One step at a time...

Ok... so... some of what we have here today was supposed to be ready for last week's post. But, life happened and the first bit of it is ready for today.

Lisa is pressing on with her dissertation and seems to have finally gotten a committee together and has even started educating them on what the heck she's doing. If she hasn't mentioned it already she's also recently been awarded a fairly prestigious internship for one of her conferences this year. That means she's going to be working hard, and that we will be there for longer than we first planned. Buuttt the hotel gets paid for, the registration fee gets paid for, and she gets a stipend for food and travel and such. It also means that she's becoming more of an insider for another (and larger this time!) organization that she really wants to be active with. (What do I say? Well... Vegas Baby!!! (Actually it may not be that exciting really... writing stuff...)).

On my side of the house Johnson Farm is one step closer to being published on schedule. For those keeping score that will be my second book of the year and the first novel of a series. The second novel of the series is currently planned as this years NANOWRIMO project (with books three and four to come...). I'll be talking more about this in upcoming posts...

For today's post... I'm also started on next years first book, another craft book. This one will teach about how to make and use your own 'beach' glass. It's planned as an intermediate level craft book (a step up from the last one). I am also releasing some videos related to this book (and a couple more for the last one (and at least one for the novel...). As of tonight I actually have the first of those videos out the door!



Yes, it's simple. But it's also another one on the resume (and hopefully the first item out for my third book!). I actually have had a couple people ready to jump ship to my team just from filming this one...

Three more videos are planned at this time (with the material for one of them on my desk already). So tune in in the near future and hopefully I can show you why 'hitting the bottle' might not mean what you think it means!

In the other side of life Lisa is still the ward music coordinator and keeping those singers singing and players playing.

As for myself I'm still ward clerk. Once again I have two assistants who are doing fairly well and once again there are thoughts of "when I get them trained up I can move on to something else". Of course last time I thought that they reorganized the stake and I lost all my trainees to another ward!

And, once again I am working on cleaning up the ward list. This requires calling, emailing, or otherwise contacting people who want to know who I am before they will tell me anything...

And once again one of my favorite bands has provide timely theme music for the project...



So, thank you to INSOC for the timely video! (Yes I do actually play this one while I'm working on ward list stuff!!!)

That's it for this one. See you in two...

Some News from Lisa...

Just a few months ago, I (Lisa) decided to submit an application for one of the few internships for AECT (Association for Educational Communications & Technology).  I scrambled to update my CV (long resume for those outside of academia), answer questions about my goals and research (like I really know what I want to do when I grow up), and had a faculty advisor willing to squeak in a letter of support just under the deadline.

There are limited spots for these internships.  What would this get me?

Registration and hotel costs for the AECT 2016 conference are covered along with a stipend to help with travel.  In addition, during the conference I will have the opportunity to interact with and learn from leaders in instructional design, learning, and technology .  Following the conference I will be paired up with one of those leaders as a mentor to help me continue to progress as I transition from PhD student to professional.

(What would it get Patrick? - a week long most expenses paid trip to Vegas to write, and write and write.)

I completed my undergraduate degree years ago, so in many ways I do not feel like your regular PhD student.  In other words, it feels like I'm on a second or third career and falling behind.

I was already planning to attend this conference.  The presentation I submitted was accepted, and I had already committed to helping with the 3MT Competition (See Conferences and Travel (Lisa's belated post))

This morning I received in my email inbox...

Lisa, congratulations!
You are a recipient of a 2016 AECT Leadership Internship. You join a prestigious and small group of people who have become leaders in the field...

I was selected as one of the three Cochran Interns!

AECT 2016 Internship Announcement

I was so excited!  And extremely grateful for this opportunity. 

While my life has not always taken the expected path, I have been extremely blessed with opportunities to grow and progress in my professional life.  From opportunities to further my education to kind comments from professional men and women I admire to affirmations like this award; all small indications of the Lord's hand in my life letting me know that I am where I need to be, doing what the He wants me to do.

Ebb and Flow...

We made it back from the trip...

In case someone's not sure what we're talking about...

We had a cruise/reunion/birthday-party thing to go to... (We love you Grandma!)

When we left, our car was still at Honda. Given that at least one other car associated with the cruise/reunion/birthday-party was kind of totaled due to things related to one of the things they were tracking down in our car, and another had transmission issues... I think we're glad we gave Honda an extra week! So...the car gave the Honda guys fits (I blame the ninja squirrels) but we didn't break down in the desert... I'll call this a win.

We did have a good trip all around though it did remind us that some days it doesn't pay to leave home... When we got back Lisa discovered that her dissertation committee chair is leaving for another university so she has to reorganize her committee (again...). On the bright side she remains the most cited researcher in her department at the university. She met with some folks already and it looks like the dissertation timeline she has in mind will work out (which is good).

In my side of the writing game... Don't know yet... ask me next time I post.
I have a meeting with with some fairly serious publishing people on Wednesday about the novel that I hope to have out in December. I have the latest version of the pitch put together and hope to have the latest edit of the book completely on the computer by the end of the week...

I am also working on the copy for the first book of next year. I also hope to have at least one if not two videos for this one up by the next time I post (fun stuff). I'm not going to say specifically what the videos or the book are about just now but...
If you find the concept of ballistic fragmentation of non-crystalline solids to be interesting or scary check back in two weeks... (trust me I've already made one neighbor jealous playing with the stuff for this one...).

So we're back...
We're working on stuff...
We're taking the good with the bad...
Even though some days we'd rather be here...

Or here...

But in any case we'll be having fun,
getting things done,
and...

hanging out with the gang!

That's it for this time. If Lisa doesn't post next week, see you in two...