all grasping at something

 DD came down from Flagstaff for the weekend specifically to put up our Christmas tree and decorate the house.  I told her bluntly when she was here for Thanksgiving that I need help, and so she came down.  There's a sweetness to it that is tinged with worry for her, she's fretting about what to do after graduation this spring.  DH is pushing her towards grad school but she is thoroughly burned out on academia and doesn't want to go.  Given the circumstances, I don't blame her. 

The world is such a mess.

My partner teacher discovered a new (to us) and pernicious form of cheating this week, and investigating that ate up hours of precious time.  Now my team is trying to prevent administration from imposing a consequence on the student that is more of a punishment to us teachers. Nothing to do but wait to see how it plays out. I'm bracing myself for more unreasonable demands on my time.

This week I wracked my brain to figure out whether my 8th graders could do their thermal energy engineering challenge (build an insulating device) and I had to admit defeat.  The students can't share materials, can't work in groups, and can't go to the science lab.  For their static electricity and magnet labs, I was able to make little packets so everyone had their own materials.  For this challenge, there's just too much stuff to do that -- and I have no way of testing >25 devices in a single class period! I thought about putting them into the (always nearly empty now) refrigerator in the staff lounge overnight, but there wouldn't be room.  

The grading situation is so dire I literally can't assign my students anything else that's going to require lots of time to grade until I get clear.  That may happen this weekend since DD came down -- I was able to finish my religion and 95% of 7th grade for this week (the lessons are done, just need to be scheduled in Google Classrooms.)  That leaves 8th grade and writing a new test which will auto-grade instead of having the students design, build, and test devices, and then write it all up.  With focus, I can finish it all before heading to Mass tomorrow afternoon, which leaves Saturday evening and all Sunday for tackling my grades.

At least I hope that all happens.  I end up getting so burned out I have to just stop and do nothing for a while to recover.  Sometimes my diversion is writing a letter to DS2 at boot camp.  I believe this week started the more difficult parts of the training, including the 5-mile full-gear hike and perhaps the gas chamber.  

Whenever I think of him, I get a fluttery feeling of worry that I have to tamp down.  I remind myself to think, he's with good people, because my instinct is to think, he's safe.  Oh, he's moderately safe where he is, but he's really not safe.  He's learning how to be a soldier, and that's a life of inherent risk, and his MOS is insanely dangerous.  So I have to get out of the habit of thinking of him as safe and move on to thinking about him as still alive, and more importantly, happy. because every time I hear from him he just sounds terrific: enlisting was the best decision he ever made.  

This was such an odd week of ups and downs.  I had a fantastic philosophical discussion with my class one day this week on the nature of time, and a great class today with one of the 8th grade sections.  Unfortunately all the good vibes were squished by discussing how to deal with the cheater. I'm beginning to feel a bit manic. I have moments of feeling so light and hopeful but they don't last, and anxiety just crashes over everything.  

I know I'm over-tired. I'm up now because I fell asleep working/reading.  It was probably only 20 or 30 minutes but it was enough of a recharge that I'm still up now, but I'm going to bed asap and I'm not setting an alarm, for once!

slacker

 I am compelled to write again because that last post was so dire I don't want it to be at the top any more.

I don't exactly know why it was a such a hard week last week, and that day in particular so bad (beyond the typical exhaustion).  It really was bad, too.  But the next day was better, and now I'm more or less back to whatever "normal" is these days.

Friday work ended early so DH and I did the bulk of the Thanksgiving shopping, and that was fantastic.  I picked up a few things I forgot yesterday morning first thing, but now we're set. 

Since I'm only teaching 2 days this week, prepping my lessons was finished by 11AM Saturday.  And then I took the rest of the day off, and today, too!  I may get motivated to do some grading this evening, but if I don't, the world will not end.

Also, DH is taking vacation this week, so I am letting him take care of the cleaning.  I admit, I do feel some guilt because of all the time I've spent doing nothing this weekend, but I needed time to recharge.

DS2 called from boot camp this weekend!  He clarified that missing last week was just a mix up, and he gets 30 minutes a week.  He also gave me his dates for his Christmas break and told a few good basic training stories.  It's so good to hear from him and to hear how happy he sounds.  

We're all just keeping on.  Eventually life will get back to normal, but there's no telling when that will be.  One small sign of normalcy: looking forward to the holidays!

snapped

Something broke in me today. 

 Most school days, I get up with the alarm and say my prayers and then check my email before I'm really "up." I'm not exactly still in bed but I'm not out of it yet, either. 

Somehow that makes getting bad news even worse, because the opportunity to just give up and go back to sleep is so very present. Of course I didn't. 

 The bad news: one of my students tested positive for Covid. I replied to the mom's email and forwarded same to my admin, asking, "Now what?" because I had no idea. 

 Here: I sent my cohort list and my seating chart and waited to hear what was to happen. (Hours and hours later: apparently nothing, according to the form letter that arrived in my email. We'll see.) 

 I'm not worried about the student, he's already feeling much better. I'm just even more exhausted and attenuated than ever, because I spent all weekend making minerals kits for the 7th grade and electric and magnetic field testing kits for 8th grade in addition to the usual curriculum re-development and I'm just... done. 

The tank is empty. The well is dry. One more thing and I'll ... I don't know what.

 Probably? Nothing. I want to cry but think, sure, go ahead... and then, nothing. It just doesn't happen. It wouldn't help anyway. 

 This morning on my drive to school, I saw a roadkill cat on a street with a 25 mph speed limit and speed bumps every 100 yards. Could anyone explain how a cat gets hit by a car on a street like that? Certainly I can't. It looked like DD's cat and when I saw it I almost burst into tears. 

This afternoon my 7th graders were locked out of their virtual lab by I-don't-know-what monitoring software, because it's certainly not the software I have control over. Supposedly the site has been white-listed so here's hoping it works tomorrow. I have an idea for a work-around but I'm praying I won't need it. The virtual lab itself is already a work-around for the actual, in-person, hands-on lab they should be doing. Having to devise work-arounds for the work-arounds is not helping. 

I see myself existing amidst an ebb and flow of depression throughout this pandemic. This is, I think, the worst so far. I said things in a text conversation with DD this evening that I won't write here. 

