Jobs, Income and New Routines!

Our routines are changing once again (and I'm sure they'll continue to, as we settle in and figure out how best to work our schedules), because both Matt and I landed income-producing gigs in the last week or so! Matt has just started his second week at a semi-permanent farm internship that has a minimal, but regular, income attached to it, and tomorrow I start a stipended internship with Ecotrust's Food and Farms Program, working primarily on the Edible Portland magazine! Matt's not making much, and my stipend will be $1,500 per quarter (about $500 per month), which will basically cover rent, but it's still something, and we're feeling particularly blessed that we both have found work in exactly the areas we wanted to work in. Matt is working with livestock on a farm that produces lamb and poultry meat, as well as wool and eggs, and I am getting my start in public health, working on a publication that focuses on the local and sustainable food movement. I'll continue to look for additional part-time work, as the internship is only 10-15 hours per week and will only last through the school year, ending in June. I have yet to sort out my schedule, but Matt works usually till dark, Monday through Thursday, not getting home until 6:30 or 7 PM (the farm is about 45 minutes from our house, about as close as it could be!)

Last week was a bit crazy, with Matt not home till later in the evening, thoroughly exhausted, and me in class till late two nights, and we ran short on ready-to-go dinner food, not having time to fit in making bread or cooking up a large batch of anything. I think our next investment will be a good crockpot! We were out of town all weekend, but today I was home and, between nursing a bit of a cold that I picked up over the weekend and working on homework, I somehow managed to bake two loaves of bread and a batch of banana bread, cook up a big pot of kidney beans, do a load of laundry, and run a few errands. I'm feeling much better about how this week will go, with lots of frozen veggies in the freezer and bread and snacks made for our lunches. Also, Matt gets sent home with free cuts of lamb and whole frozen chickens once a week or so, so we will be seeing a bit more meat in our diet, and we now have a good source of eggs until our own flock starts laying (which we're beginning to suspect won't be till spring, but that's another story).

I'm now commuting by bus, which is very convenient and affordable, and works out better for me now that my schedule will be a bit more complicated, and I'm not a big fan of biking through downtown. With the addition of my internship, my one-way commute would be around 7 miles, which is too much for me. So I'm settling into busing downtown, which is easy due to a route that goes from 7 blocks from home, straight through campus. The Portland Streetcar runs directly through campus and across downtown to where my internship will be. Because I'm now getting less exercise without the biking, I'm going to make a concerted effort to make use of the rec center on campus, which is free to students and has all kinds of options for working out, and, most appealing to me, regular yoga classes.

In other news, Heather and Joel at Not a Real Blog (longtime friends from my hometown) just welcomed a daughter on Friday! Many congratulations heading their way! And now I can show you the baby gifts I posted off to them last month:

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Inspired by Laurel, I sewed up two square flannel delivery blankets and three flannel burp clothes. I also finally got back into crocheting and made the wee hat, from a soft wool/acrylic blend. We knew in advance that the baby was a girl, but I don't like to give gendered gifts, so I thought these fabrics and colors were good for any new baby.

It's time for me to get back to my reading for class- I do apologize for the sporadic nature of my posts now. I keep hoping that I will get into a better routine and fit blogging in more regularly, but I guess I can't make any guarantees! I do want to share some of the things I am learning about public health issues, though, and that will be another post of its own.