Early February, Early Mornings

Whooooooooowwww

Its now, what, 4 weeks into this full time working/ part time teaching thing and I am... Tired.

Here's the routine for a week: up at 6:15am every day, shower, to the office by 7:45am. Work through the day till 4:45pm, when I dash out the door to the gym. Exercise for an hour, then home for dinner. After dinner is devoted to working on class lectures and slides.

I've found that I can't lecture without a slide show. Talking about history, especially historic built landscapes is such a visual thing. So lecture preps bounce back and forth between searching for the image I want and fact checking what I want to talk about.

I've probably spent an average of 6-8 hours on every lecture. This is the first time the course is being taught, so I'm totally building it from scratch. And because I wasn't sure what I'd want to change after a few weeks, I didn't plan lectures or slideshows very far in advance. So its a lot of work.

I knew it would be a lot of work. Its work I enjoy, really, but it's been a bit of a relentless grind building this thing. Even something like a lovely surprise weekend from my sister can throw my whole "things to get done and when to do them" schedule off.

And every week I seem to fall into a pattern of totally nailing the Tuesday lecture, walking out feeling on top of the world, and then falling flat on my face for the Thursday lecture. Or vice-versa. Its unnerving and confidence-killing. Nothing to do but get back on the horse though. Especially since I'm getting paid to do this.

DJ has been awesome, absolutely awesome about giving me time to work on class stuff. I've neglected housekeeping, demanded he turn off the light by 9:45pm so I could go to sleep (oh the irony!) and generally demanded that all things fit my schedule. He's made dinners, hung out with the dog and kept the house stocked with toilet paper.

And I have a wonderful sister and friends, did I mention that? I turned 29 on Tuesday. And Harlow turned 2. In advance of the birthday, Gretch drove over from Pullman and Ali drove down from Helena for a Chico Hot Springs afternoon and Livingston Saturday night. We stayed at the Murray Hotel (awesome historic hotel across the street from the train station), had dinner at the rib and Chop house and then did a Livingston bars lap. The most entertaining portion of the evening was walking into the Mint Bar and finding it FULL of hipsters. HIPSTERS. In LIVINGSTON. That.... Was unexpected. With their serious black oversize glasses and serious conversations.

Dusty made a delicious dinner of salmon, mashed potatoes, garlic bread and broccoli for my birthday. I received flowers, cards and phone calls. It was a nice, low key day. Which is my style for birthdays. 


This weekend is packed with getting my poop in a group. Writing the handout for the paper my students have due at the end of the month, prepping this week's lectures, prepping some AOII stuff for the annual Corporation meeting at the end of the month. Budgets, agendas, membership, etc. I'm good at that end of the organizational spectrum, I hope. 


And with that, I think I heard the coffee ding that it's ready. Time to get to work!

Birthdays

Yesterday was my 28th and Harlow's 1st birthday. As a gift to both myself and our pup, I took the day off from work and committed it to true relaxation. This meant no laptop, no internet and no television. 8 hours of silence, book browsing, checking out and reading, and one very long walk in the sunshine with the doggie later, I feel well rested and more prepared to deal with the world. I'm going to try to take a day off like that every few months; it did wonders for my sanity.

Of course, life is all about balance, as Harlow will tell you:

DJ and I had an interesting conversation about work/ life balances last night. We agreed that it'd be awesome if one of us could be home more frequently during the week. I don't mean stay-at-home-wife or house-husband style, but rather that we both worked four 10 hour days a week: Courtney worked Monday through Thursday and DJ worked Tuesday through Friday. That way we both get some quiet time at home to get projects done without feeling like we had do to something with the spouse. It's an interesting idea, even if it was just every other week...

What would I do with my free day? Probably play housewife. Cook, clean, garden, put up produce, read, and generally unwind. Something to think about!

Oh for shit's sake...

That's my grandma Joyce's favorite saying. "Oh for shit's sake". Which is exactly what I said when I came down from our staff meeting tonight to a BLIZZARD.

I have to remind myself that snow in April is Bozeman's version of spring rain. I find myself repeating that over and over... maybe some day I'll believe it? But, it's hard to not get discouraged at weather like this:

... or worse yet, this:

It reminds me of the time I tried to throw DJ a 30th birthday/ golf scramble, and it snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed, so instead Emily and Allyson saved the day and bought a pinata:

Speaking of, it is DJ's birthday today!!! Happy day babe!

And speaking of parties, one reason I'm annoyed with the snow is that I'm driving tomorrow to eastern Washington for a wedding shower that my aunt is hosting for me. On Sunday my mom and I will head up to the lake and work on some landscaping projects.

Wish me luck (and DJ happy birthday!)!