I'm sneering at my own cowardice while simultaneously excusing it, redefining it as illness. I wish affirmations worked. I wish I could declare, "I'm fine, really," and have it be true. I think I will be fine, eventually, and maybe even tomorrow I'll feel better. 

I tried, today, to cling to the scraps of good news: new babies coming to friends' lives, the 8th graders' joy "testing" electric and magnetic fields with balloons and magnets, the 7th graders' "Ooo" at the fluorescent blue glow of tonic water under a UV flashlight, hardware that is, at last, more cooperative, if not perfectly so, at school. At home, a quickly prepared and delicious dinner, and sweet snuggles from the cat. 

Objectively I list all these things and see how good they are, but no matter how long I make this list, it still somehow isn't enough to budge me from the bottom of this pit. 

I suppose -- I know -- I'll just "keep doing what we do," as I said at school today. What else is there, in the face of so much uncertainty in the wider world? 

It has very little, nothing, really, to do with me, anyway. (Yet, I think to myself -- hanging there like a threat.) 

Just keep doing what I do, and eventually I'll feel better. The problem is not with the world but with my response to it. One I can control, the other I cannot.

gone

 Friday was an easy teaching day but became a hard day when communication with some parents didn't go well.  Apparently, "many people are upset with my communication style," which was news to me.  I told my admin, you can take the girl out of Boston but you can't take the Boston out of the girl.  I'm direct but I try to be as kind as possible.  There are times, though, when parents have to be told things they don't want to hear.   As the school year progresses and we work to hold students accountable, we're finding some parents aren't with us in that struggle.  

If you're talking about being "triggered" because your kid was assigned a detention for too many missing assignments, you've taken on a victim mentality.  That evil philosophy has no place in a Christian heart.  We all suffer, and we unite our suffering to Christ's on the Cross, but we work through our suffering as best we can to accomplish what we were put here to do.

Perhaps I wouldn't be so prickly about all that if it weren't happening now.  I did not intend to work until 5PM on Friday, but I did.  Even so, when I came home, DS2 and I went over his packing list and then went out to pick up the last few things he needed.  Even with the new packable down jacket, he could still fit everything into his backpack.  The packing list was remarkably short. 

I sat beside my baby at Mass yesterday so I could hear him sing one more time before he goes. 

Today I made a blueberry cake, a taste more than any that says "home."  But after fixing us all breakfast, I've basically been spinning my wheels all day.  We dropped the boy off at the recruiting station at 2 o'clock, and then did a few errands and came home.   He gave me a really wonderful hug and even said, "I love you, Mom."  By this time tomorrow, he'll be in Missouri where he'll go through boot camp.  We'll see him next at Christmas. 

My heart is feeling very squished.

I was feeling very "Christopher Robin leaving the Hundred Acre Woods"  (near-crippling nostalgia) so I called DD and had a lovely chat with her, and am feeling a bit better.  

It's just going to take a while to get used to this new reality, and for my heart to get used to that particular piece that resides in my younger son to be so very far away.  

attenuated

 I am stretched so very thin right now.  

I had this conversation with my partner teacher today.  We are both in the same place, where every night we are frantically preparing for the next day.  I haven't entered any but a few grades in the online grade book for going on three weeks now, but I'm so exhausted by the prospect that I'm writing this instead.

This week in particular feels like the difficulty setting has ticked up a few notches, but most of that is on me, because I'm choosing family over work more than usual this week.

There was a confluence of events: DD hit the wall up in Flagstaff, where her senior year of online classes and isolation, combined with being down with the flu for a week -- in spite of all the precautions! -- put her behind in most of her classes and feeling overwhelmed.  She needed a change of scenery at the very least.  Also, DS1's departure date has been finalized, and by this time next week he'll be at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri.   We talked Saturday evening and I decided to drive up and get her on Sunday so she could see her brother for a bit before he heads out on his great adventure. 

The thing is: Friday my students turned in their research papers, and I graded all of them before going to bed late Friday.  Saturday was a blur of curriculum development for religion and 8th grade, which left me on the hook for just 7th grade after getting back from Flagstaff (at least a 6 hour round trip.)  It's usually not too bad, I port my power points into Google Slides, make a few quick forms, no big deal.  This week? Nope -- a chapter review and an assessment, neither of which I could find from last year.  Making this stuff from scratch is so tedious! Eh, I finished what I needed last night, but now I've been up past midnight, sometimes well past midnight, four or five nights in a row and I feel like death.

Oh yeah.  I was supposed to have my observation today, so of course that involved extra planning and making sure I had something at least somewhat following the usual lesson outline.  My admin never showed up, so I suppose I'll have to reschedule.  I can not express how little I care about this right now.  I'm just too tired to waste any energy on it. 

We had a couple of lovely family dinners before DD headed back up to Flagstaff, driving herself up in that fourth car we no longer need.  This gives her the flexibility to come down for Thanksgiving on her own timing, not having to rely on anyone else.  She'd like to trade it in for a pickup truck, so that will be her project once her semester is over.  

The house is already too big but it's going to seem even more so after DS2 heads out. I told him I don't know what I'll do when he's gone, because sometimes he's the only person in the entire family that understands me.  My conscience brain is happy and excited for him to be moving on with his life, especially in such a productive way.  My heart, though, feels like it's being squished.  I don't want to make time stand still -- especially not now -- it's just my old struggle against change.   I know it's futile and I don't talk about it, because there's nothing to say.  I just know that once he goes, he's never coming back, at least not as he is now. Growth is a good thing, a wonderful thing.  I wish I could be there to see it all.

shingles?

Man, I am cranky. Like I want to yell at everyone and everything.  I did, in fact, yell at DH after dinner today for doing something he does all the time: challenges me on a detail when I have just, in fact, said I wasn't sure about said detail.  I had already warned him I was super cranky, so I quite loudly asked him to give me a break and could he just knock it off for once.  I think he's afraid to talk to me now.

I'm blaming whatever is going on with my back for all this negativity.  I noticed it yesterday afternoon, an odd kind of itchy, burning sensation in a strip between my spine and shoulder blade.  It varies from killing me to being totally ignorable, and I dug around a bit and found the symptoms are consistent with shingles.

