More darkness, more cold, more everything

Soooo... there has been nothing much besides silence on this blog lately. That's because there has been a multitude of activity in my life: my ever-changing dayjob mornings, my whirlwind afternoons in 5 different classrooms each day, plus my other two jobs I keep on showing up at just in case I become sane. I would like to blog. I would like to call friends back home. I would like to do many things I don't have time to do, because I'm trying to be an okay teacher and an okay human being, all at the same time.

And I'm trying to do this with ever lessening sunlight to guide my path; since the time change on Sunday, the sun sets at around 3:00 and the days are only getting shorter. Monday, it was minus 30 with the windchill, and days with single-digit negative temperatures may be behind me for a while.

Luckily, I got my winter boots in the mail on Friday. They are big and puffy and warm and use a drawstring instead of laces, which is brilliant. I also got a thermos which keeps the coffee from my stovetop espresso maker piping hot all morning, even after the chilly walk to work. These are the simple pleasures I cling to amid the cold and dark. That, and I get a long weekend in 3 days.

Here's a view of the early twilight outside my window: