Do I stay or do I go now?

As I mentioned in the last post, the end of Christmas break saw me as lazy and depressed because I wasn't social or productive.  For the last several years, hiking has been one of my escapes and basically, any time I've had a week or so free, I've looked to get away and marvel in God's creation.  The biggest drawbacks to that are that 1) I live in Indiana, where decent hiking is several hours away and 2) airplane tickets are expensive, at least on a Midwestern teachers salary.  Between backpacker.com and bigroads.com, I've got a list of about 250 different awesome hikes in the states.  However, very few of them are in the midwest, but one I've been eying for a while is Zaleski state forest out in Ohio, which is about four hours away from me.  I contemplated going several times over the end of Christmas break, but didn't go.  Now, I've got Monday off and the only thing I have on Tuesday is Calc recitation so I've got the time, but its going to get really cold in the next couple of days so I think I'll save some gas and hotel money and just stay here still (possibly regretting it) but there's a chance I head out tomorrow morning at 7.

Morning edit: I did not go.  Instead, I sit here in my apartment, updating this post.  I still think I made the right decision, but I also think its a little bit irresponsible not to road trip when gas is $1.60.  I will make up for this at spring break, and after the semester ends, and for my first honeymoon, but still...

Education is so lame

Education is so lame when you bitch and you moan.  Second semester officially starts in a little less than twelve hours and I'm sure there are plenty of people not looking forward to it.  I am not one of those people.  I am very excited to be back because even though I now have significantly less time to read and work out and dream about all the trips I'm going to take, that's actually awesome because I'll still do those things and ideally I'll cut out the massive amounts of tv I've been watching.  I've had so much time on my hands and for the majority of it, I haven't been productive or overly social, especially outside of time spent with Lindsey.  Maybe its still me being too hard on myself, but this lack of productivity leads to me being mopey and honestly, a little depressed.  I'm mad at myself for just wasting time and getting fat instead of taking this time to relax and appreciate that for what it is.  There are so many of my friends who would kill for a month off over the holidays and here I am whining about it.  Yep, so be it.  For now, I'm thrilled to be getting back to school because it'll mean I'm actually doing something useful again.  In another two months, I do guarantee you that I will be ready for spring break though.  Where should I go?

How am I the lucky one?

The goals I initially tracked for 2015 were pushups, pullups, miles and having three epic life experiences.  I stopped tracking all the fitness stuff fairly early on as my body decided to break in several ways in the past year(ish).  I failed on the three epic life experiences, only getting one and a half.  It was still a pretty darn good year for me though.  I got engaged to my best friend.  I hiked all over a bunch of national parks out west with my other best friend.  I met my first niece.  I ran my second marathon and despite cramping, still finished under four hours and was able to hold off vomiting until about an hour afterward and it happened in the parking lot and not the bus so hooray for small miracles.  Julie did much better in the half marathon.  I was on hand in Cincinnati with Lisa to watch the Mets clinch the NL East.  We sat next to Daniel Murphy's cousin and wife, who annoyed us before the game started.  I explored mountains in both Virginia and Georgia.  I'm certainly not complaining.  I'm not trying to brag here either, even though it may seem like it.  One of my goals for 2016 is to better appreciate the things I already have and do less of comparing myself to others.  That should be a way I can make my life better.  Here are my other goals for 2016:

1) Get married.  Lindsey already said yes to my proposal and our venue just charged me a couple grand for a deposit so this is all good to go.

2) Buy a house.  Or a condo.  Or a townhome.  Or a really nice cardboard box somewhere to keep costs down.  What? Lindsey and I need a place to live and I haven't convinced her to move to Anderson yet and we're both teachers so we're poor.

3) Get promoted to associate professor.  My application has already been accepted so Lord willing, all that needs to occur for this to happen is for me to stay both alive and employed at AU until August.

4) Go somewhere new.  All right, this is my goal for basically every day of my life.  Lisa and I will be going to PNC Park in Pittsburgh for our new baseball stadium.  Luke and I will be going to some new national parks in May.  Lindsey and I will be going on a honeymoon hopefully somewhere new and then somewhere new and expensive (again, for us) over next winter's break.  We're also going to be going to our new  house/condo/etc.  I'd love to be able to get out to a new state.  I was able to knock off Virginia and Georgia from the list of states I haven't been to this year.  I'd love to get another one this year with a trip planned to South Carolina in 2017 for a math conference.  I'm currently at 32 (counted by memories, a couple are pretty weak) or 35 (physically been).  Most of what I need is either the Northeast or the deep South.

5) Not break myself.  I want to spend significantly under my deductible for health insurance this year.  Hitting that the past two years hasn't been fun.

I'm going to stop there.  Those are my five goals for this year, most of which are already planned.  It looks like it'll be a great year.