how was your break?

 "How was your break?"  When you have a few weeks off from campus activities, this is the question you get to answer 47 times when you return.  Of course, no one really wants to know the details of your break, they just want to hear it was good.  But if you ask someone a question, you need to be prepared for the actual response, right?  I mean, don't ask a question you don't really want the answer to, am I right?

Ok, so I know you didn't really ask, but my break was really good.  Wanna hear about it?  Oh good!........

 You probably guessed it started with waffles.  

 And Metal Megan and Luke got married.

 It kinda snowed.  This was the brief view at my house before our little dusting of snow melted in a couple of hours.  Mom's house, about 30 minutes north of here, got several inches and lost power for a couple of days.

 Other than that brief winter visit, it's felt a lot more like a wet spring around here.  A very wet spring.  It's been really warm - like - running in shorts without a shirt kind of warm first thing in the morning.  And it's rained just about nonstop since graduation.  My running trail alternates between mud pit, small creek, actual river, lake and then back to mud pit in one lap.

 We had a sunny day to play tennis.

 And with more time at home I cooked a bit.  Violet and I had homemade pizza night and we even made up our own dessert pizza recipe...peanut butter, banana and chocolate.

 I got to see some old friends and have coffee with them.  It's always fun to talk to people over coffee.  That's Ashley "The Whisk" with her infamous butt drawing.

 G and I were able to schedule a breakfast date one morning after ditching the kids at school.  Biscuit Head for the win.

 Then Blue got out early because of exams so I got to almost eat with him.  He got braces in December so he was having a little trouble with the chicken.

 I got to hit Spill The Beans a couple of times.  Again, coffee is the best.  Coffee and sunshine.  I'm doing fine on my coffee intake this winter but my sun deprivation is pretty high.

 Bolt graduated.  I was very happy for her until we slogged for the first time without her this past week.  Now I miss her.

 Actually several art people graduated.

 When the kids got out of school, I became the Director of Activities.  All the good activities are outdoor activities so we put some really firm limits on phone and computer time and if it wasn't actually raining, we went outside and breathed in the real air.  They even ran with me once.

  

 We explored in the woods with BB guns and played in the ravine.

 I got to pet this cow and it was everything I hoped it would be.  I need a cow.

 And it kept raining.

 Blue and Violet got to go hand out gift bags and blankets to some nursing home residents.  It was really cool.

 Since it wouldn't stop raining, we made time to go check out the local waterfall and to look at the flooded river nearby.

 Any Director of Activities worth his salt knows to take the kids to the climbing place to help get that energy out.

 We did all the Christmas things too.  We looked at lights, decorated the house, hosted a party and played Bingo on the old military base Bingo cards from the 1950s at the family party.

 Coffee and sunshine.  

 The elf guy visited again.  Look closely to see him and his Barbie friends doing PiYo along with the video.

 This was what Christmas day brunch at mom's looked like.  Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

 That's mom, the founder of the feast.

 After brunch we slept off the calories and then headed to Waffle House for our fancy family Christmas dinner.

 Because Waffle House is fancy enough for us.

 We got another sunny day so we hiked at Croft State Park.

 We got to go to the beach too.  I saw a few of these sea urchins on my morning runs and when I found this one he seemed to be dead.  The shells are really beautiful so I picked him up and ran a mile or so with him to show him to the kids.  As they were looking at him in the room he started crawling across the kitchen counter.  So then I had to take him back to the surf and set him free.

 It only rained on us a tiny bit at the beach but we only saw a glimpse of the sun a couple of times.

 Even a rainy day at the beach is still awesome.

Violet and I got to ice skate.  It was a true southern ice skating experience though.  It was about 70 degrees that day, there was a large puddle of water across the surface of the ice and I was in shorts.  We were only a little bit irritated with the reckless kids and parents who endangered everyone on the ice with their nonsense.

 I had a birthday.  I turned 47 and a bunch of really awesome people ran with me on my birthday.  

 Did I mention that it won't stop raining?  I've gone through all my running shoes because they get so wet it takes a week for them to dry out.  

 And then Katie got married!

