A New Phase of Life

Today starts a new phase in my life. My wife begins her final semester of actual classes at UofL, as next semester she'll be student-teaching and won't be in lecture. Unfortunately, Stewartland is located 120 miles from Louisville, and Keisha will be commuting a few days per week to class. This is a two hour drive and a time change, meaning that if she leaves at 10 am she'll arrive in Louisville around 1 pm or so. Yuck. Neither Keisha or myself are thrilled about this, but it's what we have and we're confident this semester'll go by quickly.

I pray that she'll be safe on the roads and while in Louisville. There are aspects of city life that I like, like the conveniently located stores/attractions, and the many things to do. But there is the darker side of the city, too, that exists, where laws are broken and danger resides. I'm not worried that anything will happen, but just for some security, I plan on buying some mace for Keisha to carry with her.

The question arises, then, what will I do with myself without my best friend around?

1. Final Fantasy XII. I've had this game for about a year or so, but I've not played it yet. It got great reviews, and looks promising. Plus, I haven't played a FF game in a while (granted I did play FF7 last year some, finally getting around to beating Emerald and Ruby and maxing out some materia), so I'm looking forward to this. (This FF7 file that I worked on ages back to when I was a junior or sophomore in high school. That's about 8 years or so. Such an old game, but still so awesome.)

2. Avatar: The Last Airbender. This has been recommended to me, and my pal let me borrow Season 1, so I'll watch it.

3. Finish the table project. A few months ago, before we owned Stewartland, we knew that we'd need a kitchen table to match our new kitchen. The table we had was given to us from my parents, and we really liked it, but it was a white ash color and had many scratches and nicks from the years of use. So, being fans of HGTV, and being strapped for cash, we decided to refinish the table. This involved stripping off the layers of polyurethane, sanding down the table, staining the table a new dark mahogany color, and reapplying polyurethane. On HGTV this project can be done within an hour. In real life, after a month of working on it, we refinished the table and two chairs, and most of the table leaf. Then we moved in to our house and haven't worked on it since. There are still 4 chairs to finish and the leaf, so I'll have my hands busy with this.

4. Learning to cook better. I know how to cook, and I enjoy it (when I have nothing else to do), so I'm looking forward to this one a bit. I particularly want to master cheese cakes and soups.

5. Adam Graham. One of my best friends from high school may be spending some time with me this fall, and I'm looking forward to that.

6. Finish unpacking, etc. Aye, our house still is home to many unpacked boxes and various other things that need to be sorted/trashed. Hopefully I'll get this taken care of soon.

7. Write. This one may be one I'll have to find time for, but I'll definitely find time. I'm going to stick with the current story I'm working on and try to actually come up with a finished product.

There are many things that I'll have to occupy my time with, and hopefully this will be a productive semester for me while I'm without Keisha. She'll be driving on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, racking up around 500 miles or so per week. I know she'll be exhausted when she gets home, and she'll have homework to do, so I'll try to do as much as I can to help her.

It promises to be an interesting, eventful semester, most likely full and busy. Wish us luck, or, if you feel inclined, pray that we'll make it through with few problems and that Keisha'll stay safe on the roads.

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Song Lyric: "I awake to find no peace of mind, I said how do you live as a fugitive?"--Coldplay, Spies