Missing Person Report

I rarely ever post on here and sort of feel like I've left this blog behind for my fishing blog. Cheryl has done a great job of keeping up with this one, though. Our life recently has been hectic and exhausting, but with clear moments of excitement.

We are still working on the house as much as we can, and plan to finish the bathroom (finally!) and are waiting for a warm-snap to finish painting the body of the exterior. Cheryl did a massive amount of landscaping in the summer and early fall that has done a lot for the general appearance of the house. Just a few of the projects I have planned for the winter are: sanding and refinishing the fir planked front porch and then gutting the upstairs rooms and rewiring/insulating/drywalling them and refinishing their floors. After I get the floor heat and marble down in the bathroom, I can do base and crown; that needs to be done asap so I can get upstairs and start tearing out walls. In one of the bedrooms, I'll reframe a wall to include a closet and reclaim some of the now-useless attic space.

Cheryl is hard at work at her still-new job at Epworth. She has long, hard days working with the girls there, but has the opportunity to do significantly more therapy work with the clients and their families. Again, it's very hard work but she is rewarded with moments of light in their lives. Thankfully it is much closer than St. Vincent, within walking distance for her which she often takes advantage of for convenience and a bit of exercise.

I am still on the job hunt and still turning up very little. Unfortunately I am either over- or under-qualified for most of what I apply for. Having a background in archaeology and divinity is a strange combination on the job market and one that I continually have to explain away during interviews. It is difficult to make my life make sense to others when it makes none for me. I am still fishing feverishly away, but not as much as I had been during the summer. I am building rods as fast as I can buy, afford and fish; I'm waiting on numbers three and four to arrive in the mail now. Professional custom building is just around the corner, but I doubt that it will be profitable for a while; it is a very tough business with high-cost and good competition. I am still working on writing a book and am in the stage where writing happens as much as editing; I just need to finish it so I can start legitimately talking to publishers. I'm about 60% to a "completed" manuscript.

Other than that, life is whatever the day brings to Cheryl and me.