 The photos paint a picture of break being all fun and games.  Of course this is not accurate.  Don't get me wrong, I had a great time and did lots of fun things with awesome people, but I'm just like you...it's not always cloud nine around me.  I didn't feel great every day, there was some sickness around and the break kind of started out with some general heaviness that's hard to explain.  The sun hid from me most days, there was the never ending rain and it's just harder to be happy when it starts getting dark at 4 in the afternoon.  But I got up and ran and felt invigorated and looked for things to be happy about.  I'm no doctor, but I highly recommend that for all your dark days.  Coffee and sweets help too.  

I also did a lot of actual work.  I heard a lot of "I wish I had four weeks off in the winter" from people in their most judging voices.  And really, I get it, heck, I agree with you and I do realize it's nice.  Not hopping out of bed for a 5:40am alarm is really great for 4 weeks.  But in the spirit of honesty...I did work a lot during my "vacation".  I shifted my schedule and when I started an hour or so later each day, I also ended each day at least that much later as well.  After catching up on a lot of chores that hadn't been done because of school, I was able to turn my attention to professional development and research, both of which are required by the job that gives me a winter break.  I went to museums, recorded things in the sketchbook and most importantly, started and finished 4 new large drawings before school started back.  I'm also kind of proud that I finished a book that's taken me a little over a year to read.  Not proud about how long it took.  Just that it was a tough one and that I made it through and may have learned some things.

So to get back to just captioning photos....that was one of the drawings I completed in it's early stages of creation.  

 I got to catch up with Ali for lunch.  No coffee this time but a pretty decent sandwich.

 A good friend asked me what I would do on the perfect last day of vacation before school starts back.  I think I did it.  I had been planning to go to the Columbia Museum of Art (about an hour away from me) to see the Jackson Pollock at some point during break but it kept getting pushed back.  So on the last Friday before classes began, I drove down and spent some time there.

I am not a huge Pollock fan.  I get why he's important and I did my part and watched the movie made about his life.  I've just never loved his stuff.  But I have to tell you, being in the room with his painting "Mural" was a really great experience.  I don't get emotional or weird looking at art.  I think that's important to state here because I've seen some great things by all the famous people, but I tend to look at it less as a tourist and more as an artist.  I look at how it was made and I see it from that perspective.  I'm not easily awestruck.  This exhibit was set up so well that by the time you enter into the large gallery with the painting, your anticipation has been sufficiently built.  And then there it is. Honestly, my heart rate increased because of the energy of the lines and the colors.  

I'm also a pretty quick art viewer.  I look, I assess and I'm ready to walk to the next one.  This is probably the first time I've been compelled to sit down and just spend some time in the presence of the work of art.  All total, I think I spent a little over an hour with this one.  There was a lot to see.  I happened upon two of the museum curators doing an interview (in the photo) and got a bit of a lesson on the painting which was great.  Later I got to chat with one of the curators more and her excitement about the work made the experience even better.  If you're a local or live in driving distance, it's up until May and you should check it out.  

So I'm glad you asked.  That was how my break was.

birthday running

This year I asked friends on Instagram to run with me for my birthday.  Y'all know I love running and maybe I talk about it too much.  Through Instagram, I've found a community of people who are just as weird about running as I am and over time I've even developed friendships with many of them.  I've observed them and learned from them over the last few years and I can tell you that I have never found a more happy, grateful and supportive group of people anywhere.  

When I woke up on the morning of my birthday, I had a small, warm dog curled up against me so I wasn't in a hurry to get up. I could also hear the steady rain beating on the roof and I wasn't eager to get up and get out in it right away.  So I grabbed my phone and checked mail and opened Instagram to find messages from running friends in countries closer to the International Date Line.  (forgive the lazy screenshots below)

 My Friend Shiva had already ran for me with her son in The Netherlands.  Shiva hosted a runstreak during the month of December and gave away prizes.  She's a super cool person who does a lot to promote a healthy lifestyle in her community and she's an advocate of cold water dipping for good health.  I'm still working up my nerve to try therapeutic cold showers.

