With temperatures near zero (Fahrenheit) this morning, a crystalline fog rolled off the river before the sun came up. Standing outside in front of the school entrance, I was surrounded by the shimmering ice fog. It is similar in structure to the ice fog that develops from the collective breath of the residents of Fairbanks when the temperature hits -30 F, but it was thankfully not quite that cold. Like other ice fogs, it sparkled as the miniature ice crystals reflected any source of light. It was like being surrounded in pixie dust.

It felt like I was in one of those romantic or fantasy movies where sparks are floating in slow motion through the air as the camera pans around the main character. Nor was that the only delight the ice fog had to offer. Looking over at the parking lot, pillars of light formed from parking lot lights and car headlights shot towards the sky like signals to the heavens. As the cars drove through the lot, these light pillars undulated, looking very much like a miniature (and substantially closer) version of the aurora.

As a parting gift, the icy fog settled and froze on the surfaces of the surrounding trees. All of the them look like they have been coated with a high-quality version of the fake foam snow that some Christmas decorations have. Even after a day of sunny skies, the shadowed side of my drive home was still covered in that beautiful frost.

I love winter.

My children have requested that I create a one-off D&D adventure that they can play during a day or two that Katrina and Peter are up visiting. The request is that I run a short game that is not based on a boxed adventure, but something that comes from my own imagination. It's been a while since I've run a D&D game, let alone crafted a new adventure. As I am still a little shaky on 5th edition, I'm not quite sure about the challenge rating. Also, aside from Trevor and myself, no one else has much (or any) experience in 5th edition, so I don't want to make anything too complex. I was thinking of making an adventure that starts at 3rd level and can take them up to 5th or 6th (depending on how seriously they are playing).

The setting is also something I need to consider. We're playing a classic fantasy setting (not steampunk or sci-fi) so I could set it in Dragon World or Lodestone, but I could also create something unique. Personally, I was a fan of the short-lived cartoon The Pirates of Dark Water and wouldn't mind running an adventure in that Waterworld-esque setting. I was also thinking of a Machu Picchu-style campaign city with the "dungeons" being mountaintop ruins. 

It can't be too involved as we might not even have two full days of playing, and this could be the only time that we ever play with these characters. I could have a couple of options ready and go with the one that their characters seem to fit best. One way or another, my mind is buzzing with possibilities.

Although next week is technically the final week in ordinary time, its Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. Thus, today kind of felt like the end of ordinary time as my green dress shirts get moved farther back into my closet and the purple shirts move forward. It is fitting, then, that today's Gospel reading has Jesus referring to the end of time.

I find it interesting that Jesus provides signs of the end of days as "the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken." To me, this sounds a lot like a description of what the collapse of our universe might look like. Jesus seems to be truly talking about the end of time--an event that is both billions of years away and, from our own perspective, as soon as the end of our lifetimes. 

Like many imaginative young people, I once pictured myself as living in a time that would see the end of existence. Considering the continual threat of nuclear annihilation where I spent my formative years, it is no surprise that I focused a great deal of my attention on post-apocalyptic stories. Even with the "end of days" seemingly around the corner, I was still certain that life would somehow continue on. I believed this despite the multiple "christian" movies I saw at various bible camps that depicted the end of days.

God has already promised us, through Noah, that He will not wipe out humanity. His death and resurrection shook the universe nearly two millennia ago, and we live now in an era where our salvation has already been purchased. For us, the day of our Lord's coming is the day of our death in this world. The universe still has quite a bit of time remaining in it even if we won't experience it in this form of existence.

Thanksgiving is still nearly two weeks away, and I am chomping at the bit to start putting up Christmas decorations. Certainly, part of it is how much our house is lit up once we put lights around nearly all of our windows and our staircase. I'm also excited because I found some LEGO buildings on our trip to Anchorage that I would like to use as part of our decorations this year. I think that our trip to Alyeska might have also put me in more of a Christmas mood.

I'm also interested to see where we are going to put the tree this year. Its normal corner has been commandeered by a new plant table which is not as easy to move as the previous one was. Janelle has suggested that she would like to use this opportunity to rearrange some of our living room. We will have to see what happens.

While I do put up Christmas decorations during what is actually Advent, I also keep them up until at least Epiphany, and sometimes as late as Candlemas. I look forward to these two months of brightness in our house as the darkness reaches its greatest point outside. I just have to let myself wait a couple more weeks.

When we visited Alyeska this past "spring" vacation, Janelle and I agreed that we needed to visit there without the boys. As we were looking to make a trip into Anchorage, we decided to make a date night out of the experience and head up on a Friday so we could enjoy a quite meal together and a hotel stay without listening to any boy arguments. It turned out to be an excellent idea.

