March 1

It's March 1st, Sunday afternoon. I haven't blogged here in over two months. Sorry about that. I have been blogging on the regular over at moviehouse, but I know that's not the same. A seven hundred word movie review cut and trimmed to fit in four minutes of radio time is not the same as a genuine, personal blog post. I've felt the difference of not writing here.

Things are pretty crazy this semester. I'm teaching a ton of overload. Way back at the end of last year when we were making our schedules, I thought, "Christmas will be expensive (like every year), so I should take on some extra classes to pay the bills." I was right, both about the bills and the need to pay them, but what I didn't say to myself back then was, "Will I be able to teach that many classes and effectively grade that many papers while still being a husband and father and holding down a calling and blah blah blah?" I think I just figured I'd deal with it - which I am. But holy crimony sakes in the morning, I feel pretty overwhelmed this semester. The nice thing with my job is that it resets every sixteen weeks (or eight weeks in the spring and summer). Some people's jobs are unrelenting marathons all the time. Mine at least has very definitive end dates, so even if I have the worst student/class/textbook/whatever in the world, I really only have to put up with it for four months at the most. And that's not bad.

The thing about March is that it's not February. It will be icy and cold for most of this month too, and maybe the naked eye won't be able to tell much difference between the two months - but I know. I know that March is an early spring month. By the time we get to the end of it, spring - real, honest-to-goodness, warm-weather, walking-around-outside-in-the-evening-and-not-dying-of-frostbite spring - will be here. This fills me with great hope. I'm pretty sure I suffer from mild Seasonal Affective Disorder. Or maybe I just really hate winter. But either way, the thought of warm weather close at hand lifts my spirits a lot.

We're planning a trip to Idaho this June in the quick break between spring and summer terms. We're hoping to rent a cabin big enough to fit all the brothers and their families and just hang out in the woods together for a few days. Family reunions back when we were kids were these kind of gigantic events that, as fantastic as they were, were also a little overwhelming and intimidating. I think we just want to get together and catch up and have fun.

I have two or three books on my nightstand that I'm not reading and several tv shows sitting in the DVR that I'm just waiting for the time to watch. More importantly, I have six stacks of composition essays waiting for my attention over by the desk. This week is my spring break, so I have time to get some work done if I'll just get it done.

Speaking of getting things done, I have to help Avery get dinner in the oven. Our favorite Brown family amazon has taken to cooking Sunday dinner each week. More and more, she does it on her own, but I am usually around to supervise. She's intimidated by the idea of cooking a roast, but I'm pretty sure it's because she doesn't know how easy it is. If we want roast and potatoes by six, we'd better get to preparing it all now.