 And then Logan Edwards Parker sent this!  She's wearing her cool Lumineers shirt and she and her husband Duncan did .9 miles through Charity Miles for ASPCA.  Charity Miles is an app I use when running that has large corporate sponsors donate money to your favorite charities based on miles you log.  I highly recommend it.  Logan is a Lander Art grad and she was one of my favorites to have in class.

The Gazelle got up and ran in the rain. Gazelle is a current student and a consistent slogger at school.  She's been running a 5K every day for about a month now.  She's getting faster too.  I could learn a thing or two from her determination.

 Cardinal Bolt is also an everyday runner.  She's logged miles every day...even when she had her gall bladder yanked out.  She got out in the rain and cranked out a 5K too!

 This is my friend Ursa.  She's from Slovenia and she's just finished her PHD thesis.  She does cancer research and I'm pretty sure she's going to be famous for that one day.  She's also a run streaker and has over 490 daily runs in a row going for her.  She's also very kind.  When I was forbidden to run after surgery this year, Ursa took up my daily 5Ks for me for over a month she worked a 3.1 mile run into her busy schedule because she knew how much I wanted to be out there.  This is a kindness I will not forget.

 Jess is a friend from the Canadian wilderness.  I mailed her something once and it took months to arrive.  I think the Pony Express delivered it.  Jess owns a bakery and coffee shop and I'm pretty sure I'm going to work there when I retire, if only to draw her chalk street sign each day.  Jess ran over 4 miles with grizzlies and mountains and stuff.

 My friend Jessica from Michigan takes cool photos on her runs.  She got out and logged a 5K for me and paired it with this cool pic.  Jessica is a good example of the caring community of runners in IG.  Even though we don't know each other very well, she was thoughtful enough to do this for me.  Really awesome.

 All of these messages made me smile but this one made me laugh out loud.  I didn't expect Nick to run for me.  I've tried to get Nick to slog with me at school and he's laughed in my face.  But dude got out and ran.  He totally deserved Chick-fil-A afterwards.

 I met Dominic this year through a virtual run.  He lives in Texas and travels a ton but he's always finding a way to squeeze a run into his day.  He'll run at 5am, he'll run at lunch, he'll run at night, but he always gets it done.  He was thoughtful enough to run 1.47 miles with the .47 dedicated to me turning 47.  He's so cool.  

 Spencer waited until the rain passed, I think, but he sent me this Snap after his run.  He used to tell me he couldn't run because his heart would explode but last semester he took the Walk/Job exercise class and he took it very seriously.  He went from not running, to running a 5K with a decent time in just a couple of months.  I'm proud of him.

 Sydney (Syd Vicious) decided to start running on my birthday.  She said she felt like she was dying but what a huge step in the right direction.  Syd is becoming a potter and she's going to need to stay in shape to lug clay around and throw.  She's even ran another time since this one!

 There's Catherine, my New Zealand friend.  She got up before the sun and ran up a mountain to catch the sunrise.  For her it was already the day after my birthday (because the Earth is round and physics or something) but as she said, we celebrate birthdays all week!  She's such a sunshine soul and she's really someone you need to know.  She has a beautiful family and lives in a gorgeous place.

 Ashley is another sculpture student and regular slogger.  She got out and ran and sent this very Spencer-esque pic.  She's been running on her own and I think she understands how much running can help with stress and clearing your mind.  Fun fact about Ashley...she used to be a gymnast.  

 Sweet Jimmy.  Jim is my colleague, buddy and Lander look-a-like.  Just yesterday someone saw him and thought it was me.  Happens all the time.  He and Tyler got out and ran with me in addition to his crazy regular work out.

 And look at this....Sarah Hinson who I haven't seen in maybe 15 years or so got out and ran with me at the ECHO Global Farm in Florida.  Sarah was so fun as a student, one of those happy people you want to be around.  I can't believe she remembers me!

 Laura is the school photographer at Lander.  She does other important things too, but this is the job she's been perfect for forever.  She's taken photos of the kids, babysat for us and even watched the dogs for us a couple of times.  She's slogged with us several times this last semester and we've made her go farther even when she didn't want to.  It was so cool for her to run for me.

