Pushing my way into the holiday season

It seems that the weather is always news here – this week it snowed a lot, and yesterday and today have been supercold. This morning it was around -40°C/F (Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same at -40°) with the wind chill. Jeff decided to go running anyway, but was fully decked out in winter gear including the goggles that my brother got him for his birthday, and the Road Noise speaker vest that he got last Christmas. He looks a little bit like an alien, but that's okay.

Work has continued to be very busy, and both yesterday and today I have had to spend a good amount of time working. However, this Friday we leave for a five-day trip to Calgary where we will be celebrating an early Christmas with Jeff's siblings and their families. I do not plan to do any work during that time, and have warned all my students (undergraduates, honours students, graduate students) that I am on vacation during that time and won't respond to them. So as busy as things are, there is a very lovely light at the end of an increasingly short tunnel.

Despite being busy, I have managed a few fun things in the past week. First, my local library branch had a workshop on Wednesday night teaching how to arm-knit a scarf. I heard about arm knitting several months ago, and was intrigued by it then, so when I found out that this workshop was happening, it was free, and it was at a convenient time and location, there was no way I could not do it even if I was busy. It was lots of fun, and in less than two hours I have learned the technique and made a giant scarf. It's too big to actually wear, so I will probably undo it and make a smaller version.

On Saturday, we hosted our annual American Thanksgiving potluck. Jeff made a turkey, and I made a squash lasagna using this recipe. We had a slightly smaller group then we have had the past two years, but it was still a reasonable crowd with nine guests. The lasagna turned out to be really good, and was definitely better for hosting than the pumpkin ravioli or pumpkin gnocchi that we made in the two past years. Those have to be cooked right before you eat them, and involve lots of active kitchen time, whereas a lasagna can sit by itself in the oven and then sit on the counter for a while if it needs to before being eaten. I followed the recipe almost exactly, except that we substituted butternut squash for the kabocha squash (easier to find, and comes precut into cubes at Costco), and used a combination of Jarlsberg and mozzarella for the cheese (Safeway didn't have Gruyere), and made the squash purée a day ahead of time to spread out the work a bit. Oh, also we used fresh lasagna noodles instead of dried, and omitted the garlic. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly, and I highly recommend trying it as it was delicious and everyone said so.

Today we got a Christmas tree, though we won't start decorating it until tomorrow. It is in a stand in the living room thawing out, and smells wonderfully Christmasy. Also, I just finished filling twelve of the twenty-four days in our wooden advent calendar with little things for Jeff, and later tonight he will fill the other twelve days with little things for me. Besides that, I also ordered a regular paper advent calendar complete with woodland animals living in buildings in a town, which we will also use and can bring with us when we are out of town. I am so ready for this horribly busy season to be over, and the holiday season to begin :-)

What it means to be busy

So first, I was wrong when I said it wouldn't get above freezing until March or April, because Friday and Saturday were like spring here – all the snow melted. However, everything is frozen again today and there is a light coating of snow, so I suppose it's back to normal. If you want one perspective on what the weather is like here, check out this rant. Apparently some people were offended (not as much by the language– though this probably shouldn't be played around children– as by the general negative sentiment toward Saskatchewan), but I find it extremely funny.

The last day of classes here is December 4, and then there is a two-week period of final exams. I feel like the next two weeks are ridiculously busy, and I have a little bit of trouble figuring out how I am actually going to accomplish everything I need to get done. I have a list with dates, prioritizing things and noting deadlines, and somehow if I work pretty solidly for the next little while I should be able to get the most important things done, but it is a bit overwhelming at times.

On the other hand, being this busy means that I am capable of being this busy. My capacity for doing things continues to improve, partly because I'm figuring out how to better manage my limitations, partly because Jeff has gotten into a rhythm with doing all the things he does because of my limitations, and partly because I am slowly continuing to get better. When I think of how things were a year ago, I can't really do a lot of things now that I couldn't then, but I am doing more of the things I can do.

For example, I am still part of the Regina Newcomers Club, and go to a couple of the social events held by the club each month. This is not different from one year ago. But now I am also a member of the executive committee for the club, coordinating membership and the new member nights. Volunteering in this capacity adds much more time and responsibility to my activities with this group.

