Friday, November 27, 2009

Staying Local for Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we had to decline the invitation to join my family at my uncle's house near Ithaca, New York. Getting there without the use of private automobiles presented too large of a challenge for me to wrap my head around in the midst of finishing all the class projects that were due the day before break began. That was unfortunate as my cousin recently got married and I've not yet had the opportunity to meet his wife or congratulate him in person. Would it have been worth the carbon footprint to drive out to Ithaca to stay in touch with family? Probably, but it will have to wait for another time.

Instead we spent Thanksgiving with our neighbor up the hill. It was a great day with lots of yummy food and I enjoyed spending time with Barbara and her family. One of the benefits of not traveling for the holidays is that the time that would have been spent packing and traveling can instead be spent on other things. We've been able to spend time as a family--reading to Zeb endlessly--and get caught up on some of our postponed projects.

The Thanksgiving break from classes has also provided a break from commuting. I haven't ridden my bike in three days--the longest stretch since classes started at the end of August. I've slept in a lot and my cold seems to finally be clearing up. It's amazing what rest will do.

Zeb has started commenting on our biking-lifestyle. I guess he thinks it is too new fangled or something: Three times now when we've tried to put him in his bike seat, he's said "No. Zeb walk!" and taken off down the road toward town. Maybe someday he'll be the one to start an experiment in only walking for a semester.

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