 And look at Ms. Oliver!  Hayden is a high school art teacher in our region and she's sent us some really great students recently.  She got out late but she's creative enough to put together a safety bag before going out running in the dark.  It was a clear plastic bag with a flashlight and a can of mace....perfection!  This was a great surprise!

 This one cracked me up too.  This is Holly and her husband Preston.  They're super active people.  Holly is a runstreaker, a horse rider and an artist.  We just got to know each other this last year and she's really great.  On my birthday I made a joke about the only gift I really wanted was for Moonpie to sponsor me as a runner.  I still think I'm the perfect person to start The Official Moonpie Running Team.  Holly and Preston had my back when they held up their Moonpies and tagged Moonpie in their post.  Such a thoughtful thing to do.

 Do y'all know Cessquatch?  Brandy is an all time favorite former student and an excellent racquetball opponent.  When she's not stealing my doughnuts, she's being a graphic designer full time and she's running with Charity Miles for my favorite charity, Habitat for Humanity.  She even wore her sculpture shirt!

 Lei is another friend I met doing a virtual run this year.  He's in California and while he has Type 2 Diabetes, he's handling it without medication by running.  He's currently on a 600 plus day runstreak!  And it's not uncommon for Lei to run double digit mileage.  He's a beast!  He did something really funny with his running post for my birthday...he ran 4.74 miles, a palindrome of my age, 47.  Then he used cookies and containers to make little "butts" as a joke because of my butt drawing Monday posts.  So thoughtful!

 Dorothy is another runstreak friend on a 700 plus day streak.  She loves to run outside and when you live in Wisconsin, that's no easy task in winter.  But she suits up for it and runs in the ice and snow in addition to her other daily workout routines.  She's also the mom of 4 kids so she stays busy.

 Beth did an early morning run with me.  Running virtually with Beth is all I could ever do because she runs so far and so fast.  She runs marathons the way I eat Moonpies.  She also has 4 kids, teaches piano and holds down a church pianist job too.  Can you imagine?  Earlier this year she taught me the phrase "I can do hard things" and it was particularly helpful this year.  When I get up during the semester and run in the dark, I come back inside and have a monster cup of coffee and one of the first things I see from the outside world is a pic of Beth finishing up her run in the dark.  Somehow there's comfort knowing there's another crazy person out running with me.

 KathKath...that was her nickname in my class...downloaded Charity Miles at my request and got out and ran.  It may have been a day late, but that's how we celebrate birthdays.  We also celebrate them with a slice of cake, just as KathKath did when she returned from her run.  Katie is now an award winning book illustrator and artist.  

Logan Woodle is a sculpture professor at Coastal Carolina University.  He was one of my students at Winthrop back in the day.  One day I was talking to him and he just casually mentioned that he had started running and was running every day.  He didn't want to make a big deal about it but he had been running a 5K every day for about a year at that point.  I was dumbfounded.  This was the second birthday in a row that Logan ran with me.  He didn't send a photo or make a big deal about it.  He just texted me "happy birthday" and let me know that he was out there too.  

And what birthday would be fun without these people?  Blue, Violet and G always make me happy on my birthday.  They loaded me up with gifts and made me super awesome cards.  They left me notes and gifts before school and work and then took me to eat afterwards.  They are wonderful.

So that was the start of year 47.  Or was that the beginning of year 48?  I forget how birthdays work, I'm old.  But it was a great day and I'm grateful for whatever part you had in it.  And because I was lazy and didn't crop the screenshots, you can look up each one of these amazing people on social media and learn more about them.  I promise they'll add joy to your life.  

don't tell mom

I'll share a story with you if you promise not to tell my mom.

Monique's office is next door to mine.  She's cool.  Just before Thanksgiving break she asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving.  I told her I'd go to my mom's for lunch.  She asked if we had a big family thing there which led to me telling her a little about how my mom cooks for us twice a month.  Which then led to me telling her a little about how my mom does stuff for us all the time.  Which then led to me telling her that my mom still makes jelly from scratch and that my peanut butter and jelly sandwich I was about to eat in my office was made with said jelly.  Monique gave me that "you're such a spoiled child" look.  And I know, because spoiled children know that look.  And then she said that my mom was amazing.  Dude, you have no idea.  Get yourself a drink and make yourself comfortable.  Let me tell you about my mom.

