Not Broken, Just Bent.

Not many posts this year...

(1) We've been dealing with cleaning out and selling D's dad's house after he passed away in May.

(2) Pennsic.

(3) I drove my dad back to his winter home in FL because he doesn't feel comfortable/safe doing the drive alone anymore. (Mom passed away in 2022.) So I flew out to Pgh, spent the night with my older brother and SIL, and they drove me to our property in western PA where dad lives in the summer. Then we did the trip in 2 days. Night 1 was spent at my little brother's in Pinehurst, NC, and then we made it to Hobe Sound, FL not long after dark. (We were going to stop around Ft. Lauderdale, but hotels were in short supply for some reason, and we just pushed on, with a short detour to see the house where we lived in Jacksonville when I was wee, and which I vaguely remember.)

Some of the places we went through in WV and NC were... special. Confederate flags and signs like "I have guns and a backhoe" and a drawing of a lynching...I hadn't wanted to step foot in FL, but needs must.

I stayed a few days to get things in order, and then flew home.

(3) We had to get the disaster that is my house in order to host T'giving with D's mom and stepdad. Much food was had, and she only made a few comments about how we have too much stuff. (Note that she gave us a bunch of stuff when they downsized to move into an assisted living community.)

(4) My guy's writ was finally given out at Bhakail Yule. He's joining the Order of the Mark at EK Rapier Champs on Feb 21. And me, being me, JUST started embroidering the tiraz. 

(5) We survived the holidays. 

(6) And I applied to a job, but decided to pull my name from consideration hours before the screening interview. The company is currently laying off thousands, it's my ex's employer & I don't want my kid's insurance to be dependent on one employer, and there were some red flags in that they haven't been able to fill this position for a very long time, and have started trawling LinkedIn for candidates. And while I have experience in exactly what they want, and could do the job, it'd be a lot harder coming from outside because I don't know their corporate culture and the people I'd need to interact with. And I don't really want to only do that work. (I actually turned down a similar job change at my current employer.)

If I'd gotten the job (I think I was the only candidate, and they were pushing hard), it would have meant more money and a 10-min commute (instead of my current 2 hours each way), but I'd lose a week of vac every year, would no longer be doing any science, would lose my 2025 bonus (pretty substantial, doesn't get paid out until end of March), and would not have the same protections I do now. We just went through yet another reorg, and my job is currently safe, I have other departments that would take me if my job ever went away, and I'd get about a year in severence pay if that didn't happen because I've worked here since 1998.

And it was stressing me out. So I decided not to even do the interviews. Why waste their time and mine?