obsession and coming clean

The shot above was taken on our way out of town as we escaped Ike. If you look at the oncoming traffic on the left, that's actually a convoy of about 75 state troopers, lights flashing, speeding their way to the Houston/Galveston area, ostensibly to help mobilize for the storm. Until the point where I took this picture, I wasn't nervous at all, but watching all those state troopers racing to the city we just left was a bit sobering.

I didn't get much sleep last night: I spent most of it obsessively watching CNN, surfing between CNN.com, the Houston Chronicle website, and the KHOU website, not to mention following the Hurricane Ike twitter stream and text messaging close friends who were riding out the storm in their homes back in Houston. There are reports of power out everywhere, and trees down in and around our neighbourhood (worrying), but so far, everyone we've been able to contact is safe. I guess we'll see for ourselves tomorrow.

This may be my last post for a while, depending on what the power situation is like in Houston. For those of you who are really curious, I'm sure I'll still be twittering via cell phone, so you can always follow what we're up to there. However, in the meantime, I thought I'd come clean:

I gave notice at my job a couple of weeks ago.

There are a few reasons why I quit, but it mostly comes down to the hours and the stress that were required do do my job well weren't good for my family: I was finding myself more and more absent from home, if not literally, than certainly figuratively. The people at my company are very good to me, and have been very understanding, and for that I'm very grateful. Since the end of the quarter is the crazy time at my company, I'm going to stay until mid-October, to help close out deals, and transition appropriately.

So! The news is that my life is about to take a different turn -- I've decided to take a break from law and focus more on writing and shooting again: I'm thinking that it will be a lot easier to do so here in the States where I have lots of contacts, as opposed to when I was in Trinidad and had fewer contacts -- and yet, even there, I was pretty successful at it. As a result, with the help of the amazingly talented designer, Krystyn Heide, I've been in the process of developing a new website, and very soon www.chookooloonks.com will point here (for some of you, it might already be doing so). As serendipity would have it, at the same time, the host of my blog here has decided to wind down business is going through some change as well, but never fear: this blog continues at the new site, and once www.chookooloonks.com is all officially pointed over there, you'll be able to update your bookmarks to the new URL. I'll let you know when that can officially happen.

How's that for lots of change? Apologies for having been so cryptic in recent weeks, but now you're officially up to date on the craziness that is my current life. I think you'll agree that I have a pretty good life, though, despite the madness: I'm about to focus on a career that I can get passionate about, I have a great husband and kid, and despite the chaos that may be currently happening to our home, we're safe and warm and dry and together.

Anyway, for those of you who've e-mailed me your concerns, and left lovely comments here, thank you so much for checking in -- it's meant more than you can possibly know. Again, I likely won't update again until we're safe at home and the power's back on, but if you're concerned, you can always follow me on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/Chookooloonks), and I'll post again as soon as I can. And for those of you who are in and around Houston/Galveston, please stay safe; for those who evacuated and will be soon returning, safe travels, and here's hoping the only damage you find is a branch or two that has fallen from a tree, far, far away from your home.