Can I do it? Yes I can!

So here I am. Writing a blog...something I've always wanted to do, but never took the time. Who wants to read about me anyway??? I've come to the conclusion that while no one else may read this, putting the words on paper may help me now and along the way...and if someone else reads it, great! If someone else comments on what I've written, fabulous! If someone else can say, "Wow, I'm not alone!", well then that would just be off the chain (I'm a huge Guy Fieri fan)!

A little about me and what I envision my blog to be.....I'm a newly graduated PhD in Nursing, 2nd semester on tenure-track assistant professor (for those of you not in academia, new assistant professors have anywhere from 5-7 years to "prove" themselves in teaching, scholarship, and service...if you meet the "criteria", which are different at every institution, then you get "tenure", which doesn't guarantee your job forever, but you can't be fired for differing viewpoints or opinions; it's what almost every academic strives for). I teach at a SLAC (small liberal arts college) in the southeastern US and this is their first year having a nursing program, so we're writing everything from scratch...a little stressful and busy, but it's fun getting to do things "your" way. Oh, and by the way, my institution technically doesn't have tenure, but a "continued contract" which is essentially the same thing. I'm married and have two children who are almost teenagers. I'm a Christian. And I used to weigh 338 lbs...yep, you read that right...338 lbs. I had gastric bypass surgery in January of 2011 and started my new life. I have since lost between 100-110 lbs and have sort of stalled out in the weight loss department. And I want to run triathlons. One of my BFs (who's totally thin and healthy) trained with me all summer of 2011 and we completed a mini-sprint distance tri...and I loved it. Unfortunately, I took all of 2012 off to finish my PhD dissertation and then started this new job, sooo....now I'm back at it. I've signed up for 5 tri's in 2013 with a goal of completing an Olympic distance tri in September and a half-marathon in November, and a half-Ironman in 2014 along with a full marathon...crazy, right? So this blog will be my ramblings about academia, my procrastination with completing scholarly-type work (which I should be doing now instead of blogging), and my training for these upcoming tri's...can I balance it all? Can I do tri's and tenure-track and be a wife and mother and responsible church member??? I'm going to tri...join me for the ride!

Now, I have to get a manuscript revision done that I promised to a colleague would be done in October...and here I am :)  I'll be blogging later...