Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

At least for now. Who knows what will happen a month down the road given the increase of variant cases. I'm hoping for the best but am prepared to end up completely online again. As of now, I'll return to campus on Monday. And my big summer project is 99.99% done. All that's left is touching up spots here and there. I finished up the basement windows and downspouts today, along with doing what I could with the doors to the basement stairs. They're not exterior doors, and they're warping because they take a lot of the weather since they're west-facing, but I'm going to leave them until next summer. Then I'll replace them with proper exterior doors. The house last fall. The house newly painted this summer. While I'm excited to have finished painting the house, I now have another issue to address: the septic. I was touching up the attic window and heard a motor shut off. I thought it was my neighbor's air conditioner and didn't think too much ab...

It's official: I'm over the gray, cool, rainy weather we've been having for the past three weeks. I don't live in the Pacific Northwest because I just don't like and/or enjoy day after day of gray, gloomy weather. Every now and then is fine, but for Pete's sake, enough already. Mother Nature, please be kind and give us some heat and sunshine!  Okay, weather rant over. Thankfully I was able to get most of the house painting finished before being sidelined by the weather. All that's left are the corbels, some of the front porch, and the basement windows. Not a lot at all, but it's quite frustrating to not be able to work and complete the job. What is finished is absolutely beautiful! Seriously beautiful. I had this vision in my mind about how the green, brown, and pale yellow would work together, and the reality is even better than what I imagined. Every time I walk the dogs and approach the house as we return, I'm struck by how the house seems so much...

My summer is well underway, and so far I'm enjoying each and every minute. I really am very fortunate. Not many can say they get their summers off to pursue all kinds of fun things, so I am very thankful I am one of the lucky few who can.  Speaking of being thankful . . . I've fallen into the habit of saying thank you nearly every day to whatever it is that's out there watching over all of us. And I've noticed when I utter the words Thank you, a warm sense of wellbeing just washes through me. I was told recently that my living out here in this house has brought out the happy in me, that the happy is quite evident in the way I look, the way I talk, the way I am.  Yes, I am very happy. Along with the happy is being content. I'm incredibly content. I don't think I've ever really known what this feels like, what this means, until being out here in this wonderful little house. Speaking of wonderful little house . . . the painting is moving along. The base color ...

Like usual, Ado and I set off for our morning walk. A bit later than usual since I slept right up until 7:45. Then I snuggled for another half hour against Ado. He's the best cuddle buddy ever. So when we finally started off, the sun was shining, warming the morning so nicely. While we walked I thought I'd cycle up to the farm to return the egg cartons that I'd been collecting over the last couple of months. I wasn't about to let this beautiful fall day get away from me without a cycling trip of some kind. Once Ado was settled in after we returned to the apartment and after I aired up the tires on Sweetness, I started out. Only to realize the wind had come up during the time I fixed Ado's breakfast, geared up, packed the egg cartons in the pannier, and stepped back outside. Not just a little wind, either. No. This wind, though I didn't know it until after I checked the weather once I got home, was blowing over 23 miles per hour, gusting up to 40 mph. There was...

Whew! I can't remember a time when I was so happy to have a week end. Nothing horrible happened. I was just so busy mentally each day that by Friday afternoon, my brain was mush. This resulted from canceling classes and doing individual student conferences. Take 85 students who come in for a twenty minute conference and you get a full day of interacting that begins at 8 am and ends at 5 pm. By the time I got home in the evenings, all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and not think. Training didn't happen either. I thought about getting on the bike each evening, but I just couldn't find the energy to do it. So a week went by with no training hours or mileage. And that's why this morning I only lasted 30 minutes doing the AMGEN DVD. My heart was pounding after the second interval, and the tell-tale signs of heading towards dizziness was setting in. After last Sunday's awesome training ride at the high school, with no problems keeping my heart rate up or keeping my...

Made some progress today with getting out of my slump. Initially I had planned a long ride, but the clouds didn't part the way the weather forecast said they would. The sun hid all day long yet again, keeping the temps cool yet again, and the wind came up yet again. I settled for a five mile barefoot run on the treadmill, which I'm very happy with as I can tell my feet are getting stronger and I just feel so happy while running barefoot. My mind wanders to all kinds of things rather than watching the seconds tick by, making the hour seem to slip by quickly. The legs don't feel like lead when I run without shoes. Instead, they feel light. This has done wonders for my mindset. I've never been so happy with running like I am now. One of the to-do's on my list for this in-between time of late spring not quite summer was to paint the boys' room. Hubby and I purchased the paint today. When the boys returned home from school, we cleaned out from under the beds, moved...