One year later.

One year ago today I officially transferred down to Arkansas. I suppose that this is cause for some sort of celebration and reflection.

Whee. *blows noisemaker*

*Pause*

Okay, I'm done.

I'd love to give a long post about how much better or worse my life is down here, but I can't. The year has had its ups and downs. It's not heaven down here, but it's not complete hell, either. Moving from a city of a million people to a town of about 5000 has taken some adjustments, but there are advantages to balance out lack of conveniences.

It has been raining pretty much non stop since Saturday - Check that. Saturday it only rained right at sunrise, and then only enough to prevent me from mowing my weed farm that can only charitably be called a lawn. On the plus side, my fruit trees - with the exception of the persimmon, which isn't much more than a stick with some root attached to it - have started budding leaves (and in the case of one of my peach trees, flowers). It's still a few years until I'll have fruit, but it's nice to know that they survived my planting and neglect.

On a somewhat related note, while I was back in Calgary one of my dad's friends mentioned to me that a guy in Tennessee managed last year to inoculate oak and hazelnut trees to grow truffles. Naturally, I'm somewhat giddy at the thought, and have considered looking in to how much it would cost to buy about 100 acres of farmland and turn it into a truffle farm. Sure it's a pipe dream, but it's an extremely tempting one.

In other news, I was survived the airport and hospital without succumbing to the seasonal illness but my immune system was no match for Little Miss Plaguey a.k.a. Siochain, who managed to infect me over the phone. She is truly insidious. The real annoyance is that although I definitely don't feel completely healthy, I don't feel ill enough to warrant taken the day off, so I'm just lurching through work at partial efficiency hoping that I don't have to get worse before I get better. I'm taking some sick days until I feel somewhat human again.