Everything is kind of like that – instead of one graduate student I have two, instead of one honours student I have two, I am on a huge number of student thesis committees, I am on a university employment equity consultative committee, a committee with the Saskatchewan College of Psychologists, a departmental committee, I proposed a new psychotherapy skills group for graduate students and am heading that up, I am seeing a client as part of my teaching duties, the number of research projects I am involved in has increased exponentially since last December, and probably lots of other things that I'm not thinking of right now.

Two years ago, I was probably doing about a tenth of what I'm doing now. Even one year ago, I was doing probably 1/2 to 2/3 of what I'm doing now. And the thing is, I think probably even three years ago or five years ago, when I was perfectly able-bodied and had none of the limitations that I have now, I wouldn't have been able to keep up with the pace that I'm keeping now. I think that with all of my limitations I have had to learn to be more efficient in much of what I do, and where I'm limited in some arenas, I'm probably shifting energy and focus into places where I'm not limited.

This is my only explanation at the moment, and I hope it is a good enough way of thinking about things to prevent me from seriously crashing and burning in the next couple of weeks :-)

Winter has arrived

In the last week, we have made the sudden transition from fall to winter. The temperature is very unlikely to get above freezing until March or April, and we've had a bit of snow in the past week to make the transition completely unambiguous. We are having to remember rituals like wearing boots and bringing shoes to work, stripping off snowy outerwear by the front door, and parking in the garage. It takes a bit of effort to resurrect those patterns that were completely automatic only a few months ago, but which we happily forgot as soon as the snow melted.

It is very busy with the approaching end of semester, and my first time writing letters for students applying to graduate school. It is an incredibly involved and complicated process, and I feel like I need to go back and give my graduate school letter writers some kind of seriously nice gift. In addition, there are plenty of scholarship and grant applications that students need letters for. I am realizing that this letter writing business will only get worse every year, as I have more undergraduate and graduate students pass through my lab, sit on more committees, and accumulate a trail of former students who will need letters for many years to come for various things. I always knew that this was a thing that academics had to budget time for, but I am only now beginning to understand the extent to which it is a part of this job. I am certain that next semester will be less busy, at least at the end of the term, because no one will need letters.

Yesterday was exciting in that we nabbed a free recumbent exercise bike that a retiring professor was giving away. Jeff happened to be checking his email right when the email was sent with the free offer, so we talked about it for about thirty seconds and then called the owner, found a guy with a truck who could go get it, and within half an hour we were the new owners of a pretty nice exercise bike.

Last winter we purchased a used treadmill, and it has turned out to be not as great a purchase as I had hoped. I had expectations of being able to run on the treadmill, or at least walk on the treadmill, with relative ease by the time summer hit. Unfortunately this did not happen, and the treadmill has largely languished in the basement. Whenever I go to the gym I usually do a stint on a stationary recumbent bike for cardio exercise, but getting to the gym can be kind of hassle. So now we have a bike in the basement, and it's no big deal if I only have half an hour, because that's enough time to get a twenty minute cardio workout and do a bit of stretching. It might be better to work out for longer, but it's definitely better to work out a little than not at all, and my trips to the gym have been relatively few and far between lately (besides my yoga class, which I attend every week).

So the treadmill is going. I still can't keep an even pace, and I still need to stagger a little bit from side to side when I walk. Running is still very experimental, and I need to be in control of pacing, timing, and space. With all those constraints, solid ground is much more appropriate. So if you happen to know someone in Regina who needs a used treadmill, give them our number :-)

Breaking up is hard to do

Today has been one of those days – lots of reminders of all the things I can't do anymore, and the things that are hard that used to be easy. I haven't had one of these days for a while, which is good I suppose. I do feel better this evening that I did this afternoon, and I know that this is a temporary state, but one that pops up fairly regularly. I expect that it will be different next week, probably tomorrow, and really most likely even by the time I'm finished writing this blog post. Sometimes redirecting attention to something else really is the answer.

So I've decided to write a post about a failed friendship that was probably doomed from the start, but which we let go on entirely too long, and recently had to end by formally breaking up. It felt a bit like junior high all over again, but fortunately with greater maturity and restraint. It is not often at our age that a friendship gets to the point where a formal breakup is required, but this was one of those unusual and extreme situations.

