fun - and I never would have thought that I would say that.  We free-range them during the day, so at any moment a chicken could walk right up to the front porch.  They are so fun to watch.

Quilting has been on hold for a while, but I started back a little a few weeks ago.  It's harder right now because I don't have a dedicated space.  We have an unfinished room over our garage that we will start working on after the New Year, so until then I'll be limited just because of the hassle of taking out and putting away.

I've started, but not finished… Science Fair by Julie Herman…

Mod Nine Patch by Elizabeth Dackson…

And a few others.

I've knitted quite a bit, though - as knitting is a little easier to do on an airplane.  I love my Sapphire, but she just doesn't travel well.

I hope you're all doing well.  I've missed you and I look forward to seeing you here more frequently now.  :)

 - Angie -