Just curious

I teach in a face-to-face classroom, yet all of the assignments are given and turned in via the learning management system. I realized the other day that I give all of my comments and feedback digitally as well instead of printing their work, writing on it, and then handing it back in person. I began to wonder if my students expected me to turn in paper copies all along and if they were thrown off by my doing everything digitally. I never thought to ask them, although I did tell them that the feedback was online and had to show a couple of students how to locate the feedback.

So now I'm curious, what do you normally do? If you teach face-to-face, do you have students turn in hard copies of their work and give them back the hard copies or do you do everything via the learning management system and do things digitally?

Cooking with the kiddo

We have already started cooking with Little T. She loves to pull out the stool and help us whisk until we see bubbles, stir while we sing, and measure out and pour ingredients. Of course she is only 2 and a few months so there is only so much she can do, but she is great at whisking and pouring! Her scooping abilities usually result in a big mess and we laugh about being covered in flour. She loves to help make pancakes and since this is something I always did with my dad, I really enjoy making them with her (our latest were whole wheat with dark chocolate chips - perfect with sage chicken sausage on the side). 

I grew up baking cookies with my mom and can’t wait to decorate cookies with my mom, Little T, and hopefully my sister this holiday. Over Thanksgiving, Little T helped me cook the blueberry bread puddings that I took to both family dinners. My in-laws were surprised to see her helping since she is so young, but we enjoy it so why not. She helped butter the dish, tear bread,  count out scoops of bread and berries as well as other tasks. When Little T is older I will teach her some of my mom’s family recipes. I can’t wait!

Did you grow up cooking with your parents, grandparents, and so on? Do you cook with your children?

A Glorious Decision! :)

Another post about a decision I made - one that has had an immediate positive impact on my life.

This morning I woke up and was feeling much worse than the last several days so I headed to Urgent Care. The hour wait was worth it because the doctor gave me an antibiotic. I rarely get antibiotics because I am allergic to several of them so I was relieved to be given something, especially since I am solo with Little T this weekend and need to 100%.  It will take about 48 hours for the meds to really work, and I am still loaded up on Emergen-c, Mucinex-D (works the best, which is why I'm taking it, but it still makes me anxious and makes my skin crawl), and Tylenol and Zyrtec as needed. I made some chicken noodle soup with whole wheat orzo, ginger, garlic, and spinach and have eaten some of that as well. I was going to spend time grading during the break between my two dissertation interviews, but instead I slept and it was glorious!  I awoke did some work and now I am going to go hang out with the family and rest for the remainder of the evening.  The pile of papers will still be there in the morning, and I can take care of them then. I am supposed to be on campus tomorrow, but I’m not sure I am up for it and am making that decision tomorrow. Plus, who knows if I’m still contagious. That decision is for another day. 

My Decision

So I've decided not to teach next semester, which was a hard decision to make. I mentioned this before,  but I've only just started really thinking about this decision and what it means.

Part of me can't believe that after all of the work I put into the class this semester, I'm not going to teach again. Part of me wonders if I can hack it as a professor if I can't teach one class, work on my dissertation, work on other research, and do minimal tasks for my other assistantship. But I know that I could do it if I wanted. I know I will miss teaching but I finally made the decision to put me first. Is this selfish? Perhaps. But right now I am okay with this choice. I think a lot of it has to do with this life decision and how it impacts the rest of my life. I am choosing less money to spend more time with Little T and Mr. T. Sometimes I feel there is a lot of tension in my marriage because I am only spending spare moments with Mr. T and Little T and because so much is falling on Mr. T's shoulders right now. Have I mentioned how amazing he is? Perhaps it is in my head, but I wonder if he feels overburdened. I ask him and he says that he understands that right now this is how it will be. But will things change once I go into academia as a career? So I am choosing him - I am choosing Little T - I am choosing Me over it all. I am choosing not to teach to spend more time with my data and dissertation research. I have realized that this decision has to do with my quality of life. I know I will be swamped next semester. I know Little T will still be in school most every day. I know that I will miss teaching. I know that I will get to spend time working on my dissertation, which makes me happy. I plan to start back my exercise program so that I am doing more cardio and perhaps yoga or pilates along with my back exercises. So for now, I'm just going to focus on that and the rest will fall into place.

I apologize for this medicine-laced, rambling post and hope it makes sense to someone else besides me.

Great holiday break!

We had a great holiday break although Mr. T and I both have horrible head colds. I am homesick as usual. Praying the Little T doesn't get it! Had a great Black Friday shopping experience and am almost finished with all holiday shopping. The couple of things left will be ordered on Amazon. This week and next just running through end of the semester stuff and conducting dissertation interviews. This weekend spending some one-on-one time with Little T. Have a couple of babysitting play dates arranged so I can work and the rest of the time is hang-out fun time! I pray this cold is gone by then. I am loaded up on mucinex and emergen-c and am eating lots of pomegranate seeds and drinking lemon-ginger tea. Plus, the neti pot has been wonderful! Was proud of myself for going back to bed yesterday morning and going to bed early last night since I knew today would be a long day on campus. Hitting the sack early tonight as well, although I can't sleep in tomorrow...so good night all.

Addressing Blended Families on Holiday Cards: Quick Question

So I am trying to get holiday cards in order early so Mr. T can help stuff and label, and I don't know how to address one of the cards. My ex-SIL is remarried, but we were friends prior to the first marriage and divorce and before we saw the "other" side of her. Although we aren't great friends or anything, we like to remain civil and send Happy Birthday texts and whatnot because of our niece. We would like to send a Christmas card to her and our niece but aren't sure how to address it since she also has a new husband and step-children.

I was thinking:
Ex-SIL First Name Last Name, Niece First Name Last Name, & Family
SO
Jane Smith, Sally Jones, & Family

Is this appropriate? I wanted to just do Jane Smith and Sally Jones but it felt odd leaving off her family. Thoughts?

Busy Busy...

I've been traveling and playing catch-up with grading and what not, which is why I've been MIA for the last few weeks. Things just get so crazy and blogging gets bumped to the bottom of the list. Good news is that I caught up with grading (for the time being at least) and have taken time to work on my consulting gig. Other really awesome and great things have happened related to these trips, but I can't talk about them. I've gotten a large chunk of my Christmas shopping completed over the last few months so we've only got a few more things to pick up and my ortho doctor and physical therapist have both said that my back is doing much better and that I need to keep up with my exercises and don't need to see them right now since I am much stronger. We are traveling to visit family over Thanksgiving, which is exciting! I've also been enjoying smutty vampire novels and the break I get from reading them. But I've put myself on restriction from all leisurely reading until the end of the semester. I am going to finish collecting data this semester, but I have a lot more data than I really think I realized.But I am tired... sleep isn't happening as often as I would like. Wow, what a really random post...