Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

My youngest is eleven today. When I realized I was pregnant with him, I went through the usual steps of seeing my OB and establishing the due date. His was on his sister's birthday, January 17. When January 17, 1999 came and went, I cried. I really wanted the two to share a birthday. Little One, though, decided he needed twelve more days before entering the world. The day he was born I had my weekly checkup with the OB. I had started dilating and I was feeling minor labor pains, nothing serious. My OB advised me to go ahead and check into the hospital since this baby was my third and the first two had come fairly quickly once the contractions had kicked in. I checked in around noon. Not long after, the contractions started, I dilated more, and the pain became excruciating. I was determined to do the birth naturally since I had with my second and survived just fine, but the longer the afternoon dragged on, the more I began thinking things weren't fine this time. My OB had assure...

This week I had my students read an article about cheating/plagiarism. When class met, I asked the students straight up if any of them had cheated. Almost all of my students admitted to cheating, and on more than several occasions. While I had prepared myself for some students admitting to having cheated, I wasn't prepared for the number of hands that actually went up. Most of the class. Stunning. The class discussed why students cheat, offering reasons like running out of time for when a project is due and simply being lazy. We then discussed ways to avoid running out of time and ways to overcome being lazy. At times, I see such honesty and such willingness to try to do better, but what happens when they walk out the door is out of my hands. I hope they at least think about the class discussion while they are working on their class projects, taking the initiative to do the work on the up and up. If their thoughts return to the class discussion, perhaps they will feel inclined to w...

Sometimes things happen that just make me sink into a sadness I have a difficult time climbing out of. This morning a situation occurred with my hubbie that sent me spiralling downward. This evening, I'm still there. The tears threaten to spill, and I have to put a lot of effort into not succumbing to them. All this effort has worn me out, making me want to go to bed early, pulling the covers up over my head. I just want to hide. When this kind of sadness hits me, it's usually brought about by being terribly disappointed by someone I love dearly. I try so hard not to disappoint those I love, so when I'm the one who is on the receiving end of being disappointed, I take it really hard. And I know the disappointment diminishes the love I feel for that person just a teeny-tiny bit. I've often thought I need a punching bag to help me deal with times like this. When I feel the sadness overwhelming me, I can put on the gloves and start punching away, beating the sadness into s...

This evening the informational meeting for the mini-tri took place. My friend and I attended, along with about thirty others. The ages ranged from around twenty to sixties, so I was pleased to see I wasn't the only over-40 person there. The instructor emphasized how the training was to help us complete the mini-tri, not to win our respective gender/age divisions. I was really glad to hear that as I know I'm not going to be competitive in the running part, especially since the running is the last leg of the race. I think I'll do okay with the swimming and pretty good with the biking, but the running is going to be tough. I have right at three months to train. I need to kick it into gear. The problem is everything else going on. The boys have basketball several times a week, so we're running to different schools anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour away. I'm trying to spend some time working on the book; I've made a good start and am determined to keep going. I rea...

On this date 18 years ago I gave birth to my first child. My life changed that day. All because of a her. For 18 years, I have had the honor of learning exactly what it means to love. She has been my teacher. I joke at times that the child I brought home from the hospital cannot possibly be mine as she is too beautiful, too smart, too compassionate, too everything to truly be mine. I am constantly in awe of her. Those who come to know her see what I see and tell my what a great job I've done raising her. I cannot take the credit. She is who she is and has always been what she is all on her own. I was just the lucky one who was entrusted with her care 18 years ago. Now, at 18, she is readying herself to go it alone after graduating from high school. She will attend college, though we are not sure where yet. She has been accepted into a couple of schools, but having always thought she would spend her first two years at the college where I teach since her tuition is free, I do not hav...

Though it's much too early to really be planting anything, I can't help but think about the coming warmth of spring and being able to put out my small garden. My spirit lives in the country, and sometimes the pull to up and run to the land overwhelms me. I know I'm living in the wrong house. I just can't convince my husband of this. I can do small gardening around this house, mostly container gardening. The problem with trying to garden here is the trees. Two trees in the yard block out the sunlight for most of the day. Most veggies need more hours of sunlight than what we get. I've asked that the trees be cut down. I've demanded that the trees be cut down. Always, always the answer is no. Since I can't have what I want, I'm going to have to be creative and devise a container system that will allow me to grow more in less space. I already have some planter boxes, but they're way to deep. The planning was all wrong at the time; it was sort of a whim t...

This semester I have my Tuesday and Thursday mornings free. I've always taught in the morning then worked in my office until time to pick up kids from school, but now, since my hubby is laid off, my daughter catches a ride with a friend, my middle son walks home, and hubby can pick up the youngest, I switced my schedule to office in the morning and teaching in the afternoon. Already I'm liking this as I get so much more done. Before, when I was finished teaching, I always felt like I was finished for the day. I would do some work, but more often than not I just didn't complete all that I should have completed. After only two days, I'm seeing a huge difference in what I get done just by doing office work in the morning. So this morning, since I don't have to go in until noon, I went to the gym to run and cycle. After being away for a couple of days because of this chest cold, the coughing, and the fatigue, I found running to be difficult. I finished two miles, but I ...

My Christmas present was a turntable that can be connected to my computer. I can put on a record, import the music into my library, then download the songs to my mp3 player. This is so cool. My sons had never seen a record before I started buying them to play on the turntable. I had to describe to them how a needle fits into a groove then moves across the record as it spins around. They found this interesting, and ever since I came home with some oldies found at the thrift store, we've been enjoying listening to what my youngest refers to as "old people music." This evening I put on REO Speedwagon. As I was folding clothes from the dryer, my youngest came in and said the guitar playing was "beastly." He chattered on about the different instruments he could make out, telling me the bass had a deeper tone than the electric guitar. I don't know if this is true as I'm not a guitar player and I know next to nothing about the bass, but I wouldn't be surpri...

The snow came during the night, putting another thick layer on top of the layer that fell right after Christmas. The clean of the white sparkled under the street lights. Looking out our upstair's bedroom window this morning at dawn, I thought maybe three inches. An hour and a half later, when I walked out to go to work, I found the accumulation was more like six or seven inches. Our street hadn't been plowed, and even main street was a mess. Most (all) of the local schools had declared a snow day, so the kids were home for the day, but my place of higher education remained in session. Since the students are not back yet, and only faculty are there preparing for next week's first days of the spring semester, the higher ups decided we should report. Thankfully I have a four-wheel drive vehicle, so I was fine getting to work. Most of my colleagues, though, decided the snow day applied to them and didn't come in. I took advantage of the situation and completed the copying o...

Due to a major head cold, the training has been put on hold for the last two days. I finally broke down and took a cold med this evening when I couldn't take the pounding headache any longer. I try to avoid taking anything when I'm not feeling well, but when the aching causes my stomach to become upset, that's when I cave. I've never been diagnosed as having migraines, but sometimes I get these headaches that make me feel like I've been in a smack-down. I can tell when they're coming on, so I head them off by taking an over-the-counter as I loathe the upset stomach. The last three days it's mostly been the scratchy throat, the sneezing, and a bit of a cough, so I was just riding it out, but today the headache took over. Ughhhhh. To help pass the time this weekend, I searched for a training schedule for a sprint tri. I found several. I hadn't given strength training much thought, but most of the schedules have weight workouts built into them. Looking at t...