2016!

Obviously, I've continued to struggle with keeping up my blogging.  In the three months since my last post, the husband and I have each had a birthday, we survived another holiday season, one daughter graduated from college, and the other turned 16.  I'm on the second day of the new semester and thought I better blog now before the homework starts rolling in and I am snowed under with grading.

Breanna (Brea) the puppy:

Brea is seven months old now.  She was spayed at the end of December, and we enjoyed one night where she was exceptionally quiet and mellow.  She rebounded from the surgery quickly, and by the next day was already tearing around like the insane little pup she is. She and Froggie have continued their very sweet relationship.  They are inseparable.  She's grown quite a bit (we had to move her up to a larger collar and a larger diaper size) but is still much smaller than we had expected her to be.  She won't grow much more at this point.  We have gotten really good at changing diapers on a constantly moving puppy!

Sophie, Brea, Froggie

I am trying to train her to use potty bells, as she is able to hold it somewhat, but to a very limited extent.  It would be nice if she could let us know when she needs to go, rather than sticking to an schedule of putting her out every 90 minutes or so to try to catch it.  She was initially quite afraid of the bells, but after two months, she is no longer afraid, so I'm trying to get her to interact with them. She doesn't really like the idea at this point, but I think she'll catch on eventually.

Graduation:

Finally!

Dej's graduation was long awaited, and we're very proud of her. She ended college on a very high note--good grades, a strong work ethic, a completed internship, good connections, a love of learning, and a passion for her future career.  Now she's working on the very difficult task of finding employment.  It's a rough time of year, but she's committed and will find something.

Sadly, we have discussed changing her name on her application materials.  We still live in a world in which her (ethnic-sounding) name significantly impacts her ability to find a job.  I hate giving in to that, and I'm glad the final decision is hers. I wouldn't want to have to make that decision.

Dej's boyfriend got her this sweater for Xmas.

Another reason I have a hard time blogging is that some stories are not my own to tell, even though they may monopolize my life, thoughts, and energy.  One of those stories has been behind significant changes in our lives.  Dej and her long-term partner split up earlier last year.  He has been part of our family for a long time, and this has been a difficult adjustment for all of us.  They continued living together until her college graduation. It made more sense to share expenses and keep the animals intact until we reached a point where they could deal with moving and selling the house.  The split was hard on everybody, though at this point, they have both moved on and are involved with other people, M & I (and my parents) are still kind of sad and struggling with it.

Until she finds a permanent job and knows where she will be geographically, it doesn't make much sense to get her set up somewhere with her dog and four cats, only to have to move again when she gets a job.  So, she moved back home right before the holidays.  I spent a few months in extreme stress over the chaos of fitting all of her stuff, her animals, and all of our very big personalities and moods into our house.  It has turned out so much better than I had anticipated.

We're really enjoying having her back home. It was great to have so much time together over the holidays.  Integrating the animals hasn't been nearly as painful as I thought it would be either. There have been some spats and a little more territory urination, but it's been shockingly smooth for the most part.

The biggest loss for me has been my workout room.  That has been my joy, my sanctuary, and now it's her bedroom.  I now work out in the living room.  I miss the padded floor, the privacy, the neatly organized weights/videos/etc.--my little sanctuary.  It's not the end of the world, though, and when Dej is home (she's spends a lot of time in Michigan with her partner), she works out with me, which is really cool!

Back to School:

Still inseparable.

Today is the first day of the third week of my semester. Typically I hit my groove and settle into the semester around the third week, but the flu hit our household last week (horrible timing!), and I had to cancel a day of classes and spend a few days in bed.  This has kind of thrown me off, and I feel a little behind and out of sorts yet.  I think once I get through next week, I should be settled into the routine nicely. All three of us got it (Dej was in MI with her boyfriend, so she missed it), so I'm hoping we have our major illness out of the way for this year.

Campus is very different, with about 1/3 of our already very small staff gone.  It's still rather depressing and hard to come in.  Everyone is still walking around looking/feeling rather shell shocked.  It's such a tragedy to see first hand the devastation that Walker has inflicted on the state's educational system.  

In addition to my full-time teaching, and the local high school class I'm working with (I did give in and agree to do the grading as a volunteer; there's just no one else to do it.), I agreed to help out with two online computer science classes for another high school in the state.  With all of the teacher cuts throughout the state, many districts have been forced to purchase online curriculum from virtual schools in other states (mostly Florida, which explains the nauseatingly poor quality of these courses).  Many schools have no computer science or foreign language teachers, so to fill in the curriculum gaps, they bought these really bad courses, enrolled students, and then subsequently realized that the courses are not good at all; there are underlying technology problems; the students still need a human to answer questions (especially in a programming class!), grade their work, and provide feedback.  This is the role I've taken on.  I truly don't have time, but I know that I was their very last hope, and I couldn't walk away from the poor kids, who are stuck in a class they've put so much time into.  It's created a lot of stress, because it's one more thing that I'm perpetually behind on.