I've been very unenthusiastic about blogging lately. I'm not even sure why - no more drama in the neighborhood or my personal life (at least not involving anyone living in my house) and nothing major going on that takes all my time and attention. I think I just feel like I have nothing worthwhile to say. I wonder how much of that is because of the depression I still deal with and how much is because nothing major is going on (good or bad)?
I do have some pretty nice things to talk about, however. I'm going back east in less than two weeks to visit with friends and family that haven't seen me for at least two years - for once the trip will even include friends in New England, who normally get bypassed in favor of the family I have spread over three states. Most of these friends haven't seen me in over 20 years (with only two exceptions I can think of off the top of my head - and one of those was a reader at my wedding).
Galen and I will be arriving in Manchester on Christmas night (this way we get to spend Christmas day until about noon with Daddy, who won't be coming with us). Thanks to my brother, we'll spend the night at a hotel near the airport, and in the morning I'll pick up a rental car and the fun begins. Other than planning to spend the 27th at my brother's house so my mom can bake cookies with all the kids and spending the day there with my dad's side of the family on Jan 2nd, I have no specific plans. I'm hoping the weather will permit a short trip to DC and I'd dearly love to go skiing while I'm in New England, but otherwise I'm just looking forward to spending time with friends I haven't seen for much too long.
I'm also finished with the two classes I took this semester. The logic class was pretty much a waste of time but at least I have it on record officially now (I audited it back in the day, but that's not the same thing). The discrete mathematics class did exactly what I had hoped it would do - convinced me that going back to school to do ANOTHER graduate degree in mathematics was something I wanted. I'm torn now between taking one undergrad semester at ASU to take the two required math classes I need to enter their graduate program (along with two others just for enrichment), or taking a programming class and another mathematics course at the community college. The problem with ASU is I'd have to take daytime classes and I'm not really set to do that for spring. The problem with the community college is I'd have to wait another year to start the graduate program because they only admit in the fall.
Galen's educations is coming along nicely. He's getting really good at his reading, although he struggles to remember all the different ways the long-vowel sounds can be represented. Practice will remedy that I'm sure. We also need to work a bit on recognizing the difference between 'b'/'d' and 'p'/'q' - the last one doesn't come up as often, and he does know which one is which when I ask him what that letter is in the word, but when he's reading a passage he gets a little sloppy about carefully distinguishing between those pairs unless I remind him. His math lessons are going well, although he's clearly a little bored with them. I'm having to be creative with those because he frequently goes off on tangents that are several units ahead of what we're currently working on. I can only imagine the kind of problems that would create in a classroom where the teacher really can't just go with him on these side-trips. It actually gives me a little more sympathy for what my teachers went through with me.
In recognition of the fact that I've marveled over every stage of Galen's life and how his interests shift and change, here's a list of things that he currently loves to do:
1) Go to the zoo - the spider monkeys, the giraffes, and the elephants are his current favorites
2) Go to the park - playing in the sand and walking/riding around the lake
3) Building elaborate track layouts with his Thomas Wooden Railway set
4) Building elaborate contraptions with his Legos
5) Coloring - until recently coloring hasn't been a favorite activity, but this seems to have changed
6) Disney Channel kids programming - Chuggington, Handy Manny, Special Agent Oso, etc.
7) Playing with trucks and cars of all kinds, both inside and out - boy can this kid get dirty!
8) Wearing holes in the knees of perfectly good pants - LOL!
9) He seems to be fascinated by the concept or trash and recycling because many of the contraptions he builds (or imagines) have to do with recycling or trash processing - I sense a field trip to a local facility in our near future
10) Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - again, this is a relatively recent thing
Mommy's current favorite thing to do hasn't changed much - I love to read. I hope my love of reading will rub off on Galen, because I credit most of my achievements to it.
That's all for now because it's time to get Galen ready for bed. Night all!
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