My little left toe is still sore. I went for a long walk yesterday, and a shorter one today, and both days I was a bit hobbly by the time I got home. I think I will need to start wearing sandals as much as possible when I go walking about. There will be days, unfortunately, when I won't be able to do this because it is too cold. Today is not one of those days. The current temperature is 55, sunny, and feeling like spring.

Last week as I was walking around the campus I saw some daffodils blooming and more ready to bloom. I heard one of my fellow students saying that the crocuses were blooming as well. Even though winter is dragging on, and on, there are signs it is not going to last forever.

School is very busy right now. I have the usual poetry to work on. Right now I am doing my first set of paper grading, getting a syllabus ready for March/April when I will be doing all the teaching, writing an essay for my African American literature class, and worrying about not doing any work on my Souther Lit class. I suppose the answer is to stop sleeping for the next few weeks. Even with all I have to accomplish in the next few weeks, I am looking forward to spring break in March. It is only thirteen days away.

Even though I am busy and a bit gimpy, I am doing well. I am enjoying my creative work and I am eating very well. Too well.

Links to recent photos have been added below. I had an interesting observation just now. Even though I live in a city, most of my photos are of nature. Wonder if that means anything?

Sunday February 10

Today I celebrate eight years of not smoking. I can still remember the way I felt when I first quit, and how hard those first three days were. Some experiences are powerful enough that they do not fade quickly from memory. I rarely think about smoking now, but there are some days/times...

Last week was a good week. The weather was incredible, with highs during part of the week in the low seventies! I took the photo at the top of the page yesterday, and it really is that green here.

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me. I have to rush through two novels this week (_Cold Mountain_ and _Black No More_), I will have some student essays to grade, poems to review and comment on, poems to write, two essays of my own to write, prep work for two lessons that I need to cover in class, one Tuesday that is an intro to writing in the social sciences, and one on thursday that is all about APA.

I invested some money into a super program Monday. Yes, I purchased the student version of Adobe CS3. It was still more money than I would like, but it is full of awesome programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat8, Dreamweaver, Flash, and my favorite InDesign), and I have, unfortunately, wasted a large part of the week playing with Indesign. There is a lot I want/can do with the program in relation to my writing and I hope to explore some of the possibilities over the next few months. I find myself excited about the possibilities, and thinking about what I can do with my poetry. So far all I have done is very basic changes, but I have ideas...

Off to work I go...busy day and all that. I hope it rains soon.

February dos

Sunrise and sunset comparison between Raleigh and Cold Lake
Raleigh: Sunrise: 7:13 Sunset: 5:44

Cold Lake: Sunrise: 8:05 Sunset: 5:04

I think the roughly 90 minutes of extra light I am getting here has helped me avoid the depths of the winter blahs.

Polar plunge? Do you think it is cold enough?




I suppose I shouldn't be grumpy and frowning tonight given that the flowers in the above photo were taken outside my home around one this afternoon. But I am, and it is my own fault. I wasted today doing nothing, which might seem impossible, but it is true. If nothing else, I have mastered the art of procrastination during my years as a student. Why do today what you can panic about tomorrow.

It rained much of Thursday night and Friday. Around three in the afternoon the clouds fled south and the sun began to slurp up the rain. Carol and I went for a short walk yesterday after the storm, and a longer one today. It felt weird to be walking in Feb with only a light sweater on and so soon after a rain storm. It was the kind of weather I am used to enjoying in May. Though the photos I took on both days do not show it, there is a light green tinge to so much of the background. The lawns in the area are green and some need to get cut. Speaking of cutting, I was walking (read limping) across campus this last week and I met one of the small kubota type trucks carrying a lawn mower and a shovel in the back. The ground maintenance guy had been out trimming the lawn. Shortly after that I spotted a young woman lying on the lawn reading her book. That was still January as February only began yesterday. If you are interested in looking at the most recent photos, I have added a link to the photo link thing down below. If not, maybe just the photo at the start of the blog will be enough. Just before supper I looked at the temperature here, and had another momentary dislocation. Six in the evening in Feb. and it was 54 (51 now).

My internet connection was a little funky this morning. I could not listen to Pandora Radio, I had trouble looking through the fonts one can find online, and even my email was sloggy. I seem to be doing ok now though. Hopefully what ever was wrong is moved on.

Hey, today is groundhog day. Wonder if the little rodent saw its shadow. It would have done so here as the day was very bright and sunny. Course, I have no expectation that the nasty winter will linger for much longer. My hope is another few weeks, and then it will begin to bloom and turn the bright green I was in love with all summer.

I must quit here and get to work, read at least one sentence of something for school...