I'm going to keep this short as I have a second post still to write and it's already late. However, I do want to mention that Girdwood and Alyeska almost perfectly fit my image for what a snowy village should look like. This was especially true as we arrived between snowstorms. At night, the lights along the road and walking paths as well as those that decorated the trees only heightened what was--for me, at least, a very romantic setting. 

Due to Veterans Day, we did not have school today (although, we will be back tomorrow). With the addition of several inches of fluffy snow, it was easy to think of it as a sort of snow day. In fact, I even ended up waking fairly close to my regular time; it did not feel right to go back to sleep.

With the help of one of Janelle's friends yesterday evening, Scarlet was ready for plowing today. For the most part, the plowing went smoothly--except when Scarlet partially ran me over. It was certainly a mea culpa moment, but the short of it is that somehow managed to get "plowed" under her front right wheel, punctuated by the actual plow hitting my elbow. I seem to be fine, but I have some sore spots.

Later, the boys and I did the less dangerous activity of watching Free Guy. It was not a great movie, but it was still a lot of fun. I would happily watch it over and over again.

Speaking of a lot of fun, I also watched the SoHi performance of Annie. It was a great production with several of my students absolutely stunning me in their roles. The music, production, and lighting were all well done. I kind of wish that I had convinced the boys to come with me.

It feels strange to need to get ready for work tomorrow.

Several of my students expressed surprise that I was not wearing a Hawaiian shirt today. Due to a special weather statement which initially predicted four to eight inches of snow, I decided to pull one of my snow sweaters from the closet and wear it in support. Back when I worked in districts that had snow days, these sweaters were my go-to outfits. Even here, some people have attached a jokingly superstitious aura to them. I kind of wore the sweater today to play on that idea.

Strangely, due to reasons that I do not fully understand, our district chose to take Veterans Day off (tomorrow) but still have school on Friday. With the upcoming storm, I told each of my classes that I was wearing my snow sweater as a way of showing my support for tonight's snowfall totals. I told them that I saw that there was a lot of snow forecasted, and then said, "In fact, I don't think that there will be school tomorrow."

It makes me smile every time.

I've been having extremely vivid dreams for quite a few nights in a row. When I say vivid, I mean full-color, surround sound, 3D touch sorts of dreams. Now, most of them have fallen down the normal and predictable paths of being tied to teaching in a new school, moving into a new home, or traveling to a new location. However, the one on Saturday night-Sunday morning was quite a bit different. No doubt inspired by my recent D&D adventure, the rewatching of season one of the Witcher, and my rereading of the two books in the Kingkiller Chronicles, I found myself in a fantasy setting.

I was with a group of friends, hunting down a demon-creature. I was using naming-magic in an attempt bind the monster. We barely had it under control when a dark haired woman (likely inspired by Yennifer) portalled into the area we were in (I think it was a Stonehenge sort of place, but underground). At first I was relieved to see her (must have been an ally), but then she did something to release the creature from our mystical binding, causing the entire group to cry out.

However, when the beast moved to escape, the woman said an incantation and power seemed to flow from the creature and settle into a ring on her finger in the form of bluish script. Somehow, I knew that she had tied the creature's magical ability to fly to her ring, giving her or anyone used the ring the power of magical flight. I realized what she was doing and called out that it was too dangerous, but she continued anyway (a total Yennifer move), binding more of the creature's powers to different rings, each power appearing as a separate script in a different color. Somehow, I knew that the writing that formed was the name of the power trapped.

Finally, she tied the monster's life-essence to herself. However, instead of binding the power to a ring, the script appeared across her arm and chest as a tattoo. It was clear that this was a particularly dangerous method of gaining power. Although it had the benefit of not being able to be removed like the rings, it directly tied her life force to the creature in some way. I don't know what happened from there as I woke up just as the tattoo was being "written" like someone was signing their name.

Since Sunday morning, I have been trying to figure out where this idea came from as it seems really familiar to me. My attempts to look it up haven't produced any results. It seems like an interesting magic system to use in a future story. 

Although my final term at Walden does not officially end until Sunday of next week, I made my last contributions to the course, posting one last discussion post and submitting my final draft of my term plan. It's a strange feeling. I've been making discussion board posts almost every week for a little over five years now. During that same time, I've had regular deadlines for submissions of assignments, term plans, and dissertation drafts. Now that it's over, I kind of feel a bit rudderless. What's next?

