Happy New Year

No... this isn't evidence of a new year's resolution to blog more or to blog every day in January (I already missed yesterday...). It's just a quick note to say, I hope your 2010 is healthy, happy, and peaceful.

It's been a strange break. I've been teaching an online class that began Dec 21 and will end Jan 15, so I'm both "on break" and "working" every day (though I did not do any work on Christmas nor on New Year's day). I like the idea of teaching only one class at a time. Kind of strange, of course, compared to the 5 or 6 I usually teach, but strangely invigorating to concentrate on just one set of students and one topic at a time. Rather restful by comparison.

I'm off to take pictures at a wedding today. . . some of it outdoors, if you can believe it. Maybe I'll post a pic or two later on.

Best wishes for a great start to the new year.

The Spirit of Christmas

What do YOU do when your kid has been throwing a tantrum for 20 solid minutes?

Colton is a beautiful, precocious, and tender little three-year-old. He's fascinated with the Christmas tree. And why shouldn't he be. It's really cool-- lots of lights, many cool toy-like things hanging there just begging to be played with, the promise of presents, etc. What's not to love?

The problem of course is that those ornaments aren't REALLY toys. They're decorations. So, the rule is "Look, but don't touch." He has a really hard time with that.

Mom finally gave him an ultimatum after about the millionth approach to the tree with ITT ("intent to touch," for all you who haven't watched the latest Night at the Museum). "Touch it one more time, my darling, precious child," she said through clenched teeth, "and I'll send you to bed." So he sat there for about a minute, with his arms tightly crossed, looking sideways at the tree which was within his reach, but out of his grasp. Then, when he thought we weren't looking--- ITT!!, and he TOUCHED! When I got out of my chair, the look on his face was a combination of terror, consternation, and a strange satisfaction at having touched.

As calmly as I could (which, happily, was pretty calm this time), I frog-marched him off to his toddler bed and firmly laid him out with his blankie. "Stay put," I warned, and left the room. Within a minute the wailing started....

It's been going for 20 minutes (sigh). Ah, the joys of parenthood.

I laughed today

My friend and colleague, David West, gave me a chuckle today. At lunch, several of us were swapping stories about this and that, and one of us paused for lack of a word. In the gap David intoned, "His vocabulary was as bad as... like, whatever."

I'm still kinda goin' on that one.

What made you laugh today?

First fire

We've live in our cute little house for more than five years and today is the first day I made a fire in the fireplace. The desire for a fire is what happens when the temp dips to -5. Okay, that's an exaggeration. The weather page online said it "felt like" -5. I can verify that it did, indeed, feel like -5. COLD!

So, I rounded up a little wood, vacuumed about an inch of dust (no joke) out of the firebox and built a toasty little fire. So far so good. I even remembered to open the flue so we don't fill the house with smoke.

Then I switched on the blower. Talk about ROAR. What noisy fan! I guess we'll be doing without the blower for now.

Now it remains to be seen if this actually reduces the amount of time the furnace is on.

Why November was a bad month for blogging....

I totally stole the title of this post from a posting by my friend and mentor, Mark Brown. His reasons for not blogging much in November are excellent. He sat for his qualifying exams for his P. H. D. (and PASSED!!!) , and he wrote a draft of a freakin' novel--- 50,133 words (apparently relying upon EM Forster's definition of how wordy a thing has to be to be a "novel" and not some other freaky (twice I use this work now) literary thing). Good reasons for laying off the blog thing, neh?

Me? I got no such good excuses. I'm just lame.

So... there you have it. Lameness vs. productivity and intellectual rigor.

On the bright side... I didn't kill any of my children this month (nor last), and I got the tree up on Dec 1 (a record at our house).

Which is the most important job in the world?