Diner Dinner Night

The proverbial "they" say that we take, not make, time for those things that are truly important to us.  I am guilty of saying quite often that I don't have time for this or that when the reality is that I don't take the time for those things.  Consciously or subconsciously what I am saying with my choices is that those things for which "I don't have time" are not priorities in my life.  When I think about those slighted things, sometimes I can say that, yes in indeed, they are not a priority.  In other instances, however, I come face to face with the realization that my life is out of balance.

One thing that we almost always take time for is "Diner Dinner Night" on Thursdays.  It is a endlessly recurring event on all of our calendars.  We meet our best friends at our local greasy spoon diner, share a meal, and catch up on the goings on in each other's lives.

Some nights we are in and out in an hour and others we sit and chat for several hours.  Those longer visits are great because they usually include dessert!  The food is typical diner food - burgers, all-day breakfast, chicken fried anything, and good old home cookin' vegetables and awesome desserts.  The ambiance is typical old fashioned diner ambiance.

Our Thursday evenings really are about neither the food nor the ambiance.  They are about the company.  They are about friendship.

It's funny to me that this sign greets us on our way in.

No.  We don't have reservations: yet if we miss a night or if one of our group is missing, the staff notices and asks if everyone is good.  We no longer have to order our beverages.  We sit down at our favorite table and the server, whomever it happens to be that evening, arrives shortly with our drinks.  We aren't quite as predictable with our food orders.  Despite the large number of diner dinner nights that we have had, we all still peruse the menu each week.  It has never changed, but we always look, just in case.

Tonight was definitely an instance of taking time for dinner together rather than having it.  We are all traveling tomorrow.  Our friends are flying out west for a family wedding and we are flying east for a fun weekend.  If we were all honest, I suspect that we all would have agreed that we didn't really have time for dinner together this week.  Between finishing up the work week and packing, we each had many other things that were probably higher priorities than diner dinner night.  That didn't seem to matter.  We took the time.

We met.  We ate.  We shared the goings on of our week so far.  We wished each other safe travels and happy travels.  An hour later we headed our separate ways to finish all those tasks still left on our various to-do lists.

And our parting words were, "See you next week."

And Here It Is June...

So what have I learned lately?

My desire to do is greater than my ability to do.

My intention, once school was out was to write more.  I have done that...just not here, which was not the plan.  I thought that I could keep up here, with my regular Pixels, Plates, and LOLs posts, and writing every day for Blueper B...oh, and a photo a day for him and for me.  Then there was stuff like preparing meals, and laundry, and a little (very little) vacuuming and dusting.

Let's just say that during the month of May, I learned the limits my mental capacity.

Weber and I bought our friend Blueper B when we were in Delaware during my dad's illness.

I guess you could say that he was a silly diversion from all of the sadness and seriousness that was going on. He travels and he tells the story of his adventures in words, sometimes mixed up words, and pictures on his own blog.  I vowed that during the month of May I would help him write a post every day.  I fulfilled that promise, but at the expense of writing here.  Looking back, I am really okay with that.  Weber and I had fun with Blueper B's everyday posts.  If I am to be totally honest, I was a bit sad when I helped him write his last post of his Month of Me yesterday.

If you are interested, here is Blueper B's blog.

He will continue to write regularly, but regularly will not be every day.

Now that I know that I can only write so much, and three regular blogs is too much, my writing attention for June will be back here in my own voice.  I suppose if I were a little more disciplined I could manage all three, but I'm not right now.  Maybe I will get there.

The biggest thing happening in my world this month is that Weber is retiring after twenty-five years of teaching.

As of right now, his plan is to be a house husband.  I am perfectly okay with that as I am not retiring.  It will be a bit of a role reversal for both of us as he has worked for the last forty plus years and although I have worked, I have also been the one primarily responsible for household chores for all of my adult life.  I suspect that I can get used to getting up to my breakfast being made and coming home to my clean laundry.  The furry kids are looking forward to having him home all day too.

It's funny...once people hear that he is retiring, the first thing they ask is if we are going to travel.  We are traveling quite a bit this summer, but that has nothing to do with his retirement; it is just the way things worked out.  We won't be taking any long trips during the school year since I'm still teaching; however, I don't teach on Fridays so we will have the ability to take some long weekend trips.  And, my semester breaks are longer than his were so much of January is time that we will have off together.

It is a new chapter to which we are both looking forward.  He just needs to get through the next two days, through the last last day of school!

Optimist or Pessimist: Your Choice

There was a time in my life when I was indeed the pessimist.  Not anymore.  That is a tough existence!

This photo is the result of camera settings that were totally wrong.  But, it worked for today's photo prompts around fastener and blue.  Let's just say it ended up being a happy accident!

I had three finals to write tonight and another set to grade.  Even after many years of practice, I am still terrible at multi-tasking so in trying to get my photo of the day done in between all of my school tasks, I failed to check my camera settings before taking this photo.  This is the result.  Its got a character of its own; that character, however, is not what I originally set out to capture!

Four more days of this semester and then I shouldn't have to multi-task like this until August!