Also....Friday around the middle of the day, when the rain was still falling Carol screams and says, "Whats that!! Its a Heron!!" And so it was, one of them big birds, Blue heron or some such.I did not take any photos as I did not think the camera would be able to isolate it, but it was an impressive bird to see walking in my back yard. I suppose the creek behind the house counts as backyard?

I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of rain falling off the eaves. A strong wind made the house creak a bit, and it must have been that which raised me from my snores. It is currently 56 with a forecast high of 50, so the temperature is going to fall through the day. The weather, the slight green tinge that lingers on the lawns, and the grayness of the trees has had me thinking it feels a lot like early spring, and that is a strange feeling for so early in the year. I have had all the winter I want, though the winter I have had has been slight.

I broke my wee little left toe Sunday trying to walk around the coffee table. Hobble here, hobble there, and carefully navigate the stairs that seem to be everywhere in this city. I can go up stairs with little problem, it is going down that requires thought. To add to my decrepitude, the hobbling has made my right knee want to whinge a bit, so I grimace with the left toe, then squeak as my opposing knee spasms. This increasing decay has led me to decide that I will no longer grow a year older with each birthday. On my next birthday I shall become one year younger.

I am going to go gloat about the 92-degree temperature difference between here and Cold Lake. This is the reason I moved down here!

I am deeply disappointed. I moved south so I could gloat about the warm winter I am having while those stuck in northern climes were shivering in below zero weather. But it is not happening! I have yet to see any 40 belows, and they have not lingered for weeks the way I had hoped. To make matters worse, it was cold here the past few weeks, and yesterday and today. It is not fair.

I had a good week at school. I was nearly overwhelmed with joy as my last class was wrapping up yesterday evening. I do love my three day holiday, well, almost four because Monday's class is not until six pm. Did I mention how my teaching went Thursday? It was difficult to keep the classes attention, but it would be hard for those who have done it for years as it was the active/passive voice. I did learn a great deal however. Strange to think of myself standing in front of a group of people and talking for an hour.

This weekend is not as busy as last. I have to write/edit a poem for Monday, comment on classmates poems, read _Cold Mountain_, read some critical writing on/about African American literature, and something I am forgetting. Ahh well. I may have an essay topic for my AA lit class' final paper: Closure in Chestnutt's stories. I need to do some research on that, but it is an idea I can pursue I think. If it warms up a little, I may do some walking as well, but with a high of 39, that is not likely today. It is a damp cold for those of you who might be thinking things like "get over it" or "yeah, like thats really cold" and it really does sink into the bones...ok, so it is not really cold, but it is fun to think that it is.

Snows-a-coming

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THE HORROR:

Sunday January 20
There is a little dusting of white stuff (ain't saying the word)laying on the lawn. My disgruntlement is large, I did not go far enough south yet. I made some cool cupcakes yesterday, and some cinnamon buns are rising now. I can taste their awesomeness already!


Just one:

Sinsamon buns:

Iced cupcakes:

Uniced cupcakes:



Saturday January 19
Though it is Saturday, it feels like Sunday. Monday is a holiday for me, and I had yesterday 'off' which might explain the loss of any sense of what day it actually could be. Yesterday I went off to Whole Foods and picked up some of the necessities of life, and some things that are less necessary but add pleasure to existence, and that is a Saturday kind of activity. So I guess I have good excuses for my day confusion.

The weather the past few days has been cold and damp. Thursday it rained much of the day, though I do not think huge accumulations of water occurred. there was enough to leave puddles on the streets, and I know this cause some ding-a-ling deliberately drove through one and splashed me. The things I will do to get toast. I had left school and trotted through the miserably cold streets to get to the nearest toaster seller because the old one had collapsed. I found a nice cheap one at the drug store, and it is working quite nicely.

I have a busy weekend planned. I have to read _Collected Stories of Charles W. Chestnutt_ for a class, prepare a lesson on active and passive voice and another on the features of a science article for Tuesday's class, and get a poem ready for class that I can send out later this week.

Active voice: I write beautiful sentences.
Passive voice: Beautiful sentences are written.

I think the next thing I will be teaching the class is APA style of citation. I have not used that style in years, but it is fairly simple. I have a nice big handbook for it, MLA, and Chicago Style. All I do not know at all is the international science format, but it is not necessary for me to know it, at least not yet.

There is a winter storm warning out for this area beginning around noon. They are calling for the potential for a few inches of snow, and given the location and the drivers abilities, this is a major concern. I am hoping it does not turn into an ice storm. The trees are often very close to the power lines here, it would not take much to create a huge outage. It is hard to tell that it is winter here. Walking to the store yesterday I saw some kind of rose blooming (Rose of Sharon?), some kind of vine/shrub covered in yellow flowers, and on Thursday a tree near the Library covered in pink blossoms. There are, of course, pansies everywhere.