Gutentag

Guten frikkin tag, peeps! We made it to Munich yesterday and spent a little less than 24 rainy and jet lagged hours there. Knowing we would be in Germany on a rainy Sunday, we didn't expect there to be anyone in the Marienplatz...boy, were we wrong. They were just finishing a marathon so everyone and their umbrella-clad mother was there.

And here I thought Denver was a biker's Haven...

We did manage to see the Glockenspiel, though, as we arrived right on the hour. It was very auspicious and all that.

We don't quite have the wireless service we were expecting (screw you, Verizon, and your lying employees) but we will try to stay in touch as often as we can! Got to the Munich airport super early this morning so that I could post my homework...turns out that European keyboards are not the same as American ones, so, that was fun. But all's well that ends well!



I'm writing this from our hotel in Croatia and we just planned an unexpected trip to Venice because it's only 2 hours away by express ferry.

I just have one question: why can't this be my life on a daily basis???

More to come, peeps.

BRB - Going to Croatia

Hoping to blog while on vacation - it'll be a first!  Hopefully you'll hear from us in about 40 hours.  If we're not able to blog, you'll hear from us in about two weeks.

Woo-Hoo!

TGIF, people!

(Courtesy of Nora via BFJ.

I don't know the original source.

All I know is it's so, so true.)

Party in the USA

Noddin' my head like, yeah
Movin' my hips like, yeah*

Whew, today was a bang-up day.  Last student sessions, turned in the ol' paper, worked for hours to get ahead on homework, did last minute shopping for vacation, and still managed to blog. 

There's no stopping me.

My "original" student and his family gave me a little vacation present this morning.  He made me a card that said he got me some more "pants" for my trip.  They folded a $20 bill into a pair of pants!  And he wrote me a note and even spelled my name right.  A lot of adults in my life can't spell it right, but this 7-yr-old nailed it.

It was a great way to start the day.

Incidentally, this is what it looks like when G proof reads my papers.  Doesn't he look enthralled?  Absolutely riveted?  See Lucy sulking in her corner?  This is how we live like 99.9% of the time.

And speaking of 99.9% of my life, this, too, is how it is spent.  That coffee?  Is decaf.  Those magazines?  So not for pleasure reading; they're for a tutoring module.

Why did they change their logo to an Oprah quote?  How am I supposed to center that on the Starbucks logo?  It irritates my OCD to no end.  This is as "right" as I can get it in order to be able to concentrate on my reading.

 

Let the packing begin!  T minus one day.  And counting.


*(Thank you, Miley Cyrus)

Addicted

When we were first scoping out Denver as a place to live, before The Great Move, G made an apt observation.  He said, "People here love to eat, drink, and be outside."

We were like, "Sign us up!"

I thought of that a lot today, because it describes just about everything I did (minus the panicked paper writing and coffee guzzling and whining that encompasses every morning for me).

A girl can't live on stress summer classes alone. 

I have been buried under homework, breathing into a paper bag at the thought of getting this stuff done pre-Croatia (so all I have to do is huddle in front of a computer - vino in hand - and type, type, type instead of think).  Today, after a couple of hours of paper writing, it was time for a break.  An extended one.

Enter M-dawg and her mad biking skills.

We rode on the Cherry Creek biking trail and found the best place ever to eat lunch.  I use her in much the same way I use G, which is basically to learn how to become more comfortable riding in traffic and on major roads.  I'm not quite ready to do it solo.  They are both experts.  So I trail behind them and yell out comments like, "I think I have a bug in my teeth!" and "My lips are drying out but I can't reach my back pack!" and "Are we almost to the restaurant?  I'm STARVING."  It's really fun for them to have me around.

I gotta tell ya, I am addicted to this lifestyle!  I may never work full time again!  (G will complete the divorce papers when he reads this, since he has been working all cray cray giving important briefings and doing high fallootin' things while I am doing this:)

Why, yes, I do believe I WILL have 17 skinny cucumber citrus margaritas.

Watermelon and Heirloom tomatoes with goat cheese and basil.  Kill me now, I'm ready.

Tuna sliders, Kale salad, and Sweet Potato hash.

 Then it was time to ride the trail back to her place for some pool time.

Action shot!

