That morning I took a quick pic to show how long my hair had grown over the past year.

Now I have a whole new issue, how the heck to style my hair. This is something totally new to me. I even bought some type of hair paste, I’m sure it isn’t paste but it sure seems like it.

Not perfect but it is kinda close. Not sure about the weird curl that keeps twisting out of control, maybe more paste will solve that!

My last real haircut was in 1989.

The is me in the red flannel. My hair was so tall I had to lean out the car window. It was different that the whole hallway would part as I walked to class. It was pretty epic. Mostly because I was invisible until that day I put the hawk up.

Shortly after I cut my hair much shorter.

After the corps I vowed to never cut my hair again. I let it grow wild for about two years until I shaved it all off.

Last March I decided to let it grow. That was the first time my kids had seen me with hair. They were 16 and 14 at teh time. Now a year later I randomly decided to get it cut.

This is the first hairstyle since my that beautiful one I had back in 1989.

Will post a picture tomorrow if I can style it. That is stressing me out already.

Why are these weeks so long?

Will the exhaustion come to an end?

There is a car that is much closer than it appears in the mirror.

When I leave the gym in the morning I have to hit the center turn lane before I can merge into the proper lane.

It never fails if there is traffic. People see me. I have my signal on. I am trying to merge into the lane but someone always speeds up to prevent me entering.

This happens from time to time when I travel between buildings.

Why are people so concerned with someone properly merging?

It is like they are trying to win a prize or something.

This annoys me.

If you are a merge preventing person can you tell me why?

One other traffic issue… when did people stop yielding to fire and ambulances?

These are both my books. One I have read and the other just arrived from Amazon.

I don’t mean ordering a book you forgot you had but ordering a new copy on purpose, like to read.

Seems nutty and something I just don’t tell my wife. She would think this is nuts and I am wasting money.

The book I had read before has all my notes and nightlights in it.

I bought a new copy so I wouldn’t be influenced by my old thinking, I could approach this reread with a fresh set of eyes and ideas.

Once I finish then I can compare notes.

Seems very logical to me.

I feel I might tap into some new discoveries this way.

I have this thing with cake. Not angel food or cake with whipped icing. Not grocery store or boxed cake. While they might do in a pinch, they do not really fall into the category of cake. I secretly judge the longevity of a marriage based on the cake served at the reception.

There are many things about me, but this might be the most known Colin fact around.

For my birthday I usually have 2-3 cakes.

I remember many cakes of my life. Once on ship we had a cake for Cinco de Mayo. There was also a cake served if it was your birthday month. These cakes took place back in 1994. I have a memory for cake.

Life needs to be celebrated to the fullest. Cakes make that happen.

Today one of our instructional coaches, Kelly, stopped by the office and brought me this amazing cake pop.

It made the whole entire day better.

I was able to wait about two hours before eating this delicious thing.

What makes a cake pop so good? It is like the took a whole chunk of cake and squeezed it down into a little pop.

Tonight the district was hosting a webinar to discuss the upcoming secondary virtual options for the the 21-22 school year. I was interesting in hearing the new options so I decided to join as a webinar participant.

I was not invited to speak. I was not sent a link to be a panelist. I am not involved in this stage of planning at all. I was just going to listen as a panelist.

I had logged out of all accounts because my son had been using the home computer.

Somehow it put me in as a panelist. And the mic was on. And I yelled.

Really it was just yelling for my daughter who was upstairs so it wasn’t anything terrible but it was loud!

I am usually the one who is setting up all thing tech. I am the one who is on the cutting edge of this but somehow I stumbled into this meeting as a panelist.

It was slightly embarrassing.

This showed up today.

I am only 1/2 way through the cycle yet I am already beyond capacity.

A great representation of how this year has been going. We are working to our capacity yet we need to give more. Out of bandwidth but only 1/2 way through the week.

I have no idea how I used this much so fast.

It is kinda like being exhausted on a Wednesday but no idea why.

Looking forward to spring break yet hoping it isn’t like last year when we shut down.

For the holidays we like to give the kids experiences. Today we used my daughter’s gift, a three hour food tour. It was freezing so I didn’t take too many pictures. Here are a few things we learned along the way.

The building on the right was the first bank in the area, everyone called it The Bank. One of the main reasons for the bank was to house the valuables of the clay mine workers. Most came from Italy and they needed a place to keep valuable items they brought from home. Many lived in rooming houses which left no private or secure areas.

The bank is now a coffee shop but they kept many of the 100 year old items. The terrazzo floor pretty much looks the same as it did when they installed it, I kinda think I want that in my next hour.

One of the best parts was the bank vault, still intact with all the small safe deposit boxes locked tight. I’m pretty sure they are all empty, now it houses a few chairs for the quiet coffee drinker.

The building on the right has a super interesting story. When they first opened they needed something to stand out and bring in customers as the story was like many in the area. What he did was start to give away a bottle of bleach with every grocery purchase. In those days men mostly wore white button up shirts and the napkins people in the area used were white. Both of these require bleach.

The man bought industrial bleach and diluted it in his bathtub. Cheap for him and it built his business. Facinating!

Shotgun houses. Our guide told us some of these were built with timbers from the St. Louis 1904 Fair. Once the event was over someone was knocking down all the structures and burning the wood. A bunch of the clay miners saved the wood and used it to build these homes. Many didn’t have hallways and closets to reduce the tax. Interesting how what we tax changes over the years, always pivoting to tax us as much as they can.

If you zoom in to the house you can see some odd colors on the second story. It is chalk, plaster and concrete. The neighborhood used to be filled with these colors but now just two remain. It is said the owners did years ago as most houses were just plain brick, it was a way to make everything stand out.

This is so against code now but years ago people would buy a lot and build two homes on it. Rent own to help pay off the other. The second home was usually much smaller and pushed way to the back of the lot.

The building on the left has some very interesting brick you can see around the neighborhood. I saw brown, green and white examples. I’m not sure what it was called but it had a very shiny glaze on it. Fragile which has resulted in most of it is now gone.

A better shot of the green.

We ended back at the old bank. The white package is ten pounds of pasta. Pretty excited to try it out.

While it was freezing we had a great time. One thing stands out to me while this was a food tour I mostly took pictures of the buildings! Not sure why but that was facinating to me.

One other thing stood out, the number of people out has dramatically dropped this week. I worry some of these places we went today might not survive until the down turn in business.

Our plan is to buy a few gift cards to the small places we like to go. While it might not make a huge difference it is better than doing nothing.

I think we are all in the same car at this point and we are out of gas.

Yesterday the conversations were fast and intense. A lot of speculation.

Today it was intense.

Then the president spoke, national emergency.

The governor spoke, state of emergency.

We are not closing schools at this time. The governor said he would not close. While that is a relief it does nothing to reduce the exhaustive tension.

I drove from building to building today with the gas light on. I knew I should fill up but there wasn’t time.

Went to lunch spot, which as oddly empty, and didn’t fill up.

Drove home and finally stopped to fill up.

As I pumped I wondered how many of us are running just like that, pushing until it is nearly too late.

We don’t stop to care for ourselves as we are constantly taking care of others.

I fear soon we will close and then a number of us, if we are not careful, will be working and on call 24/7. I feel it is the unspoken expectation.

Do I dare to take email off my phone? Do I dare set do not disturb up so I do not even get notifications from the emails, texts, and various messages from constantly buzzing and dinging?

They say to practice self care but I am not sure how at this point.

While I dream of doing just that, I know I won’t.