Great.

I used my entire lunch hour being on hold with my doctor's office but finally getting through at the last minute, and then miraculously getting an appointment with a PA during my prep time.  I was gone just a smidge over an hour, but the PA was great and agreed there's a good chance that it's shingles.   Right now I don't even have a rash, just a tiny area of redness, but the area of sensitivity is much larger and apparently now wrapping around through my armpit to my breast (yay)... but that's off and on.  The back discomfort/pain/weirdness has been steadily getting worse all evening, to the point I broke down and took some ibuprofen, then hemmed and hawed for another 10 minutes, then finally took the first dose of the anti-viral.

I read the info sheet.  I think I should  never read the info sheet because then I know about the side effects and immediately think I have all of them.  But screw it, I don't want to wait any longer to see if this gets worse, because then the anti-viral will be basically useless.  On the other hand, the PA assured me that taking the anti-viral if it's not shingles isn't going to hurt me in any way.  

The pills are HUGE and really bright blue.  Very weird.  I hope they work.  I hope the ibuprofen kicks in soon, and I hope this chip on my shoulder goes away in the process.  Wanting to bite everyone's head off is no way to go through life. 

I am taking myself off to bed in the further hope of feeling better.  Nerve pain is the worst. 

You can get used to anything.

 Last Monday, I realized it had happened.  We'd survived 2 weeks of in-person hybrid teaching and were about to embark on Week 3 when I caught myself mentally ticking off the things I needed to do, with no extra anxiety or irritation.

You really can get used to anything.  

Now we've been through three weeks of this insanity, and we're adjusting as we go because it doesn't seem as if it's going to end any time soon, in spite of AZ's continuously improving COVID-related metrics.  Chandler public schools will be back in-person after their fall break on Oct 13, but we have no such promises, being a private and lawsuit-shy school.  At this point, I just shrug and say, we do what we have to do. 

At least this week will be short, I'm taking off Friday's professional development day.  Next week will be, as well -- we have Monday off as a holiday.  Yay! 

DS2 is now Army Private DS2, and will be leaving for basic training in Missouri on October 26, exactly 2 months after he was originally scheduled to leave.  His MOS has changed completely, and he'll be working under Top Secret clearance when he has completed his training.  I can't really believe it's happening, but I suppose it is.  It will be so good for him to not be idle.  It has been too long since he's had something productive to do.

Science fair is well under way, more or less.  Again, continuous improvement (she laughs) -- this year I literally told each student exactly what he or she needed to look up for their research, and so far the results are somewhat better.  I just spent about 2 hours making a clickable Research Directory, and looking up articles for new topics my students are experimenting with this year.  Is it possible for something to be simultaneously tedious and fun?  I suppose not.  Making the Research Directory, with its 100+ links, was tedious.  Finding new articles for my students was fun.  

So, tomorrow will be grading research paper drafts.  I managed to get all my lesson planning and curriculum development done for all 3 subjects between yesterday and today, which is fantastic.  I made the effort this week to work on planning and curriculum during my prep hours, and it paid off.  I need to keep that up, but there has to be a balance between grading and planning/development.  I must do the planning (can't have idle students!), so the grading gets pushed.  Fortunately much more of the grading this year is of the "Import Grades" variety, where I push a button and Google tells me how the students scored.  Of course I created all these assignments so it's not as if I'm not investing anything there, it's just that the investment is up front.  I'm sincerely hoping I can use all this stuff again next year.

I'm loving the new tools I have for student engagement, but I'm still struggling with how little discussion there is in my classes these days.  Mostly because students are writing their responses, but I miss the talking that's not me!  I will see what I can do about that this week.  Last week I managed to convert two of my favorite assignments, one for 7th science and one for 8th science (the Laws of Motion workbook.)  I'm reasonably certain the 8th graders will be able to handle using Google Draw to create their force diagrams.   We'll see how it goes.

That's all anyone can do at this point, right? Even though we're all used to this now.

Week 5 already!

 Well, that time went by even faster than usual.

I am once again in the first-year-teacher mode of developing curriculum for every single activity.  We've survived three weeks of virtual school, and one week of hybrid, with about 2/3rds of our students in the classroom, and one-third still at home.  The amount of technology I have to wrangle for each class is formidable, made worse by the fact that I have to set it up again at the beginning of each class period.  The teachers are still moving classrooms this week, with the goal of keeping the kids from mixing too much. 

I will not comment on the efficacy of our COVID-prevention methods.  We're all doing what we're told, whether it makes any sense or not. 

There are some bright spots.  I have a completely paperless classroom now, so I never get a paper without a name on it, and I don't struggle to read anyone's handwriting.  I also don't have to haul around a bulging expandable file anymore.  New student engagement tools I'm using solve the age-old problem of those same 2 or 3 kids raising their hands to answer every question.  Grading online work is almost as much of a grind as grading it on paper, but at least Google Classroom does the math for me after assigned point values to questions in a test.

I'm exhausted, though, and the mask is making my face break out.  I found soft silicon frames to wear under the mask so I can breathe and speak more clearly, and those help tremendously, but I really, really hate wearing a mask.  I can't figure out why we are stuck where we are in the re-opening, because every time I look at the metrics, they've been green since the middle of August, and I heard "two consecutive weeks of all green" before we could move to the next phase.  I know I'm looking at the right thing, and it shows 4 consecutive weeks of green, and yet here we are, still wearing masks everywhere, and basically gluing the students to their seats. 

And all that technology? Not one of us was ever trained on it.  Thank God my new partner teacher is fantastic, and we have been supporting each other through this absolute insanity.  I am quite literally praying we only have to do one more week of this maximum craziness, or I may have to take a day off just to sleep!