Ignore the smiles - we are hardcore!  Like, Tour de France.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And that's not all!  I biked back to my place from hers, solo!  I'm getting the hang of it.

If anyone needs me, I'll be double fisting the Ginger Ale and typing like a mofracker.

T-minus 3 days until Croatia, thank you Jesus and the Heavenly Host.

I Changed My Mind

Well, I talked a good game about coming to terms with getting a B in this grad class, and I meant every word of it (still do).

But

I changed my mind and I have decided to give it a shot.  Which means, I decided to read class stuff instead of fun stuff on vacation AND do homework at night, wayyyyy late at night, after multiple glasses of wine and who knows what else.

This is what defeat surrender looks like.

I took a look at the readings and the discussion threads for the next two weeks.  Basically, if I hunker down and don't sleep between now and Friday, and just read and take notes continuously, and pray to the higher education gods and Jesus and the Heavenly host, I can cover enough ground to use the plane ride to write my responses.  And my next paper.

Bye Bye fun plane reading.  **sigh**  **sigh again**

THEN, late at night in the hotels after all of our vacation fun-ness, I can peck my way on G's iPad into the discussion threads so I can join the class in real time.

The story of my life.  Pecking on the computer.

This all sounds do-able in theory.  The main question is whether or not I'll be able to access the school's infrastructure from Munich and Croatia.  If I can, I'm willing to devote an hour or two, very late at night and after all the travel fun, to staying involved in class.

If I can't, all bets are off and I go back to the first sentence of this post.  Period.

You know what else this means, though?  For the first time ever, I'm planning to blog from vacation!  Cross your fingers about that as well!

OK, enough fun.  Back to reading.  About 100 pages a day.

Hello, My Name Is: Official Coloradan

It's official, my peeps.  After living here for just under two years, we are no-kidding Coloradans.  How do I know?  Because this morning (a Saturday!), we got up early and headed out on our bikes.  Along with the rest of Denver.

That helmet does wonders for my hair, let me tell you.

I mostly wobble around and try not to get run over by other cyclists, but G is hard core.  He has done triathlons before, and actually clips in to his bike.  I took a great pic of it before we left and then accidentally deleted it off my phone (grrrr) but here's what it looks like:

Source

 Incidentally, this is what I would look like if I clipped in to my pedals:

Source

That's disturbing, I know.

The next time we ride (tomorrow!) I'll take my phone and get some pics of a trail that runs very close to our house.  It's a beautiful ride.  We went, I'd say, about 10 miles and then G worked in the yard while I did homework like a mofracker.  This class is no joke.  I have to do what amounts to an essay each day, either on my own topic or in response to someone else's topic in the class.  It's a killer.

But my little flowers are doing so well!  It's been, like, almost a month and they're still kicking!  Nat King Cole is going to keep them alive while we're on vacay.

Don't mind me.  I live in Denver and ride my bike all over the place.  I'm cool like that.

It's starting to thunder outside and I'm done with my homework.  Know what that means?  It's time to stare at the inside of my eye lids for a bit before I go out for dinner and DRINKS (!) with a friend.

God bless Saturdays.

TGIF, people!

Half Way In

Can you believe we're halfway into 2014?  A couple months of sweltering heat, then it's pumpkins and candy corns and a semester of new freshmen and a half marathon and Christmas trees and cookie exchanges and presents for all from Croatia!  And before you know it, it will be 2015 and we will be another year along in this journey.

My assessment of 2014, so far:  Good, good, and good.

Mileage I've put on my car, solely from tutoring sessions: 

2,600 miles

I have built up a solid student base for tutoring!  

(Their pets <3 me)

I have tried to read for fun, and have been somewhat successful.

I am ramping up the working out!  Goal: keep it up when all hell breaks loose this fall.

Time with friends!

I got the TA job!

We've stayed out of the poor house.  (Hallelujah)

I discovered I like working with kids.

We had a close call with the furry troll.  

But all's well that ends well.

Made a new friend.

Made another new friend.

Planning for Munich and Croatia in just a few days!

Wrote papers, papers, and more papers. 

Still writing papers.

Have had to explain the difference between there, their, and they're more than any person should ever have to.

The End.