As I sit here at the computer on a Saturday night, my mom is preparing food for Sunday lunch.  Twice each month mom cooks a big lunch for my brothers and me.  Our families get to come along too.  It's worth noting that one of my brothers has nine children.  The other two of us have 4 children between us.  There are also friends/visitors and significant others and spouses that tag along.  Most of us regular people cant imagine cooking in quantities that would feed that many humans at one meal but my mom does it every other Sunday.  She does it alone and she doesn't allow anyone else to bring anything.  Let's just let that be your introduction to her.

My brother Daniel calls mom "The Terminator" after the indestructible robot in the first Terminator movie.  The knickname came from the day the family gathered to clear a large wooded lot for Daniel to build a house.  A group of grown men headed into the underbrush with chainsaws and one guy who was from my sister-in-law's family had never encountered my mom before.  I remember seeing him sitting down, covered in sweat while he took a water break.  He was watching my mom still going strong with her own chainsaw, working circles around the rest of us.  He had never seen anything like this but to the rest of us, this was just mom doing her thing.  Never stopping for a break...nonstop just like the Terminator.

that's mom with a tiny me at Disney 1972ish

My mom worked full time and mommed full time.  When she got home from work around 5:30 she began her work at home with cooking supper (We are southern, I promise this was not dinner.  In the south we eat supper).  This was not a microwaved meal and it was most certainly not fast food picked up on the way home.  This was a home cooked meal.  After supper she would clean up every dish, do laundry, clean up the house, prepare things for the next day and somehow she even found time to sleep.  Thursday was grocery day so for a good hour after work she filled a shopping cart to overflowing with food, often with 5 gallons of milk and then she'd arrive home to cook and do the rest.  Fridays were house cleaning days, so after a full week of work she opted to come home, cook and then spend her entire night cleaning the house.  At this very moment you could walk into mom's house and find the floors cleaner than any dish in my house.  When she cleaned the house, she really cleaned the house.  Saturdays were for bigger projects like canning things, putting up vegetables, shelling pecans and sewing, because she knows her way around a sewing machine and she was always making things and hemming things.  Sundays were church for both morning and evening services and a big cooked lunch in between.  Oh and with three sons she also managed to pick us all up from after-school activities and drive us around the world on weekends.  

So that's how her weeks went on a regular basis as she took care of her kids and husband.  But mom doesn't really say no to people when they need help so she also had a lot of other things to do.  As far back as I can remember she has helped care for her extended family.  She drives people to the doctor, takes them to surgery and waits on them to get out.  She cleans for people.  She cooks for people.  And with 13 grandchildren, some she's had for 20 something years, she does more than her share of babysitting.  If you can imagine a woman putting up Christmas decorations while cooking a full meal while cleaning her house while canning green beans while babysitting four kids while cutting her multi-acre lawn, you'll start to get a bit of a picture of my mom.

As you can tell from the chainsaw story, mom has never been a stranger to working outside.  She's pruned apple trees in her yard for years.  Just a few years ago she fell off a ladder while pruning the top of an apple tree.  She got up, limped back to the house and probably cooked a giant meal and mopped the house afterwards.  

True story:  A few years ago she was preparing to get a Thanksgiving gathering going.  The weekend before Thanksgiving she had intense pain bad enough to force her to go to the Emergency Room.  A surgeon quickly removed her gall bladder and told her to take it easy for the next few weeks.  You know what she was doing as soon as she got home don't you?  That Wednesday I helped her deep fry two turkeys and she cooked Thanksgiving dinner as planned.  I do think she took a nap afterwards, but dang that woman is unstoppable.