In other news, DS2 is still here, after a ridiculous amount of incompetence on the part of his surgeon's office in getting the correct paperwork to his recruiter.  We believe it's finally straightened out, so maybe he'll hear something... this week? next week? Who knows? He could still be here at Halloween at this rate.  It's not good to be idle for so long.  DD is mostly managing OK up in Flagstaff and thankfully she is burning out on political involvement as school ramps up -- at least I hope she is.  The anarchist stuff is ??? I don't know how to properly express it.  DS1 has been working 6 days a week for the past couple of months and is very cranky as a result.  He bit my head off today and accused me of all sorts of evil manipulation and I have no idea where all that came from, but it echoed a huge fight involving all the menfolk a couple of weeks ago.  I'm trying not to let it get to me, but I often don't know what my role in this family is anymore, beyond menu planning, grocery shopping, and food prep.  

I don't have time to dwell on this question right now, so I'll do the same thing I did last time, which is just put it away and ignore it for now.  It's not as if anyone is actively making my life miserable here (well, except for today), so we all just go about our lives as usual and it stops hurting pretty quickly, actually, because I have neither time nor energy to spend on it.

one week out

Virtual school starts a week from tomorrow! 

 I have a vague feeling that I should be doing something right now, but I don't want to, so I'm not. Tomorrow the only thing we have scheduled is a virtual training on a new resource, and I'm sure a jillion other things will pop up, too. I'll get to it tomorrow. 

 Last week was exhausting simply because I went into school every day. Five days in a row! Amazing. There have been so many staff changes my head is spinning a bit, but we all seem to be getting on well as we prepare for this strange new hybrid schooling we'll be delivering. Perhaps I am being foolish but at this point I feel like I've done enough teaching so that the excitement of getting back to school and working with my students is overcoming my dread of having to do it via technology. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm ready right at this moment, but I do think I will be ready by the time school starts on August 17. 

 I'm hopeful that eventually everyone will regain their sanity and things can get back to normal.

 The other thing that starts a week from tomorrow? DS2's boot camp in South Carolina. He has some last minute stuff to get done before he can take the oath, and I'll feel a lot better about things once that is accomplished. As of right now, we have no idea when he's actually leaving, but since he's supposed to be at boot first thing Monday morning, we're assuming he's leaving some time before then. 

 How odd that my littlest is going the farthest away, and for the longest time. When his tour is over he'll be 25 years old, and I'll be only 2 years from retiring. Suddenly time seems to be going by much more quickly!

57 plus

Spent most of my birthday helping my new colleague getting her classroom in order and downloading my brain about all the stuff that will be helpful for her to know.  She is coming from the same school I worked at, so we compared war stories while we moved boxes of books and basically put things away.  Tomorrow (later today, really) is our "Nitty Gritty" day -- long meetings where we go over a thousand and one things.  My heart goes out to all the new teachers everywhere!

My own classroom is in not-bad shape but I still haven't set up my museum or tidied my bookcases.  I may or may not bother.  Parents and students will be popping in at pre-arranged times for a very abbreviated Meet the Teacher with the social distancing, so the room needs to look good. But since no one will be allowed to linger, I'm not going to sweat the details too much.

I also did an inordinate amount of running around today both before school (dropping off our ballots, searching for bulletin board fabric) and after (assembling my birthday dinner).  Dinner was great but of course too much, and then I indulged myself by watching the most recent Pride & Prejudice movie, newly returned to Netflix.  I appreciate being able to fast forward through the most embarrassing scenes with Mrs. Bennett & company.

After that I think I fell asleep for a couple of hours and now here I am.  Tomorrow is my official first day of work and I really should be in bed but as usual I am doing this sort-of sabotage thing.  I'll survive.  I don't feel like I'm 57 years old, but I suppose I don't know what it's supposed to feel like.  Two of my colleagues wished me happy birthday today and I told them "57!" and they both told me I'm about the same age as their moms.  Didn't surprise me, and didn't bother me, either.

I wouldn't give back any of my years because they made me who I am now, still a work in progress but at least I think I'm going in the right direction. Most of the time, anyway. 

photo diary

mouth math

2 new crowns = 1 new smile 😁

When my new dentist asked me, Do you like your teeth?, the only thing I could honestly answer was, It's complicated.   

I did (do) like how my teeth are strong and healthy and easy to take care of, all that is true.  But did I like the way my teeth looked?  I can honestly say it has been a very long time since that was true, before today.   When I was an infant, I had really high fevers and the hospital ER gave me tetracycline.  At the time, it wasn't known that this strong antibiotic destroyed the enamel on developing teeth, so many of my secondary teeth came in without enamel.  Fortunately not all of them!  My 2 front incisors on top and the 4 on the bottom had no enamel at all. My canines have enamel except for the very tip, which just makes them look like incisors.  My 6-year molars had no enamel but they were removed when I needed room in my mouth for braces.  

To say I was self-conscious about my teeth is a gross understatement.  Every year the school nurse would send home nasty notes to my mother about how decayed my teeth were, even though there was a note in my file explaining they were not decayed at all.  Finally, in second grade, I got a set of caps on my front teeth and I was so happy to not have little brown teeth anymore!  But the caps were literally all wrong for me.  They were wildly different in color from my own teeth and they were much too big, giving me buck teeth.  I had those until junior high when they were replaced with some kind of acrylic coating on the teeth.  This looked fine, great actually, for a few months, but then they absorbed stains from everything, and back then I was drinking both tea and coffee every single day!  Fast forward to my last year of college, and I got my first set of real crowns, which were OK but also not the right shape or color for my mouth.  Just a few years later, I was working and making some money so I got another set of crowns, and these were much better, but still slightly too big and obviously fake-looking. 

All this is why I rarely smile for photos while showing my teeth! 

Today's transformation involved some extra running around because at first when the teeth came back from the shade lab, they were too dark.  It was kind of a close call.  I liked the way they looked when I was lying back in the dentist's chair, but before I let them cement them in place, I said, "Wait, I want to look at them sitting up," and then I took a selfie. It was really obvious that the crowns were much too gray.  Tiny changes in color can make a huge difference!  So then I went from the dentist's office back to the shade lab for adjustments, and within an hour I was back at the dentist, getting them glued in.   

I teared up when everything was done.  I can't remember ever looking at my smile and thinking, all of those teeth are real teeth.  Even when I was tiny, my teeth looked bad! Over the years, I've had the experience of thinking my teeth looked pretty good, but knowing all along the phrase considering I have crowns on my two front teeth should be included.  So now I think, if I smile, people won't look at me and wonder why my front teeth are fake.  (I'm also pretty sure very few people ever gave my teeth a second look or even a single thought, but when you're self-conscious about something, it's hard to break old habits.) They look like real teeth.  