How has 2014 been for you?  Considering that two of you are settling into new homes, one of you is currently at the beach, one of you is having her fourth child in a few weeks, and one of you just moved overseas, my guess is that it has been at least interesting!

Here's to the next 6 months.

Instrument of God - Book Review

This is my life these days.

That coffee is a decaf.  It's a shame, I tell you.  But me and caffeine?  Such an on and off love story.  Like me and G before the marital commitment.  No marital commitment with caffeine.  Just a tawdry affair.

Working hard hard hard for that  *&^$#@ B.  {You will so be getting a post in all caps if I manage to swing an A.  You have been warned.  I'm not getting my hopes up.}

Book review!

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

I had a good friend in college who was totally in love with this book.  He used to quote it all the time and endlessly badger me about reading it.  So naturally I never did.  How I wish I could talk to him about it now.  I think he's teaching at a university in Maryland somewhere.  Too bad I'm not on Facebook.  Too bad I will never be on Facebook.

Owen Meany, a measly boy with a shrill voice, son of a granite digger, thinks he is the instrument of God.  He just might be.  This story is told from the perspective of his good friend, Johnny, and consists of their childhood antics, on into high school and early adulthood.  OMG it is laugh-out-loud funny.  It is complex and deep and well-written, but it is worth the read simply for all the times you will lean over on the couch, chuckling to yourself.

It begins in the 1950's and lasts through the '80's.  There are times when Irving drones on and on about the Vietnam War and then later, the Iran Contra affair, part of which relates to the plot and part of which seems like a rant against the Reagan era.  Whatevs.  Read the book!  But not on a plane or on vacation or when you're in the mood for a light read.  It's a deeper read with a truly fulfilling ending.

Enjoy!

Coming to Terms with "Good Enough"

OK, here's my one philosophical post for the week and then I'll go back to complaining about rabbits and such.

So I'm taking this summer class.  It's online and I knew I was going to miss two weeks of it due to the upcoming (hallelujah) Croatia trip.  About a month before the class started, like the good little grad student that I am, I emailed the prof and explained that I would be out of the country for two weeks of the class.  I asked if that was a deal breaker.  I asked if that would put me too far behind for a good grade, or if the professor simply didn't want students missing that much of the class.  I was assured that it was do-able.

Today I emailed the prof and reminded her that my vacation is coming up, and asked about re-arranging a couple of deadlines.  Long story short, it's OK, but she never realized that when I'm out of the country, I won't have email access and therefore won't be contributing to our on-going electronic discussions, and informed me that she can't be flexible on this part and it may affect my grade.  She did note that as long as my work is consistent and well-done, I should be "fine" in the class.

Fine?  Fine means a lot of things to me, and none of them are on the desirable end of the "good" spectrum.  Um...what does that mean?

I had a moment.  This has happened before and will continually happen until the Good Lord calls me home.  It is entirely possible that I will get a B in this class and it will be because of the two weeks I'm on vacation and not because of any lack of understanding or effort on my part.

And I freaked out.  Should I drop the class?  But I've already bought the books and all the materials and I've read countless articles and contributed a lot already.  Not to mention, I'm learning effective ways to teach composition.  I'm actually enjoying this (academically speaking).

I want to do this.

Even if I get a B.

Even if I deserve an A and still get a B.

So, I'm going to do this.

I am under construction.

I went for a long run (to metabolize the adrenaline in my system and help me cope with stress and anxiety) and I thought.  What do I want the grand narrative of my life to be?  I want it to be travel and reading and God and love and G and bunnies and good friends and wine and tequila! and food and academic challenges and helping others learn and just helping others, period. 

If I want my life to be a balance of all those things, and if I'm not one of those people on a definite career path, then I'm going to have to come to terms with "good enough." 

Is a B good enough?  Yes.  If it means that I can go to Croatia and not stress about grad school.  School?  What's that?  Oh, look at that Roman Colosseum!

To be clear, I don't consider myself a perfectionist, but these are the types of daily stressors that really get under my skin.  (Voice screaming in my head:  You did not give up a career just to get BEEEEZ in GRAD SCHOOOOOOL.)  Hence the running.  That voice can't scream when it can't breathe.

Thoughts on your version of "good enough"?  Do you ever struggle with this?

Getting Ready