School's Out (24/25)

This school year was full of personal and professional growth for me, and was a year of healing for myself and (I think) many others at school. I learn how to be a teacher more and more each year. Building good relationships with the students is so important, and I think I did a better job with that this year. Our admin was super supportive, and that went a long way toward making things run well and helping teachers maintain motivation throughout the year. 

The 24/25 8th grade students were an amazing group of kids who were curious and fun, and that made teaching them rewarding. One of my science students found my "See The Good" stone someone painted for me a couple of years ago, and hid it on top of my marker board - just out of sight from below. I found it today while I was cleaning up, and even though they have only been gone a couple of days, it made me miss them. 

My classroom is cleaned up and ready for summer, and so am I. So long, 24/25 School Year! You were pretty good, if exhausting at times. 

Breath of The Wild, Breath of Fresh Air

In the first few moments of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you emerge from a cavern into a post apocalyptic Hyrule 100 years after your failed attempt to stop the calamity which had befallen the kingdom. 

You failed. And the world as everyone knew it ended. 

Your friends are long gone, because of you.

Of course, these memories come creeping back as you follow the storyline through the game to its conclusion. From no memory of what happened to the unbearable pain of remembering everything. 

All that can be done is to try to remove the calamity from the kingdom, like excising a cancerous tumor. 

First you have to gain access to the innermost chambers of Hyrule Castle, where you find Calamity Ganon. He's tough! But I did all four of the Guardian Beast dungeons, so he starts with half of his health. Even so, this was a tough fight! 

Once Ganon is defeated, it doesn't end there! Like any good final boss in a video game, he transforms into something larger and more horrible than before. As Dark Beast Ganon, he strides tall, looming close in the field outside of the castle. You are teleported there and are given the magical arrow, the only means of defeating this world-ending terror. From horseback, you must strike several weak points on Dark Beast Ganon's blight riddled body before he destroys the last vestiges of Hyrule's survivors. 

In short, it is brilliant! From the moment you emerge from the cave in the beginning of the game with no memory to the final acknowledgement from Princess Zelda that you are indeed the Hero of Hyrule, Breath of the Wild is a work of art. It took me quite a long time to finish the game, because I wanted to wander the breadth and depth of the kingdom. It is an extraordinary video game experience. A breath of fresh air. 

Car Shopping Anxiety

*Note: This is an old post that I wrote on 7/10/2022, but never published. Here it is, almost two years later!

The mission: Buy a used car from the past 4 years or so, in the price range of $19,000 to $24,000. That would fit in our budget and be quite an upgrade from the 2008 Pontiac G6 I had been driving for the past several years. The G6 was a generous gift from my mom, but it was starting to show its age. It leaked oil, power steering, and brake fluid. One of the driver seat posts had broken. It was approaching 200,000 miles, and even though it had been an excellent work commuter, it was starting to make us nervous about its capability to make it long distances. I kept the fluids up, made sure to check them before leaving the house on longer drives.

The G6 died on the highway last weekend on a return trip from mom's cabin in Elliott County. Penny was in her carseat, and slept through the whole scary situation! Luckily, we were close to home, just outside of Lexington on I-75. Ashleigh made it to us in just a few minutes, and our insurance covered a tow to a mechanic.

A rebuilt engine could cost between $600 and $1,000. Not bad, but we felt it was time for something newer. So, the lazy car search that had been occurring became our top priority.

I had decided that a small SUV might be the best thing. Penny’s stuff would fit in it more comfortably, and maybe we could use it for road trips, to offset the mileage that we had been putting on Ashleigh's 2016 Chevy Equinox LS.

Fairy quickly, I was overwhelmed with options!

Among the contenders were:

2019 Jeep Renegade

2018 Toyota RAV4

2017 Buick Encore

2018 Chevy Trax

2017 Mitsubishi Outlander

2017 Nissan Rogue S

2018 Chevy Equinox LT

And so, I threw myself into the world of automobile journalism. It’s a deep hole to swim in. Near the shallows, there are auto bloggers and YouTubers, some of whom had good comments and thoughtful reviews. Toward the deeper end, JD Power, Edmunds, Car and Driver. Edmunds in particular had these reviews where someone would drive a car for a year and write about their experiences. This in particular was interesting to me. 

My heart wanted the Jeep Renegade. My brain wanted either the RAV4 or the Equinox. Actually, the little Buick was fun to drive and had a lot of nice features. But ultimately, interior space for a car seat and passenger were the most important considerations, after vehicle safety and projected longevity. That basically eliminated everything except for the Equinox and the RAV4. But the RAV4 had more miles, was $4,000 more and a little over budget. 

I did the sensible thing. I didn’t buy the Renegade. I went with the Equinox. We’ve driven the 2016 model for years, and it has been a great car. Why not add one to the fleet? The car seat fits and the passenger doesn’t have to squeeze in. It gets decent mileage for an SUV. And,  maybe when Penny is a little older, maybe I can trade it in toward a Jeep. 

But for now, we are a Chevy family.

Thanksgiving

 It was, in general, a somewhat bittersweet Thanksgiving. It seems each year there are more empty seats at the table. We miss our grandparents. We’re thankful for Penelope, who has been bringing joy into our world for the past 17 months. Our grandparents would have loved Penny. Would each have absolutely been wrapped around her finger. 

But it was a good day. I made a giant turkey, in the oven this time. Dinner turned out great. My mamaws would both have been proud. Penny laughed a lot and played outside.  The weather was nice. Another day to celebrate. I hope everyone had a wonderful day.

