Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Today I am 43 days refined sugar free. I've not had processed sweets and very little fruit through these last six weeks. A couple of days ago, it dawned on me how good I've been feeling physically the last ten days or so. More energy. Less fatigue in the afternoons. Sleeping through the night and waking up feeling ready to actually get up. I feel no pull to eat candy, cookies, or other sweets. It's very much like when I stopped eating meat -- a few months into being vegan, I felt no desire to eat another steak or hamburger, sausage or hot dog. With the sweets, a very strong need filled me every day to have something. Being free from that feeling is amazing. When I sit and think about the last seven years, I have to shake my head at what I've stopped consuming. The first to go was soda. For years I was drinking a 16 oz bottle of soda each day. Along with the soda was a candy bar. It's a wonder my teeth didn't rot out of my mouth. It's also a wonder I didn...

This semester I'm fully online again. I'm happy to be. I've become even more of a homebody than I was before going completely online. I thought after being online during COVID that I would never want to be again, but I've truly come to love it. My hope is I can finish out my time and move into retirement by just teaching online.  Being home all the time allows me time to listen to the house. To really see the parts that make up the whole.  *** I wrote the above a week ago, fully intending to write about my house, the dogs, being able to move through my days in a way that brings me peace and joy. I was going to finish the post during the week, but like usual, I got sidetracked and the post was forgotten about. Then yesterday, January 24, happened.  Anyone paying attention knows a man who was trying to help a woman who'd been shoved to the ground in Minneapolis was murdered. After he was surrounded by thugs and pepper sprayed, wrestled to the ground, beaten, kicked, a...

Quiet. Just me and the boys. Overcast. Not cold. Just gray and blah. Won't be able to see the smiley face moon tonight. I made a lentil loaf but forgot to add in the breadcrumbs, so it turned out too soft and was more like a hash. Thankfully the flavor was there. It wasn't a complete loss. The mashed potatoes were yummy. Baked my favorite cookies. Gingerbread. Sat on the front porch and enjoyed coffee with gingerbread cookies. Sunny spent the entire time sniffing every inch of the porch, eating stink bugs.  Thoughts of past Christmases, when the kids were little, came and went all day. I miss having the kids here. I don't miss the frantic figuring out gifts.  I wish I had spent more time creating traditions that were ours and no one else's. I hope my kids create traditions. Went on a long walk with Sunny. He's eight months old today. Too big now to fit under the old dresser or weave through the chairs at the dining room table when playing chase through the house wit...

The end of the semester brought with it lots of not feeling like doing much of anything. We had a couple of days of snow, which was wonderful as it allowed me the opportunity to get out and snowshoe, but those days were followed by bitter cold then a warming trend. Now the snow is gone and the ground is soft, muddy, and just lots of yuck. The dogs track in the mud, so I've had to sweep and mop after them, adding to the feelings of just not wanting to have to do anything.  Those feelings, while I go through this every now and then, have stuck around much longer than usual. I was doing the daily routine -- walking the dogs in the morning, playing with them, taking Teddie to his sniff games classes and Sunny to his companion dog classes -- but the between time of these activities has been a lot of vegging out in front of the TV and spending way too much time online, reading article after article addressing the bad happening in this country.  Today, I finally admitted to myself I'...

The end of the semester is here. I can breathe a sigh of relief that for a few weeks I don't have to read and grade papers generated by AI and papers that show the student really doesn't care about improving their own writing skills and critical thinking skills. I don't have to respond to students who fail to submit work by the due date then email the assignment, asking that I read it even though they didn't meet the due date. It's so quiet now. The noise is gone. I get to focus on a few projects I've been kicking around. I get to focus on Sunny. The snowshoes are by the back door, just waiting for the few inches of snow that is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. I get to look forward to the kids coming to visit over the holidays.  Sunny is growing into a beautiful young dog. He has captured my heart. I've never had a dog that cuddles the way he does. I've never had a dog who leans so completely into my chest that I can feel his heartbeat. Every evening ...

Today's trail with Sunny. The blue line is me laying the trail. The red line is Sunny running the trail. The trail was .27 miles, which is one of the longest trails Sunny has completed so far. The wind was blowing nearly 20 mph, causing the scent to drift a bit. I figured this was going to happen. Sunny showed this by going about three feet to the left of the trail. There were a few spots he had to recalibrate to be sure he was on trail, especially in the places where he was heading into the wind. He stopped once and looked at me. I just said, "Go to work," and he put his nose to the ground, found the scent and carried on. When he reached the toy I had left for him at the end, he sat and looked up at me. Such a smarty pants. I threw the toy for him and gave him a bunch of treats. Such a good boy.