Catching Up

The longer you stay away from the blog, the harder it is to come back to it.  But here I am.  I think I got a little burned out for a while there because I was having to keep up with 35 student blogs a week and a class blog during the semester, and then there was the everyday-ness of the joy project, and also I have been really tuned in to writing the artist's pages every morning (and sometimes at night too) and so the blog has been backseat.

And, too, it's hard to figure out what to write about.  I'm in task mode, trying to finish up all the large and small work projects before summer begins.  We're doing a lot of traveling, for fun and for work, and I have deadlines to meet before that, and there is a lot of writing to be done, too.

Addie is finishing up her first grade year, and is trying to figure out how to handle her body.  She's all loves and hugs and kisses, but also elbows you in the nose every five seconds, or headbutts you in the gut, or sleepwalks into your room in the middle of the night, naked as a jaybird and wondering where she is.  Nolie is in regression-land, whiny and fussy and weepy, as we careen toward the end of her preschool years.  I think it's hard for all of us to think about leaving that amazing school where both girls were given so much love and attention and such an amazing start.

E. is working a lot, and pitching in a lot because of my weird-ass schedule.  He has to go back to Switzerland soon, and Sweden.

I'm running again, finding that if I don't pound out a couple of miles everyday I get pretty irritable from the stress of tasking.  Our bathrooms are getting redone, starting tomorrow.  We're holding our faculty workshop--the one we've planned for all year long, on engineering and social justice--at the end of this week.  I have two days to write a conference paper next week.

In the last two months, I've kicked my shopping addiction and sugar addiction, with the help of reams and reams of journal paper and my tuning forks healer.  Those addictions reach as far back as I can remember and are so deeply ingrained in who I am I still walk around in wonder at times that I am free from them.  In the last two weeks, I've edited a thirty minute video for our workshop, reviewed two journal articles and a book prospectus, completed a revise-and-resubmit, finished final grading, planned summer vacations, designed our new bathroom, and purchased about a million and one birthday presents (what is UP with May?).  There have been research interviews and research meetings, retirement parties, graduations, much whining on Facebook, and I've started reading two new novels and a book about climate change.  I painted my nails black for a few days and tomorrow I'm going to get a haircut.

Okay, then.  That should cover it.  I think we're all caught up.  Can I come back now?