I've been going to this dental practice for about twenty years, and the entire staff was blown away and so happy for me, it was awesome.  The only bummer was we couldn't hug because of COVID-19, but it was still a really great moment.  I was really on the fence about replacing the old ones, but my gums had receded a bit and there was that black line there and it just didn't look good.  The old crowns were like 30 years old and it was time for them to go, but the more frugal part of me kept thinking, they're working just fine, they don't look that bad, just let it go.  DH encouraged me to do it when I was waffling over the cost (close to $1100.)  Apparently the recent run up in the stock market has been good for our portfolio.  

Small change.  Much bigger psychological impact than I was anticipating, and really welcome lift during this depressing time. 😁 Really wish my Mom were here to see them, she would have loved them, too.

holding up

We were supposed to be on the East Coast this week!  Alas, it was not to be.  I am still struggling to get my mind around the fact that we are still in this pandemic-lock down situation.  When we started this back in March, I never imagined it would still be going on in July!  I'm tired of it, and I want my regular life back. 

/whining

Really, we're all fine, even if I am struggling with the ups and downs of minor depression.  I've stayed up past 4AM more times recently than I care to admit, then make up for it by sleeping until noon.  I don't have any particular reason to get up...

News?  When Shane Co. up in Scottsdale reopened, I dragged DH up there so I could get a new setting for worn-through engagement ring.  It was a lovely diversion and it should be ready for pick up tomorrow!   That was a bit of fun.  Other than that?  Just a couple of things... I finally listened to my dentist and am in the process of having my crowns replaced, so my mouth is kind of sore.  By the end of next week I'll have two lovely new teeth... I hope.  It's hard to think of anything as reliable these days.

The other thing is something I really can't see myself ever doing again: I cut my own hair.  It's all one length, sure, and it's long, and I just wanted to lop off a few inches.  Shouldn't be too bad, I thought.  I watched a half dozen YouTube videos and bought a good pair of scissors and went at it today.  I can truly say I was wholly unprepared! I just have so much hair, and the videos really didn't talk or show how to handle very thick or wavy hair, and mine is both.  Fortunately for me the wavey/curliness of it hides a multitude of sins, and it's pretty much always in a pony tail these days anyway.  I'll have a professional clean it up at some point, but it's nice that it's not such a weight anymore.

Everyone else is doing fine, too, more or less.  DH is growing a beard, a first for him!  It looks good but is still at the "kissing a hedgehog" stage.  DS1 is still working at Amazon and wondering why they keep making it difficult for him to actually do his job.  Alas, that is often life in corporate America, and probably other countries, too.  DD has a job interview in the morning, but otherwise has been living a life of relative leisure up in the cool north, and DS2 is pretty much recovered from his pre-enlistment minor surgery, and should get cleared to start training on Thursday.  All in all, we're very lucky.

Speaking of management making things more difficult... yet another one of the "emails from nowhere" dropped this week with admin announcing, "Hey, y'all are going to do cross-curricular project-based units this year, and so half of you need to switch rooms!"  Our heads were spinning, especially since we don't have any idea what going back to school is really going to look like this year. We have a strong suspicion we will be asked to support both in-person and online instruction, even though that will literally be twice as much work.  So now we're supposed to upend our curriculum maps, too?  You can't just drop a project-based-learning unit in anywhere, and every one of us already has curriculum that is sequenced to support student learning.  Plus, I have no idea whether or how this will impact the science fair this year, or even if we're going to have one.  So I spent literally three hours writing and re-writing an email and it boiled down to two questions, asking for explanations and expressing my concerns.  The whole thing was maybe twelve sentences.  The very quick reply came back with no explanations at all, just, "We're doing this, moves will be finished by July 15," plus my VP cc'd the pastor, who has never been looped into anything like this before.  What was that about?  I'm trying to let it go, but now I'm thinking I should ask about science fair.  If we're going to have one, I can and should start planning now, but since I don't know how/if that would work with the project-based-learning plans, I'll need some guidance on that.

That particular day wasn't fun, but I'm still trying not to get too stressed about it.  No one really knows what the school year will bring.  This time is really bringing home how complacent I was about everything just continuing as if on a course.  For most people throughout history, that's not the way it goes.  Disruption and problems are far more common, and so far I've been very, very lucky to have had the life I've led up to this point.  So I'm trying to keep that in mind, too.  But it's only human to chafe at all these restrictions and the general air of gloom that's hanging over everything! 

DH and I have planned a road trip for week after next.  Let's see if we can actually pull it off.

don't look now

Literally, don't look.

A lot of running around today, starting with a very early (7:15AM!) eye appointment.  Yay me, the eyes are still doing fine, no changes noted, everything's stable and working fine.

Then home for just a bit, then out again to meet my principal, briefly, to sign my catechist certification paperwork.  Then to the post office to mail the paper work off. Then grocery shopping, and getting a fill up for the van -- 19+ gallons is surely a record?  I didn't know my gas tank was that big!  I believe this is the first time I've put gas in it since the beginning of May, so there's that.

Anyway, home, put groceries away, and then off to MDA for a quick bloodwork and ultrasound check.  Blood draw went very smoothly, 4 tubes from the right hand, easy-peasy.  Ultrasound?

Don't look.

Because I'm pretty sure I saw something when she switched on the Doppler, and it didn't look good: Round (bad), big (bad), lots of vascularization (very bad).   Yikes.  The technician only used the Doppler twice on that side, once to identify the carotid artery (unmistakable), and then to look at whatever this thing was.   But OF COURSE I am not a radiologist so I will now do my best to forget whatever it is I think that I saw.  It was probably just a reactive node.  Yes. Of course that's what it is.

Fortunately, I'll know by Wednesday the latest, that's my follow-up appointment.  In other news, my TSH is up to 0.31!!  This is the highest it has been when I'm not going for an RAI scan or treatment since my first surgery.  Curious what my Tg (thyroid cancer tumor marker) is going to be, whenever that comes in.  I'm actually getting better at this being patient thing.  I guess practice really does help.