Me on Mother's Day

A nice and calm Mother's Day today...Offspring No. 2 and her significant other took me out to lunch after church.  Then we, the mamas of four-legged fur babies went shopping for them.  When I got home I took a few photos, played with the dogs, and wrote a final exam.  It was an OK day.

Another End

Today was the final class day of this semester. By this time next week, final exams will be over and another academic year will have come to an end.  I will have completed year twenty-five in the same teaching position.

The music theory sequence is a minimum of four semesters of paired courses; it can be five if a student comes in needing to make up a deficiency.  Of those five courses, I teach four of them, all but the first (or second).  So by the time I have had the same students for three consecutive semesters in two courses each semester, I know them well, and I have a genuine interest in their lives beyond my classes.  Of those completing the sequence this semester, some have auditioned at four year universities and are excited to take the next step in their education, some are experiencing disappointment because they were not accepted to the school of their choice, and some are questioning whether or not they want to continue on in music or choose another career path.  Whatever the case, it has been my job and my privilege to serve each one of them - to teach them, guide them, and support them along the way as they prepare for whatever their next step may be.

I am grateful that I teach so many courses in this sequence.  Although I am bidding farewell to my class of music theory IV students, I will see those students who have been in Music Theory II and III again next fall.  Knowing that I have a group of returning students makes it a little easier to say goodbye to those who are moving on.

Another consolation is that those students who left last spring have completed their first year in a four year institution.  They are now coming back or sending emails sharing their successes and excitement surrounding their academic achievements.  That students take the time to stop by or write an email sharing with me how they are doing lets me know that they were aware of my genuine care and concern for them while they were in my classes.  In case you are wondering...yes, there are some that I never hear from again once they hand me the final exam.  With a very few, that's OK. I wish them well, but that's it.

I will spend my weekend writing final exams and finalizing grades, enduring the stress that the end of every semester brings.  Next Thursday night I will play for commencement.  And Friday, summer vacation begins.  Just as the semesters seem to fly by, so will the summer.  Before I know it, August will be here and my year twenty-six will begin.  A whole new group of students will come and I will have the opportunity to get to know them, perhaps touch their lives in a meaningful way, and then send them on as well.  The cycle of the academic life.

Seven Days of Looking At Nature

Every now and then there is a photo challenge that goes around Facebook that challenges photographers to publish a nature photo a day for seven consecutive days.  In addition to posting a photo, you also nominate someone else to take on the challenge as well.  It is the 21st century incarnation of chain letters, but in the end you get to see lots of beautiful photographs.

I was "nominated" to do this by someone back in February, but failed to accomplish the challenge because I got sick, then busy, then uninspired by nature in winter here in Texas.  That is not an excuse.  It is the reality of where I was at the time.  I figured that being nominated again by someone else was my chance to redeem myself.

Though I thought that I might be overwhelmed by trying to do this, keep up with my Capture Your 365 picture of the day, and real life, I enjoyed the challenge.  It forced me to stop for those seven days and mindfully search for something beautiful in nature.  I was also inspired by following those whom I nominated during my seven day run.

Here are my seven photos.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

The quote by Albert Einstein that I included on the final photo is the perfect summary of my experience over the last week taking each of these photos.

It's Been Too Long!

It hurts my heart to admit that I have not written a single post here this year.  I have been writing, just not here.  One of the places where I do write almost daily is in my Morning Pages Journal.  This is a discipline that I have had for many years, one that fuels me creatively, intellectually, and spiritually.  Though this writing is not fit for public consumption, it is was inspires me to write in other places.  Over the last bit, I have found myself scrawling over and over how much I miss blogging regularly.  It is not that I think I have something to say that others want or need to read, it is more a discipline that helps me to document my life, a somewhat selfish act.

The other night I went back and read several of my posts from my early days of blogging.  I was so grateful for those words.  They gave power to such small and seemingly insignificant moments in my life, but moments that I wanted to remember nonetheless.  Moments that now are so much more important than I ever believed that they would be.   I am sad that there are now big chunks of time to which I did not dedicate even a few words.  There is nothing that I can do about that now, but I can try to pick up where I am and begin again.  Start where I am.  I need to write regularly.  I want to write regularly.  I will write regularly.

In the midst of being a bit hard on myself,  I do have to remember that although I have been absent here, I have been active creatively in other places.  I have continued to take a photo a day.  2016 is year four.  Here is a video of the 121 daily photos that I have taken so far this year.  The video creator crops the photos square though many of them were not originally square, so they look a bit strange.

I have also continued to write a food and photography blog, Pixels, Plates, and LOLs, with my friend Tracey Gehring.  This is a super fun venture, but it does take a fair amount of time each week.  Here is the link to some great recipes and food photos.  Currently we are documenting our joint weight loss adventure.

And, Weber and I continue to help our furry friend. Blueper B, with his blog.  Again, we have not been as diligent there as we would like, however, we are making a commitment to keep that space current as well.  If you are interested in the adventures of Blueper B, you can read his blog here, or follow him on Facebook.

As I approach the final two weeks of this semester, I know that I am biting off a big chunk here with a public promise to recommit myself to regular posting.  Even with the impending busy-ness of final exams, it feels good to write just this little bit here.  I am doing what I need to do.

Until tomorrow...