Early Winter Report

Back when we were still going to campus, I was chatting with a colleague in petroleum engineering. He said that, contrary to stereotype about the lazy "kids these days", he was worried about why his students stressed out so much. Why freak out if they lose a single point on a homework problem? It won't even impact their grades! I agreed. They are young and should start learning about work-life balance. Putting in more and more time and sweat starts to have diminishing returns after a certain point. I was thinking about this while I was grading my students' midterms. It's very obvious where some of them belabored and sweated tiny details. They will be GREAT engineers, but I want them to be healthy people, too. You know that thing about putting on your own oxygen masks before helping others?

Well anyway... Here is an attempted selfie with Cricket. She promptly flipped over for a bellyrub. Oops.

The trails have frozen up enough so that we can walk them now! But there is not yet enough snow to ski.

I ordered studded running shoes from Icebug. They are a Swedish company, and I figured they'd know ice. Well, they are very nice! My first run in them, we had a fox dart across the road in front of us, and the dogs wanted to chase it. I was able to hold them back without being dragged mercilessly across the snowy road. :D

Cricket likes to snuggle with DL while he reads.

The other day was sort of warm, so I had to split some logs to have a smaller fire. I was wearing my favorite red flannel shirt. As I split wood in my flannel shirt outside my log cabin, I felt like such a poser! Like one of the LL Bean models with the manicured hands! But then I realized that this *is* my actual life! So!

Look at these faces! I have not eaten an entire apple all by myself since I started working from home!