Update: "Normal-appearing cervical lymph nodes", one on right (1.7 x 0.4 cm) and one on the left, the one I saw: 2.0 x 0.8 cm.  These seem pretty big to me, but "normal-appearing" is very reassuring.   I love how quickly these reports get posted to the patient portal at MDA.

a whole month gone...

The world has gone crazy, and I don't know what to make of it, so I don't say anything.  

Here in my own little world, for me, things are fine.  I finished school without incident, and we were able to have a "physical distancing" graduation Mass for our students three weeks later than we normally would have. It was great seeing everyone again, but sad at the same time that we weren't able to all come together as we used to.  It sounds ridiculously pretentious to say my heart aches for what we've lost, but it does ache.  I just don't talk about it, out loud.  

Over the past two weeks I completed the catechist certification class that's required by my diocese for all Catholic school teachers.  It was a well-structured class but we did not meet in person. I'm conflicted about that, too.  I appreciated very much not having to drive into downtown Phoenix every day for two weeks, and being there from 9-5 each day.  Those days would have been very long and exhausting!  Instead, we had daily videos to watch and worksheets to complete, and they were simultaneously well done and draining.  The content of the courses was great, but I could see how much we were missing by not being there in person.  This experience highlighted once again for me that so-called "distance learning" is often just "Here's what the lecture would have been," discarding all of the other things that would have happened in a classroom setting -- when all the other things are often what produces and develops the actual learning!  Think of the difference between watching a cooking video and actually being in the kitchen with someone who demonstrates and then helps you as you work your way through a recipe.  

I don't know why so many people were OK with reducing education to such an extent.  There's a lot you can do to preserve or translate in-class experiences, but it does take an effort to implement them.  Of course this is on my mind a lot these day because we're all wondering what it's going to be like when we head back to school in August.

DH has been working from home and working a zillion hours, so it's nice for him that he doesn't also have to deal with traffic and everything.  It's too easy for him to "go to work" and therefore I see him logging in to his work computer at all hours and over the weekends, but he really does like it... the only issue is that his workstation is set up in the family room, which is open to the kitchen, and he often gets calls during the day.  I don't want to be a disturbance or distraction, so I end up hanging out upstairs in our room for most of the day, which is not really what I want to do.  I've proposed moving his office space into the other half of the family room and making a divider with our bookcases, but he's not too keen on that idea.  I am, because the family room is ridiculously large and I've been wanting to do something about it for ages.  We may just end up moving him into the guest room or one of the kids' rooms upstairs, because it seems that he'll be able to continue working from home for a while. 

On the offspring front, from youngest to oldest:  DS2 is moving through the enlistment process. He scored in the 98 percentile on his aptitude test (AVSAB) and he was offered an MOS as an aircraft structural repairer, which would give him a chance to use both his hands and his brain.  Given a ship-out date in mid-August, he then went for his MEPS exam, where the medical exam revealed he has a small hernia!  None of us had any idea.  So now he's scheduled to have that repaired this week, with hopefully a quick two week recovery.  That will give him a little more than a month to get in shape for boot camp, if all goes well.  I'm going to miss him terribly; we've been hanging out together in the evenings, watching anime.  It's a great diversion from all the insanity going on in the world.

DD declared herself an anarcho-communist and came out in favor of the rioters last month (via her social media, not in person), and that led to some friction between us.  I'd been keeping an eye on her Twitter just to have a connection, but she deleted both her Twitter and Instagram accounts last week.  She may have decided to make new ones, or she may have just quit social media again, and I hope the latter is the case.  I had a great call with her this week and she's busy with her physics class and working on "bug museum" work, going into the lab two days a week to work on DNA sequencing. Some of their samples are quite old and that's less than optimal for extracting (never mind sequencing) DNA, so they're having to try all sorts of techniques to actually get what they need.  It's great experience for her, and she's really enjoying it.  She has also applied for a job at the new Ulta they are building nearby, and that would be really fun for her, too, and good to get her out of the house.  Her course load this coming year shouldn't be too heavy, so she would be able to work during term, too.

DS1 continues working at Amazon and making bank.  He should be able to pay off his car pretty soon, and DH helped him set up a brokerage account so he can start investing some of his savings, too.  I talked with him not long ago about what he'd like to be doing, and maybe getting out there to meet people, but with the COVID situation, that's not really an option right now.  Overall he seems pretty happy with his own life although he too is quite distressed about what's going on in this country and the world right now.

Since we had to cancel our annual summer trip to the east coast, DH and I will be taking a road trip later in July.  I'll write more about it if it turns out we actually do it.  Already one part was canceled, literally the day after I made the arrangements.  With any luck things will become less crazy, and we'll be able to go.  DH has far too many vacation hours, and his company has asked the employees to plan so everyone is not away in the fourth quarter. Eventually DH will take some time and go out to Connecticut to see his parents, and we are also planning on travelling to see DS2's boot camp graduation ceremony in October.  Some days I feel a bit stir crazy but mostly I'm OK with just hanging around.  My class just finished and I have a small list of tasks to accomplish for next school year that I'll work on next week in between doctor's appointments:  eye check up, skin check up, thyroid ultrasound, labs, and followup, plus driving DS2 to his surgery.  It will be strange to be going out so much on so many consecutive days!  But it will be nice to have things to do, also. 

I have good days and bad days.  My sleep is disturbed in that I'm going to bed late and even so, not falling asleep for hours at least one or two days a week.  When that happens I'm a zombie for the next few days.  I'm working on hip stabilization exercises because something's gotta give there, it's driving me crazy.  My hands are a lot better, just a little bit creaky in the morning but usually OK after just a little while.  Still trying to drop a few pounds. I'd love to lose 10, at this point I'd be happy to drop below 150 for more than two consecutive days.  On the other hand, staying at my current weight is not the end of the world and I'm not convinced that eating a handful of potato chips occasionally is going to kill me.  I just don't want to buy new clothes! 

