Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

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 ...

The weather has finally cooled off. I'm so ready for fall, and the 70-80+ degrees was killing me. Give me 50's and below, please. I need my sweaters, sweatshirts, and sweatpants. I keep saying I'm going to move further north. I need to follow through, move to Wisconsin or northern Michigan. Maybe Minnesota. I like summer with the heat, the sweat, the cold showers, but I love the cool of fall and the cold of winter. I love wrapping myself in a fleece blanket and sitting out on the porch in the mornings, with my cup of hot coffee, watching the steam rise. I also love making soup and homemade bread. My kitchen is a mix of odor right now. On the stove is acorn squash soup in the making. A holiday candle is going near the sink. I really don't know why I lit the candle. It just seemed like a fun thing to do while I stood and washed the dishes. It's time to blow it out and let the soup fill the house with thyme and nutmeg. Soon the bread will be in the oven to add its deli...

The Orange trail Spring was really trying to push Winter off center stage the last few weeks, and in doing so, the spring fever kicked in something fierce. I'd already been having a tough time sitting down in front of the computer to complete work, and the sunny, warmer days were not helping one teeny-tiny bit. All I wanted was to be outside, which is exactly what I did last weekend and right up until it turned cold again this week. The boys and I have had some wonderful long walks, one of which was at Sand Ridge. They were troopers, finishing the day with nearly 9 miles after our usual morning walk, hiking the Brown trail, then hiking a bit of the Orange trail. I liked the Orange trail so much I went back the next day and hiked alone. I wanted to slow down and take some pictures of the trail and its surroundings. They say nature is the cure for what ails you, and I completely agree. The hush amidst the pines. The softness of the ground covered with pine needles. The flit of the ch...

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!  While Christmas day was wonderful this year, and I will forever (at least I hope) remember sitting here with my three kiddoes and their partners talking the afternoon and evening away, I couldn't get the tree and other decorations down fast enough. I just wasn't feeling the whole keep the decorations up until New Year's this time around. So all the holiday accouterments were put away days ago, and some went into the thrift store box. I decided to do another deep cleaning, part of which is letting go of things that no longer give me joy. Yesterday, as a challenge to myself, I left the computer off all day. I didn't check in to anything on my phone, either. Instead, I spent time on the porch with the boys, listened to a couple of podcasts that really got me thinking, and I read, finishing up another excellent book: The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore. Highly recommend it if you're looking for something to read. And today, because it st...

Recently I've been feeling the desire to connect with other women who cycle and blog. Or cycle and write in some capacity, not necessarily blog. Or cycle, blog/write, meditate. Or cycle, blog/write, meditate, and practice yoga. Or cycle, blog/write, meditate, practice yoga, and are finding the simple things in life are what turns them on. Like watching the birds at the feeder. Or sitting on the deck in a hammock swing and just swaying gently. Or reading a good book. Or watching foreign tv programs. Any combination of these would be wonderful. But I'm having a tough time finding any blogs about cycling and life in general by women. There are the big ones, like Cyclofemme, but they're more about bike advocacy than women writing about cycling and life in general. I found a list of women blogging about cycling, but again, the blogs listed are either more a group effort advocating for getting more women into cycling, what to wear while cycling, or how to cycle safely. So far ...

There was something about today's ride. Something I can't put my finger on that made it perfect. Maybe it was the cool breeze blowing from the north. Maybe it was the blue sky with lacy streaks of clouds. Maybe it was the quiet disrupted by the chirr of my bike tires. Maybe it was the moment I coasted along the rural road, my eyes closed. Whatever it was, the forty-five miles were perfect.

Something very interesting is happening between my husband and me now that I've moved out. We are finding we can actually be together and have a fun time. As long as I go to my place after a few hours, or he goes to his place after a few hours. I've said for the past five years or so that he and I do much better apart than we do together. I've also joked here and there, after several hours of being with my husband, that I've had more than enough husband time. Friday was our anniversary. I hadn't been thinking about it due to the state of our relationship, and I made plans to attend a concert at Allerton. The Bashful Youngens and Birds of Chicago were scheduled to play, and I knew I would enjoy sitting on the lawn, listening as the sun went down. My husband, though, had been thinking about our anniversary and asked me to go to dinner. I countered with an offer to ride along with me to Allerton. He accepted. And we had a nice time. The young woman of the Bashful Y...

With no meetings scheduled for tomorrow, I am officially on spring break. I do have papers to grade over break, so I won't have a week of no work-related items to finish up, but since I have no plans whatsoever, I don't mind having papers in need of grading. This semester has been quite strange for me. I've always taught five or six writing classes each semester for the past 17 years. That's a lot of papers to read and respond to. This semester, because of the release time I have for WAC and the Writing Center, I'm only teaching two writing classes, one of which is online. This puts me in the classroom for one class twice a week. The reduction in assignments to grade has been such that I have not had to spend several hours in the evenings and during the weekends grading. I've been able to do other things. Like read. Take Ado for longer walks. Clean my shop. Sit in my hammock swing on the back deck. Just so many non-work related activities that have been good f...

This morning a fine dusting of snow lay on the streets, sidewalks, and trail. I couldn't wait to leave for work, riding the blue cruiser and leaving her tire tracks in the white powder. The temps had risen slightly overnight, and the wind blew from behind. I didn't have to double up my gloves or wear my scarf over my nose and mouth, and my heart didn't pound like the last few days because I had to push into the wind. No. This morning was quiet. This morning was still. This morning the daylight offered a glimpse of purity. And this beauty against the white sky.

With the kids away for the week, the house is very quiet. And very clean. Along with the quiet and clean, my husband and I marvel at how little food we actually go through when the three are away. It's weird, a bit of a glimpse at what it'll be like when they are grown and out on their own for real. I'm missing them terribly, so I have a hunch I'm going to go through some rough times when the time for them to make their own way comes. Thank goodness I have a few years yet before this happens. I can take these years to prepare myself. A good workout day today. We bought a contraption that turns a regular bike into a stationary bike, so rather than sink several hundred dollars into an exercise bike, we turned my husband's ten-speed into a stationary bike for under a hundred bucks. Now we have a treadmill and the bike to workout on. In addition to these, we have the thing-a-ma-jig that we can do pull-ups on, leg lifts on, dips, and an assorted other exercises on. We ha...