Back to that jelly.  I remember mom making jelly from way back in my kid years.  I helped strain the smashed up fruit a few times when I'm sure she was trying to keep me occupied and otherwise out of trouble.  Mom has two rows of muscadine grapes or scuppernongs, or maybe it's both.  She prunes them and tends to them each year and at harvest time, she takes the fruit and makes a fresh crop of jelly in glass jars.  I still remember hearing the lids seal with a pop as they cooled on the counter top.  Throughout the year she will ask if we're out of jelly or we'll bring back a couple of empty jars and she'll send us back home with full jars.  It's a simple way of showing love and this is the heart of what mom does.  Very often through food, but also in a myriad of other ways, she demonstrates her love for others through her actions.  She will cook a meal for you, she will make you the birthday cake of your choice.  She will clean your house, help you move, pick up your kids from school and then offer you a meal when you pick them up.  Not only does she say yes when you ask her anything, she is thoughtful enough to anticipate your needs and volunteer to help you.  It's amazing really.  

Christmas is my favorite time of year and one of the reasons for that is that mom's true gift in cooking is in the realm of desserts.  Each year around Thanksgiving, in addition to all the other truckloads of things she's doing, she will ask you what kinds of Christmas goodies you want her to make you this year.  She's super organized and she always has a list of what she made you last year for reference.  She'll show you the list and ask if you want to change anything.  G and I have our all-time-favorite mom desserts on our list and this week we brought home the last goodies on our list for this year.  Peanut butter balls, pretzel buckeyes, magic cookie bars, chocolate pie, white chocolate covered peanut butter crackers, sausage balls and a cheeseball have all passed through our kitchen in the last few weeks.  People wonder why I run every day.  Y'all, I have to run every day because of all the stuff my mom sends me to eat.  She's doing this for me, but she's also doing the same for my brothers and who knows how many other people in the community.

And then there's butternut cake.  The butternut pound cake was apparently something my mom's dad would bake.  There was a special butternut flavoring he would use that was the secret to the taste.  My entire life, my mom has made this cake for our family.  She always uses a bunt cake pan and when you walked into the house you could smell the cake before you saw the flawless ridges on the browned cake edges sitting on a cooling rack.  My dad had no patience when it came to a hot butternut cake and I remember watching him dig right in as soon as the pan came off.  The hot crusty part on the bottom was always my first bite but nothing compared to the moist, yellow, fluffy cake inside.  As I mentioned, each year mom will ask what kind of birthday cake or pie you want.  G always goes for a chocolate pie and I promise you've never had a chocolate pie as good as my mom's.  And mom makes some stunning Pinterest worthy birthday cakes.  If it's decadent and beautiful, she has made it.  But each year I opt for a butternut cake for my birthday.  The look of it and the taste of it sends me right back to childhood every single time.  

Now, those are just the things I'm most familiar with that my mom does that I consider to be above and beyond regular mom awesomeness.  However, I can assure you that she does even more and it would all blow your mind.  Just when you think there's not enough time in the day for her to do all that, you hear someone say she organized a trip for the old folks at church.  Or maybe she planned a school reunion.  Or she hosted her brothers and sisters for a meal.  We used to hear about things she did and we'd say "Really?".  Now we hear things and we say "Of course she did".


So why tell you all this?  Well, for one thing, my mom's awesomeness is off the scale and people just need to know that there are humans on Earth that are really that great.  But I do not tell you this to make you jealous or to make you feel bad about your mom.  (I'm sure she's great too!)  And I especially don't tell you this to make you feel less-than in your own momming and dadding.  I share the greatness of my mom with you because we all need to be reminded of our own potential for greatness.  You know how you watch an uplifting movie and you want to be a better person for a few days?  I figure the same thing can happen when we see the actions of someone like my mom.  Every single thing she does is based in love.  And it's that real, hard to live out love sometimes.  The kind where you purposefully forget all the bad things that person did to you in the past and you help them.  Or you overlook all the dumb things your three sons did when they were young and you do nice things for them.  Or when you totally realize that there's a chance someone could be taking advantage of your generosity and you continue to offer that generosity over and over again.  That's my mom.  That's the example she's providing for all of us.  That's my motivation for trying to be a good parent, husband and teacher.  Maybe one day I'll be at least a fraction of the awesome she is.  But right now I've to got go eat more of these Christmas sweets my mom made me.  

i feel weird

I had to go to an art thing the other night and I was making my way through the gallery making sure to see and be seen by the right people before making a graceful exit.  On my way to the door I passed a colleague from school.  He's from another department on campus, a really nice guy, and we spoke.  He laughed and said that it always looked like I was having such a great time.  He said he saw me running on campus with some students and saw a class of us at a restaurant earlier in the semester.  