These past few months -- and  the two to come -- are exercises in patience.  I'm working on not getting so frustrated about things I can't change.  My family, even my extended family, is safe and healthy both physically and financially.  I continuously remind myself to appreciate all the good things in my life and let the rest go.  It's hard, and I do worry about what's to come, but there's no point in that.  The truth is, the future is always uncertain.  If it seems even more uncertain now, that's just because I wasn't really paying too much attention before, just making the assumption that things would always continue on as they had been.  That was never a good assumption, but I was allowed to keep it for quite a while until reality intervened.  I hope we can come through this period of turmoil stronger and more resilient, exchanging our complacency for gratitude and a determination to do whatever we can to be good and do good. 

 

dislocated

After being away from school (buildings) for 2 months, we're (teachers, no students) finally back this week.  It feels exactly like coming back at the end of the summer and getting ready for a new school year, but we're doing the exact opposite: closing up our classrooms for the summer, and doing all the end-of-year stuff that is mostly a waste of time and resources.  But the school has been doing these things forever, so why change now?

(Because now is the perfect time to change, since everything is already so up in the air!)

Anyway, I am mostly done with everything I need to do, and just need to have my contract meeting with the principal and turn in my keys for the summer.

Everything feels slightly surreal, especially today, when from 7:30-8:30 AM and 5-6 PM we had parents driving through to both drop stuff off (books, etc that they had that needed to be returned) and pick stuff up (student work, school pictures, etc).  I am mostly out of this loop since I had very little to return to students (5 students had medication up in the office), but in typical fashion, admin said, "This is how this will work," only it wasn't thought out.  Two teachers tackled it head-on and came up with a great plan, and everyone organized all the material to go back to the students by family.  It worked out really well today, but it's exhausting somehow, even though there's barely any physical aspect to the work.  The younger children do not like seeing teachers in masks!

I'm very thankful for the weather today.  It was so lovely that we had dinner outside, followed by crumbl cookies given to me by a student.  Wow, were they delicious.  (and this is reason #762 why I can't lose the weight I've gained.  I was reading back in the blog about something else and came across a post in which I lamented that I was up to 137.  I've basically gained 15 pounds in 8 years, but at two distinct points in the recent past I was back down to 140, which is basically statistical noise.  When I'm north of 150, that's not rounding error! grrr)  I have no idea what's going on but I'm eschewing austerity for this week since it's the last week of school.  I am making an effort to eat more salad and drink more water, though!

DS2 saw the Army recruiter today but failed his drug test due to smoking some pot with his sister when she was here last week.  The recruiter wasn't fussed about it, apparently it happens all the time since pot is quasi-legal here (DD has a medical marijuana card.)  He brought home some information but nothing concrete.  We expect he'll get more solid info when he passes the drug test and becomes eligible to enlist... and then it will be decision time for him.  This is manifestly not us "sending him into the military," this is a something he chose on his own to investigate and if he decides to go for it, it will be wholly his decision. 

now is the springtime...

An eventful week-and-a-half.

On Friday I worked like a fiend to get all of the rest of the year's assignments developed and scheduled, so I wouldn't be crushed over the weekend as I have been for most of this distance-learning experience.   So Saturday I slept late but then drove up to Flagstaff to bring DD home for a little Mother's Day visit.  The weather was absolutely spectacular and it was peak desert bloom time, with more blooming saguaro than I've ever seen before. 

We decided on a whim to stop in Cottonwood on the way back and pick up some of our favorite wine at the Merkin Vineyard tasting room there.  We called, they were open for take out, so we got wine and gelato (which did melt on the way home, but not completely, since it was in ice in an insulated bag.)   I don't even remember what we had for dinner, but we did end up hanging out, drinking and talking late into the night.

Mother's Day was extremely low key with take-out barbecue for dinner.  After the long day of driving and a late night of (gentle) partying, I was not up for cooking a huge meal, so the barbecue was fine, and it was nice to have all the leftovers.  I was just a homebody all day, and nothing wrong with that.  On Monday, I got up and worked for a few hours and then DD and I did errands for both our households, and on Tuesday, a friend of DD's came into town and was conveniently driving up to Flagstaff and offered to take her, too.  (I have the idea that DD may have planted the suggestion?  It seems likely.  Is Arizona really "on the way" from California to Montana?  I'm terrible at geography, but that does not seem plausible.)

Anyway, he was more than happy to hang out with us, and since I had told DD we would feed him, we ended up putting together a fantastic meal of lobster bisque, shrimp, scallops, grilled steak, roasted asparagus, and somewhat incongruous (but tasty) tater tots.  DD's friend insisted he wanted to help so I had him shell the shrimp, and he was totally OK with it, which was awesome.  After dinner we played some cards and then the old and employed people went off to bed, leaving the students to continue their party.  The weather was perfect for eating outside, and it was a completely lovely evening -- it was in fact what I'd envisioned for Mother's Day.  So I got two this year! 

Wednesday I spent a couple of hours delivering "Congratulations Class of 2020" yard signs to our "graduating" 8th graders, and I even got to see a handful of them, too.  DD and her friend stayed just until I got home, not on purpose, it's just how things worked out -- so I got to say bye to her before she left.  It was a really nice visit. 

Thursday: grading and the usual end-of-year tasks like making class lists for next year.  Friday: the mammogram.  The weirdest thing was the technician told me that my smaller breast is actually bigger than the other one,  which I still don't get.  Maybe it's a perspective thing, but from the way my bra fits as well as a number of visual cues, it's obvious it's smaller.  Of course she did not see them in a bra or clothing other than the little "gown" top you wear during a mammogram.  Whatever!  Cutting to the chase here, the radiologist said my breasts are "stable" and said I just need a normal screening mammogram next year.  I'm waiting for the results to show up on my health portal so I can actually read the report.  Last year I had a cyst on the right side and they insisted on doing an ultrasound there again this year, even though it's not bothering me at all.  And I got zero information about what's going on with the left side, other than the fact that it's "stable." 

So that's good news, I guess, except now I have another random pain to add to my seemingly ever-growing list of random pains.  I researched the difference between carpal tunnel and RA, and I'm not convinced the (ongoing) problem of my painful hands is either one, since they still hurt all day.  Not as bad as they were in the beginning, but it's still obnoxious.  I'm thinking it may be fibromyalgia, which also could explain my lack of good sleep.  I have a few good nights and then something like today, where I wake up at 5:15 and can't go back to sleep...