Just about exactly one year ago, we met someone who is a psychologist in the business department – he studies decision-making and other aspects of social psychology that are relevant to business. He was hired at around the same time that we were, and is a few years younger than us, and has a wife who is a few years younger than him. When he found out that we did not have kids and enjoy playing board games, we very quickly became that their "new best friends," though we very conspicuously never reciprocated by calling them our new best friends.

It was a bit complicated from the very beginning. We didn't know many people in town, we had a number of things in common, and we were actively looking for friends. At the same time, we knew from the start that these individuals had a different way of interacting socially than we enjoyed. There was always lots of talk about work, constantly making social comparisons, being very competitive with everything from board games to work-related things to whose house is better, clear statements that there is a best way to do everything – just do what research says is best when it comes to everything from eating to interacting with students, lots of self-focused talk, and a general lack of being able to read and understand others' perspectives. You would think that we would just have bolted from this situation immediately, but it was a bit hard when we really did want people to socialize with. Getting lots of invitations and being told what great friends we were had the dual effect of making it impossible to just let the friendship fizzle out, and providing enough reward to put up with the stuff we didn't like.

However, we would often come home from spending time with these individuals feeling angry, drained, and just generally not good. Compare that with how it feels to spend time with actual friends, and we generally feel better when we come home than we did when we arrived. We knew it had to end, but weren't sure how to do it. We hoped that the fact that we would both be taking long vacations that did not overlap over the summer (and therefore would not see each other for almost 3 months) would allow for a natural end to the social relationship. However, as soon as they got back into town they called us up and want to make plans.

It all came to a head a little over a month ago when there was a confluence of events. The first included them bringing their cat to our house and the cat peeing on our basement carpet (this is kind of a long story, and probably not worth telling, except to note that they were unaware that their cat actually peed in our basement but told us as they were leaving that he has a tendency to spray so we should do a good check).  The second was an incident in which this "friend" gave a short talk at a psychology students event in which he disparaged psychology, and made some remarks that amounted essentially to the fact that he is better than everyone in the psychology department, and better than all of his colleagues in the business department.

After all this, and numerous other events that I will not enumerate here, we decided we just had to end it. We started out with not-so-subtle hints, but none of these were noticed. In the end, I wrote an email explaining our position, and Jeff thinks it was great – we had been talking for some time about the fact that it was important to make statements that were not something that could be argued with and this is what I did. I told them that we just have different personalities and different values and that we don't want to continue to spend time in an environment that is not consistent with these personalities and values.

So that was that. It seems to have worked, though it took some time to fully sink in I think. This is something that you never think you're going to have to do (or in my case it's something I never really considered as something people have to do in general), so if you find yourself in this position, now that I've been through it I might have some advice :-)

Birthday part two, Halloween

Jeff's favorite month went out with a bang. On his actual birthday (Monday), we had leftover ice cream cake and presents from me. Later in the week, he received a package full of birthday presents from my mom and brothers.

Wearing ski goggles (for winter running) from my brother

Finally, we celebrated Halloween by dressing up and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters.

Jeff as a black hole, me as a witch

Black hole in the dark

Our friends came over with their ten-month-old dressed as a strawberry, and we enjoyed a short visit.

Witch and strawberry playing bang on the table – our favorite game to play together

The weather has continued to be relatively good, with no snow on the ground yet, and daytime highs well above freezing. This weekend was the last weekend of yard work for the season– Jeff took down Halloween decorations, raked leaves, reorganized the garage to make sure there was room for the car, we covered the garden beds so that weeds won't pop up as soon as the snow melts in the spring, and various bits of winter preparation. We have an appointment next Monday to get the winter tires put on the car. I feel like we are more ready for winter than we have ever been, and although I don't want it to arrive right away, at least when it does we are relatively prepared.

We are also enjoying the fact that Saskatchewan doesn't participate in daylight savings time. So while everyone else is extra tired and losing an hour, for us everything is the same. This is one of few times when I feel that I can gloat a bit about living in Saskatchewan :-)