People say this to me a lot.  The highlight reel is always posted on Instagram and I get a lot of comments from friends and family about how it looks like I never "work".  When I had coffee with Donovan a few weeks ago (a religion professor at another university) he made a similar comment and said something along the lines of "you really found your thing".

He's certainly correct.  I've been super blessed.  And man, I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to be where I am with the people I'm with.  School people, family people, art people...even peripheral people...they're all so important to me.  But social media isn't called "honest media".  Instagram isn't really concerned with how hard something was to complete or what your true feelings are about someone.  They just want to see the good stuff, the happy stuff.  That guy in the gallery, he didn't see the social anxiety that had me headed toward the door in a very calculated manner.  He didn't see that I wouldn't make it home before Violet fell asleep that night.  He didn't see the dishes and laundry piled up because I hadn't been home long enough to do them all that week.  

I was talking to a student last week about balance.  This one is always doing their best and there was talk about feeling like they wasted time over Thanksgiving break because they watched Netflix and ate a lot.  I tried to preach the gospel of rest and balance for a hardworking soul.  I'm not sure if it made a dent.  But I do believe in balance.  If you work hard, you should rest hard.  I even used the not so great illustration of me running and exercising every day and eating ridiculous waffles and sweets.  Balance, right?  

Our art faculty pour themselves into our students and our department.  We go above and beyond teaching to make our department great.  Every semester we go hard and near the end of each semester you can start to see the cracks.  We are all in need of a good break and some time with our families.  This too is balance.  It's just not always on Instagram.  I guess a photo of my feet rested on Zeke while watching something dumb on Netflix just doesn't make a great post.  And while a photo of Violet holding my hand walking out of church might be adorable, it's also not for everyone to see.  That moment is mine and I'm not willing to share it.  Same with sitting down with G for a couple of minutes of quiet.  Or talking to Blue about school and Youtube videos.  If you're not us or our dogs, those times are invisible and the balance is also impossible to see.  

Students love to make statements about how busy they are and how all I have to do is "teach" and go home.  I can hear the quotation marks they put around the word teach.  It's funny to me because they have no idea how much goes into "teaching" the way I do and they also have no idea all the other parts of life that must be juggled along with that teaching.  They only see the one side and think they have the whole story.  

The good ones, the ones that understand what it means to be grateful, may even be thoughtful enough to say thank you at some point.  Some do this often and it is a testament to their character.  Some offer a thoughtful remark at graduation but I feel selfish even accepting their thanks.  The truth is, I get to do what I do because of the other people in my life.  People have helped to put me where I am today.  They made sacrifices of time and energy to teach me and call a friend to put in a good word.  They demonstrated effective teaching at various levels to provide me examples.  They put me in exhibits.  They bought me groceries to take to school.  They picked up the kids, fed the dogs and cleaned the house so I could go to a reception.  They went to bed without a hug, kiss or "goodnight" so I could support my students.  They were a friend to me when I needed it.  These are the people who deserve the thank yous.  

So maybe that's my job.  And maybe that's why I'm feeling weird these days.  It's the holidays, it's dark all the time, it's rained a lot lately and at the end of the semester I'm just plain tired.  A friend's dad passed away recently and I've been thinking about my dad.  Boy do I owe him some thank yous.  I guess I'm feeling grateful.  Grateful to be in a position where people think I'm always having fun.  Grateful for all the people who have lifted me here.  Grateful for the ones who hold me here.  Grateful for my family, my friends, my students....for my life.  And seriously, grateful for you, person on the internet who cares enough to read this.  Thank you for your investment in me.  

I hope we all find the balance that works for us.