In the first reading and today's Gospel, the focus is on widows who give what little they have. In his homily, our deacon talked about the, often underappreciated, women in our parish who continually contribute their time, treasure, and talent for the sake of their community. Like the women in today's readings, they give what they have because that is within their character.

The other commonality is that these gifts are given out of love rather than some desire for reward or acknowledgement. Quite often, these acts of love go unrecognized, yet knowing that will likely be the case, these people do them anyway. Certainly, sometimes it's because people cannot bear to have things left undone; however, it is more often out of a desire to make our parish--and perhaps our world--a better place. 

As an attention-seeking person, I admire the ability of others to do good works without recognition. Even when I manage to do so without human witnesses, I still find myself hoping that spiritual forces are taking note. It's clearly an area of mine that needs more work.

While I do not mind gaining the hour this weekend, it yet another reminder of my previously documented hatred for Daylight Savings Time. At least on this end of it, I can appreciate regaining the hour that I lost earlier this year due to this ongoing madness. Still, especially in Alaska, there seems to be a growing consensus that this ridiculous system needs to stop. It would be nice to have it end; for that matter, I would be for switching over to Zulu Time and being done with time zones entirely.

Anyway, I plan on spending my refunded hour sleeping as I've been well behind in that area for a while. I'm just about to sign off and visit all of my clocks that do not automatically update. This way the correct time will be on them in the slightly brighter morning.

Our schedule at SoHi changed this week. We got rid of our Wednesday schedule that had a Advisory/Homeroom as its first period and created a Flex Friday. On a Flex Friday, all classes are on a reduced schedule (like our early release schedule) with school ending at 12:55. However, the buses do not arrive until 2:55. Students who can and would like to go home are allowed to do so; otherwise, they are supposed to report to specific areas for the equivalent of a study hall.

That hour and a half is designated for preparatory time for core subject area teachers. Quite frankly, teachers are running on depleted energy reserves. Considering the substitute shortage which often leads to teachers subbing on their prep periods and the other added stresses from this pandemic, something needed to be done to give teachers time to grade assignments, prep lessons, and complete other necessary tasks. I know that I am farther behind than previous years in planning and posting my courses' content for my students, and many other teachers are similarly overwhelmed.

I have heard more teachers talk about leaving the profession this year than any year previous. There are a variety of factors behind this. All of the factors that have led to the "Great Resignation" across many occupations this year plus the added stresses of teaching in a climate that has been increasingly hostile to teachers are making many fantastic educators want to leave. 

Thus, I am quite pleased that our principal and assistant principal took this proactive step to help lighten some of the load. While there are still some kinks to work out, I personally felt relieved today as I was able to use that extra time to get a few things done (specifically, recording videos of lessons) that have been difficult to accomplish otherwise. To be clear, I am still quite behind where I would like to be, but it finally felt like I had a chance to get caught up.

When I left my house this morning, it was pouring rain. I was surprised to find that there were inches of snow on the ground at Skyview when I dropped off Connor. As the day progressed, I was delighted to watch out my classroom windows as the rain changed to snow and then the snow continued to fall. By the time I got home, we had a couple of wet, sloppy inches of snow waiting.

At present, Scarlet is still not ready for plowing. We have been waiting on a part that had to be reordered and then has been delayed in its shipping time and time again. Thus, instead of plowing, I pulled the snow shovels out of the garage and attacked the driveway with my two youngest children. I did not want to put this off on the chance that we get hit with a hard freeze tonight or tomorrow, making this first snow an icy underlayer for the rest of the winter. The boys did quite well, and we managed to clear the driveway in just a little over an hour.

Considering the issue with my left shoulder yesterday and the fact that my right shoulder decided to join in today, I am a little concerned about how much I will want to whine tomorrow. I took some ibuprofen as a preventative measure, so I hope that some solid rest will keep me in better shape for tomorrow. I definitely got in a workout today.

It's nice to see the yard all snow-covered. Even with the shoveling, snow almost always brings me joy. I hope that it's here to stay for the winter.

Unfortunately, as I have gotten older, I have discovered that I can hurt myself by sleeping. Such was the case this morning when I woke up to find that I had somehow injured my left shoulder during the night. It was not a great start to my day.

There really isn't much pain, it's more of a phantom ache that crescendos if I try to move my arm laterally to the left. In fact, there are a few movements that my body is not allowing me to do at all with my left arm. What started as an irritation this morning thrummed its way up to a full-blown annoyance by the time I got home and could take some ibuprofen. 

I've had this problem before with it getting bad enough that I saw a doctor the last time. Based on that experience, it's just a matter of resting it and getting the inflammation down so that the nerve doesn't have so much pressure on it. Hopefully, a good night or two of sleep will have it working properly again.