Snow Days

Tomorrow will be our sixth snow day of the year. Three of them were this week! Snow days when I was a a kid meant a reprieve from school. They meant sledding, snowball fights, hot cocoa, reading books beside the wood stove, carrying in wood for the fire, big steaming bowls of chili, refreshing hot showers after playing in the cold snowy hills, the smell of wood smoke mingling with the good hot food that mom made in the kitchen. I miss those smells. I miss the way the light from the sliding door reflected golden on the snow after dark. It was a delicate time, a together time. A time when it felt like we were the only ones on earth, nestled in our holler between the hills and away from the rest of the world. It felt like those frozen wintry days would last forever. It felt like they flew by. They are precious memories to me. 

These past few snowy days have been a wonderful chance to make new memories with Ashleigh and Penny. They’re precious, too. And they have simultaneously felt like they’d last forever, and they have flown by.

Seven Months with Penny

When we adopted Penelope on 5/29/21, I didn't realize how quickly time would fly. The days, they say, are long, but the years are short. If anything, I learned just how true this adage can be this year! 

It is December 29, and 7 months have gone by in a wink. Ashleigh and I are slowly figuring out a work-week routine, and are learning how to be parents just as Penny learns how to roll over, sit up, say "ba, ba, ba," and crawl around. She is holding her bottle on her own, eating solid food, and smiling at everyone she meets. Her first Halloween was fun, everyone who came by to trick or treat got a big smile and giggle from Penny. She was dressed in a butterfly costume that Ashleigh picked out. Prettiest little butterfly I've ever seen! She looked adorable!

Penny's first Christmas was really great to experience. Everyone pulled out all the stops and she ended up with so many cute clothes from Mamaw Gwenda and YaYa Jane. She got to spend some time with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Stacy, and her cousins Avery June and Rori. Our neighbors Ron and Sharon bought her a 3-in-1 toy that turns into a walker, with buttons and gizmos that make noise and play songs. But her favorite gift has to be a bouncer seat from YaYa and Daddy Bill (her papaw). She has played in it for hours every day since Christmas, bouncing until she wears herself out! Watching her play and explore the different things her toys can do has been so much fun for Ashleigh and I. 

She is growing and changing so quickly, it's hard to keep up! For us, it's a bittersweet mix of wanting her to remain small, but excitement for all of the potential she has. It's exciting to think about what she will do with her life. Our hope is that she will remain this sweet, happy, wonderful little person that she is, and continue to bring joy into the world all around her. 

What I Did This Summer

I'm hard pressed to think of another summer that held so many changes for me. There was the summer between high school and college, and the summer separating college and graduate school. One summer, 9 years ago, I married my love, Ashleigh. Each of those summers has held great opportunity and change for me, but this summer stands apart in the number and magnitude of changes, chances, and opportunities. 

This summer, I turned 40. I didn't know how I'd feel about reaching this landmark age. There's a certain symbolism about the age of 40. It seems like it's supposed to be this mystical and inevitable doorway to middle age, with youth in the rear view mirror and perspective beginning to come into focus. I don't know if it has hit me quite to that extent. But I have spent a lot of time reflecting this year, more than normal. The reasons why might become clear soon. 

This summer, I changed career paths, left academia and higher education, and got a job as an 8th grade science teacher. I have no real experience teaching middle school, but I have 9 years of experience teaching college classes. I feel comfortable in front of groups of people, and I know my content area really well. I'm lucky that 8th grade science has a large natural history focus. We will learn about climate change, natural and artificial selection, ecology, and geologic history. These topics are definitely in my wheelhouse, and I'm excited to teach these concepts to eager students. Two realizations that I've had in the past five weeks: 

1. Teaching is exhausting! It takes a ton of energy to keep the attention of a room of twenty to thirty 13 year olds, to make sure they understand the content, to differentiate teaching methods so that all students can succeed, and to maintain positivity and enthusiasm from morning to late afternoon.  
2. I need help managing classroom behaviors and routines. 

All that said, I have met so many dynamic, hilarious, and interesting kids through this, and I'm having more fun with it than I ever thought possible. And, I think I'm building up some endurance, I'm not nearly as tired at this point in the semester, which is just past midterms, than I was at the end of week 1 and 2. The 8th grade team is a fun, amazing, and friendly group. I also think I'm getting a handle on all of the non-teaching aspects of the job, the alphabet soup of abbreviations and acronyms, and the various reports to be filed. Don't get me wrong - I still have a ton to learn, but it's getting easier. 

Having said that, I am still exhausted. And part of the reason is that this summer, Ashleigh and I adopted a beautiful baby girl. Penelope Melissa made her debut on May 29, 2021, and has won the hearts of all of our family and friends since then. Truly, I was terrified to be a father, and I was afraid to adopt. What if I couldn't connect with her? What if I couldn't love her? Of course, all of that was foolish. She is the best thing that ever happened to Ashleigh and I, and I can't imagine life without her. She is easy to love, and it's fun to watch her grow and change. I wonder what she will be like, what her interests will be, if she will be silly, nerdy, fun, and kind, and if she will love trees and flowers and all wild things found in nature. Her grandparents love her, her uncles and aunts love her, and her cousins love her. So many people have helped us in various ways to learn how to be parents. It would be easy to list over a hundred people who love Penny, and for that we are so grateful and happy! 

So, to review - I'm exhausted. I'm learning to let go of old goals that had become toxic and were dragging me down. I've embraced a new career, one that allows me to teach and care for a different audience. And, Ashleigh and I have an adorable munchkin that fills our hearts with love. Not to mention, Sassafras is walking better and becoming stronger by the day! It has been quite a Summer! It feels like the curtain has fallen on Act 1, and Act 2 has begun!