job hunting

I still don't have a real job, but I did start training a woman's horse. It's nice to be doing that sort of work again, though I wish it were a little more reliable and lucrative. Once it starts snowing, by hours will be seriously cut, of course, and I would need to train a lot more horses to make it pay like a low-end job. I've applied to all sorts of 'real' jobs, but it's ridiculous. Apparently there is not a job in existence that I want to do and am qualified for. I don't want to work with people because I hate having to do the 'customer service' thing (the customer's always right), I don't want to work at a desk all day, I want decent pay and I'd like to be outdoors or at least in an environment where I can move around if I want. I definitely don't want to do anything with computers, and I hate answering phones. And no more data entry for me. But I don't want to go back to school, and I don't want to get a lifeguarding degree, a teaching degree, a phD, a masters, a librarians degree, an editors degree, or anything like that. So that leaves.... manual labor, which requires only a high school diploma and pays at least $9 an hour, no benefits generally. Would someone like to remind me why I went to college? Ugh. I can't even find anything to apply for! At least I'm doing something in the mean time.

Fortunately, all this not working lets me do some fun things like play with our kitten, who's gotten a lot bigger since we got her. Her name is Persatuan (Unity in Indonesian) or just Satu for short (which means One). I get to ride my horses at my parent's house, read lots of books, and think about all the things I should be doing but never seem to do (like write a book). Check out the picture of Greg making use of my parent's wireless network from outside the house. It's so nice to be around pine trees and fresh air! Every time we go to the mountains, we say "we're not in Indonesia anymore!" But of course we miss it, especially our friends there. Good thing we have email to stay in touch.

autumn in Colorado and podcast interview

We saw snow for the first time in several years on Saturday night. Greg and I went with our parents to Glenwood Springs for the annual Baha'i conference commemorating the visit of Abdu'l-Baha to that place 95 years ago. It's a beautiful drive through Glenwood Canyon, red cliffs are on both sides, and the aspens were turning patches of the mountains gold. We didn't see all that much of the scenery, though, because we left before it was light out and came back after soaking in the hot springs (http://www.hotspringspool.com/pool/) at night. And it began to rain, and then the rain turned into snow. Sunday, we could see snow on the mountains when we looked west from our apartment! It's cooled down a lot where we live, but no snow yet. In fact, the trees near our house haven't even changed. Sunday Greg had ruhi in Lakewood and I drove back up to my parent's house and went for a long trail ride with my mom. It was a beautiful day with intense Colorado blue, cloudless skies and the golden aspens fluttering. I'd forgotten that the trees have a particular smell in the fall, a sweet, tangy smell that just smells like fall!

After I picked Greg up we sat in a park for a while, bought food for the week, and went out for dinner. We were so caught up in getting things done that we completely spaced a very important engagement we'd made. Fortunately, the folks in charge were very understanding and we still got to participate in an interview on our experiences in Indonesia. It's a half-hour interview you can lister to at this address: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=26038&cmd=tc It's a podcast so you can listen on your ipod. I think it turned out well, though there's a lot we would have liked to add, like talk about bemos, becaks, the different kinds of fruit, the mud volcano... but you know about all that from my blog! Check it out and see what you think!

Look for pictures soon... several people have requested photos of our apartment.