The BIG Update

Greetings & Salutations!

It has been a busy month at the Blankenship household, filled with contractors, a whole lot of boxes, trips to various government agencies. Add to that one article for publication and two paper proposals for AERA, making a t-shirt quilt for the Aggie niece and attending various pre-semester meetings on campus and it has been a whirlwind of an adventure.

Where to start, where to start.....

"Tide of Boxes"
The downstairs has been declared almost finished. With the exception of several boxes of books that are currently stored in the dining room, boxes have been eliminated downstairs. All rooms are functional (finally!) and now I'm just trying to get pictures and decorative items up on the walls. It is getting really, really close, and I plan to finish it off this coming week (my last week of freedom before the semester starts with a flurry of meetings and orientations on campus).  Although the downstairs is in pretty good shape, the same cannot be said for upstairs.

About two weeks after the floor contractors left the ac in Loyd's office sprang a leak. Unfortunately due to the  number of boxes in the room we did not notice until the floors started popping and warping. This necessitated moving all the boxes in his office to my office and the guest bedroom. The damaged flooring as been pulled up by the fantastic crew at Floody's Floors and the replacement flooring is acclimating. Fast forward to yesterday.....

I am moving into my RIC office next week so I decided to get all the stuff that would be going packed up, in my car, and most importantly OUT of my office. As I am moving boxes around I noticed the floors didn't feel flat under my feet. Ten minutes later I had discovered the leak in my AC--fortunately it hadn't been going on very long and wasn't anywhere near as wet as Loyd's leak. Now we repeat the moving stuff out to--somewhere else in the house.  Loyd refers to the boxes as the "tide of boxes that floats from room to room" which pretty much describes our box strategy as we unpacked. Thankfully almost all of the boxes fit in the guest bedroom.

View of the guest bedroom from the hall.

The "working" part of my office....

The rest ended up divided between various closets that won't be affected by the flooring re-do.  On the upside my office is now completely box free and I have my corner work niche set up.

The DMV Debacle
We are now officially licensed RI drivers and it only took four trips to the DMV. The office closest to us is about 10-15 minutes down the road and it is only open on Tuesday and Wednesday. There are other places that have more liberal hours, however we would have to "cross the bridge" as East Providence residents would say.  The first trip revealed that we would need a ton of documentation in order to transfer our vehicles registrations to RI AND we would have to have a VNN  check with a local police department BEFORE we could even begin the license and registrations process. Visit one ends unsuccessfully. Visit two, got there early and had the VNN check done at the Warren PD. Then back to the DMV to get Driver's Licences.  Fill out all the paperwork, pay the fee then get in a separate line for the picture. Visit two, partial success as we leave with our temporary licences.  Visit 3 occurred after we finally found all of the necessary documentation and filled out a slew of forms. I head to Warren DMV only to be told when I get there that since Loyd is also listed on the title I would have to either (a) come back with him in tow or (b) find a notary and have Loyd's signature notarized.
Also left with even MORE forms to be filled out. Trip 3 abject failure.  Trip 4: Loyd and I both go so they can watch him sign the form. He then sits on the bench surfing on his phone while I wait for the slowest clerk on earth to finish everything up. The visit started off with a bit of shock that almost made me want to throw up my hands and yell "GIVE!!! " On the form for the transfer of registration it has a spot that you check for registering an out of state car, along with a spot for the licence plate number. I assumed that they needed my Texas license plate number, so that's what I put in. The clerk took one look at my form and said "I can't register a car with Texas a Texas place." After several minutes of back and forth, Loyd finally thought to ask, is this  going to keep us from registering the car in RI? The clerk said no, scratched out the TX plate number and wrote in the RI plate number. Seems like this could have been avoided by adding a "for office use" box for the RI plate number. However, after the mild heart attack we left with shiny, brand new plates.

Mid-summer Work Break
July is always a busy month for writing, seeing as that AERA proposals are always due at the end of July.  This year brought an added bonus of prepping an article for submission due 3 days before AERA proposals.  Thanks to the wonders of Skype I got to spend some quality time with my chair, Cinthia and my colleague Elizabeth as we prepped the article and proposals. It was an intense three weeks, but once everything was I got to have some down time (not!).

Not long after  the writing gig I began meeting with my mentor regarding the methods class I will teach this fall and discussing placements.  Since I am a joint appointment between Ed Studies and History I have also met with the History chair to discuss advising and department responsibilities. Surprise, surprise, he put me on the technology committee. I've also been attending various orientations for everything from insurance and retirement to using the STEM technology rooms.  I now have keys to my office and a computer and I'll make the big move in tomorrow morning. That will give me next week to get my office set up and organized.  I've been steadily working on my syllabus, as well as my five year writing plan over the course of the summer. And I've started to outline what I need to get done this fall. I am SOOOOOO glad we decided to come up early so that we would be more or less settled in before the August rush to the beginning of the semester.  I've still got a full week of "freedom" left before I have to hit the ground running. Sounds pretty much like the beginning of every school year!

All work and no play....

In between all unpacking and meetings we have also been checking out the local flora and fauna. We've hit several farmers markets on the weekend- the best one so far is in a part in Providence.

Checking out the Farmers' Market in Providence.

The amount of fresh food available is amazing. The eat-local movement is very much alive and well in RI. The one thing we have had trouble finding is "hot" peppers.  We bought some fresh jalapenos that had absolutely  ZERO heat.  Missing  HEB's pineapple pico a lot right now.

Here's the Seafood Festival Carnival, complete with Lucky Ducky!
Everyone's a winner!!

Last weekend we attempted our first "festival" and headed to coast for a seafood festival.  After several wrong turns, we finally found it, paid our $8 to get in and headed inside. It was basically the Chilipiad of seafood.  Many, many food trucks with every type of seafood imaginable. Three different music stages (although music didn't start until later in the afternoon and we were there in the morning), a number of vendors, but rather limited variety of goods and a carnival complete with ring toss and rickety rides. We lasted about an hour or so, then headed back to town, cutting through several historic districts for their scenic views. So, not a very successful outing.

We are making our next foray tomorrow for Foo Fest in Providence. Much bigger, and a wider variety of activities (at least according to their website), so we are hoping for a better experience.





An update on his majesty

In May....

Currently....

Chan, aka "the Pig," has finally started settling in. Now that the contractors are out of his sun room he spends most of the day curled up in a sunbeam or yelling at the birds. He has reluctantly started using his cat door, but only when he absolutely has to...if Loyd or I are in the kitchen he will sit and stare at the door with a piteous look until someone opens the door for him. He believes cat doors are totally undignified. However, if he is in the sun room and he hears the treat jar being rattled, his speed and agility coming through the cat door is nothing short of amazing.

Full Flower!

He has discovered that wood floors are slick, which is good for chasing toys, but not so good when you try to put on the breaks and your fuzzy toes don't have any traction. He's hit the wall a couple of times in the upstairs hall way. He  has actually lost a little bit of weight from having to climb the stairs and jump thru his cat door, however this has been offset by his return to fuzziness.  His last haircut was in May and he no longer looks like a cat with a lion cut. Of course he is still several months out from achieving his full fluffiness, and by that time he will be glad for the extra fur.  Whenever the temp dips into the upper sixties during the night, thus cooling off the sun room to an unacceptable (to Pig) level, he comes in and gripes about it to whomever will listen.



Well that is about it for now. I'm still working on getting the pages for the Slater Mill and Plimouth together. Way to many photographs and video!  Will try to get another post up next week before the fall rush begins.