New Year's Eve

It's unlike me to go so long without a blog entry, but we've been super-busy. I had to finish getting the end-of-semester grading done, and once that was over, we packed and drove to our older son's house. We had a nice quiet couple of days with them and then drove north on Christmas Day to our younger son's house. Things are going well for my younger son. I've never seen him as peaceful. He seems to really love being apprenticed to learn silversmithing. My older son is in a state of metamorphosis. He's gotten applications into some of the doctoral programs in Logistics and Transportation, with another couple to finish up.

Once we got home, I was wiped out! In fact, I've barely done a thing since we got back. Certainly, I haven't been academically productive, unless you count handling a couple of student emails. I've been playing around with my new Kindle and reading, and I've been doing arts and crafts. I made a big pot of red beans, rice, and sausage in my new crockpot. Yesterday I purchased the Keurig single-cup coffeemaker I've had my eyes on. It's about time to retire the Senseo since it's getting harder to get coffee for it, and the coffee just isn't that good.

My niece Chelsea has asked if it's okay to visit next summer. I'm delighted. I have developed such love and appreciation for most of my nieces, and when they seem to return the affection, it makes me really happy. I don't know if I will ever return to having affection for MF--she really burned her bridges with me--but I'm trying not to feel anger toward her. It's a pity that she has such an adorable daughter because I don't expect that child will have much of a chance in life.

One thing that makes me happy about how my nieces are, in general, mothering: though they aren't always educated themselves, they seem to care a lot about their kids' educations. I hope that feeling won't die out when their kids get older.

I suppose I ought to think about New Year's Resolutions, but it's counter-productive to expect someone to keep a resolution at the worst time of the year. The days are short and dark (and Tassina, you aren't the only one with Seasonal Affective Disorder), I don't feel energetic, and I don't want to improve myself. I'm happy getting in touch with my angry, crochety, opinionated old-lady self, thank you very much. If I manage to have fun doing something, then good. But I'm not going to join a gym and flagellate and sweat myself into aching muscles and a premature heart attack. I'm not going to deprive myself of things I enjoy and make myself do things I don't enjoy. I don't like to exercise for the sake of exercise. I like doing things that have purpose beyond having "buns of steel." If I'm walking to get somewhere, I enjoy it. If I'm walking for the sake of pleasure, that's fine. I'm not going to put on special (i.e., expensive) shoes and power-walk because (a) I won't enjoy it, and (b) people always look miserable when they exercise. Joggers never have smiles on their faces. They always look like someone is running behind them with a sharp stick!

I won't "resolve" to be more tolerant of people who are not tolerant themselves. I won't resolve to be more open-minded toward stupid people. I will resolve to continue my quest and journey of discovery, to seek out like-minded intelligent people who also engage in similar quests, and to avoid narrow-minded "I've got all the answers if only you'd stop asking the wrong questions" religious fanatics. That sadly includes most of my family in Louisiana and many of them elsewhere. I'll be polite. I won't try to cause undue pain. But I'm no longer willing to be silent while my own rights are violated by presumably well-meaning oppressive people.

It's raining hard at the moment, which probably means that we'll get a little basement flooding soon. I hope not. One of the reasons we did all the deck remodeling that we did was so that it would be easier to deal with high water on the pond.

I've had lots of ideas about stuff I wanted to write about in my blog, and now that I'm actually sitting here typing, I find myself feeling rather uncreative. Lately I haven't slept well because of the severe hot flashes I'm "enjoying" at night, and my back has hurt, too. Our mattress is really getting old, and I'd love to get a Tempurpedic, but they are so expensive.