Somewhere in that blur, I helped DS2 put together a resume so he could actually apply for jobs.  Wednesday he has an appointment at the Army recruiting center, and he may actually enlist.  We all think it could be just what he needs, because he can do well in structured environments... when he wants to.  He's also really, really good at ignoring things he thinks are stupid, but that won't fly in the military.  We'll see.  So far I'm being fairly successful at squashing the "I don't want my baby to leave!" feelings.  It's time for him to grow up.  To that end, he mostly made dinner tonight: spatch-cocked roasted chicken, gravy, crash potatoes, peas.  (I made the salad, since he doesn't eat it at all.)  It took a little longer than I expected because he inspected the potatoes much more thoroughly than I would have done, but it was all great.  He even learned how to carve up the chicken.  For the most part I tell him what I'm going to do, and then do a little of whatever it is so he can see it, but he did the majority of the work.  OK, I cut the backbone out of the first chicken entirely, so he could see the whole process, but then he did the other one, and everything else afterward. I like cooking with him.
I am really going to miss him if he enlists!

AZ is opening up, slowly, and DH and I were able to attend Mass on Sunday!  What a blessing that was.  Afterwards I made a really nice breakfast and then invited him to come shopping with me, and he agreed! It was nice to spend some time together out of the house for a change!  Now this week I'm back at school to close up my classroom (pretty much done today) and finish up all the tedious end-of-year tasks, but then I'm done!

Unfortunately we've had to cancel all our summer plans, but we talked today about making new ones.  Tomorrow night, dinner for two at our favorite swanky seafood restaurant, courtesy of our fantastic home & school organization, who sent us all gift cards for Teacher Appreciation Week.

nope

I took the T3 for just a few days and noticed many more palpitations and no slacking of the hand pain, so I've ditched it.  Well, it's still in the cupboard, but I'm not taking anymore.

Last night's insomnia was the worst, and I'm blaming the T3.  I think I got maybe 4 hours of sleep?  Ridiculous, just lying there, listening to all the parts of my body saying "ow" at various levels of insistence... after I'd taken Tylenol to take the edge off, too.  I thought it would help, and I'd be able to sleep, but no.

Today I went out (gasp) to Sprouts and bought some oil of oregano capsules, because I've heard they're good anti-inflammatories and what do I have to lose?  I thought I might be burping oregano all day, but I wasn't, but I did get killer heart burn, but they may have been from my coffee, and not drinking enough water.  At times today I actually forgot that my hands hurt, but now is not one of them. 

If this keeps up I'm going to need to do something about it, because living with chronic pain is bad on so many levels.  And it's not just the hands... it's the feet, too.  Hands are much worse though, the feet I can mostly ignore.  But if I was going to blame my hand situation on carpal tunnel, how would that explain the feet hurting, too?  (Right, it doesn't!) 

So I'm hoping the oil of oregano knocks me out of this flare because I don't want to have to deal with this.  My diagnostic mammogram is a week from tomorrow, and I'm trying not to freak about it (as usual), but there really are some noticeable differences that need to be investigated there.  One thing at a time.

Speaking of... I am a complete failure at parenting my youngest.  When the lock down started, I sunk into a minor depression and put myself on a strict regimen of doing certain things to keep myself sane and able to do my own work, but I really didn't give him any particular attention, and I stopped checking in with his schoolwork every week.  His spring break was extended a ridiculously long time, and to be honest, I'm not even sure what week they went back.  But here's the thing: because I stopped checking in with him, I didn't catch that he had fallen into an even deeper pit than the one I was (am) in.  So, he's failing all his classes because he hasn't handed in a single thing since spring break/corona virus lock down.  What a mess. Of course it's not all on me, and he lied (again, repeatedly) to me about his school work.  I hate that, but I have to let all that go. So now he'll be looking for some kind of full-time work when the economy re-opens and he'll be trying to figure out what he wants to do, long term.  God only knows. 

Meanwhile, DD continues to live a performative life online and makes a point of posting at least one or two articles a day to Facebook to show that she is politically and philosophically emancipated from her parents, if not financially so.  Today's entry, from the Atlantic, about how the US is a failed state.  I cheekily commented that she was free to move somewhere else.  Is she trying to pique me?  Of course.  Is it working? Today on Facebook I hid her posts for 30 days.

Yesterday was really not a good day, but we have only one more week of instructional time at school left, and that helps a lot.   I've been telling people, I was a software developer for years before I became I teacher.  I quit that job because I don't want to spend all day in front of a computer, and what am I doing now? No wonder I'm losing my mind.

Also yesterday: canceled our summer flight to the east coast to visit family.  Since they live in COVID hotspots, there's no telling when we'll actually be able to visit there and, you know, do the things we'd like to do. There is zero point in flying across country to sit isolated in someone else's house!

Summer heat has arrived already!  No word yet on whether this year's STEM camp (first week of June) is on or off.  Hoping to have an answer to that by the end of next week.  I don't like how much wait-and-see has been going on lately.  It is just not my style, but then, I am enough of an adult that I can suck it up and muddle through this until we get back to some sort of normalcy.  It can't come soon enough.

desperate measures

So the painful hands have been a round-the-clock thing since I posted about it, and it sure feels like it started more than a week ago.  I swear I haven't been doing anything more strenuous than typing, and that doesn't seem like it should make my hands kill me all day long. 

It would be one thing if it were just a little morning unpleasantness, but this past week they've been hurting at the level where I can't ignore the  fact they're hurting.  Last night dicing vegetables for dinner was not fun, and just now, at 5:10 PM, typing is also not fun.  I have been absolutely scrupulous about my diet this past week, too - no wheat at all, so I can't blame that.  I've had some dairy, but even that has been limited to coffee once or twice, and the cheese I put in the grits yesterday (and I only had about a half-cup serving).  So whatever is causing this, I don't it's diet-related.

Yet another thing that has been driving me crazy for the past few weeks is having an out-of-whack  personal thermostat.  I'm simultaneously hot and cold.  I break out in just enough of a sweat to feel clammy when feeling too hot wears off minutes later.  I've taken my temperature a few times and it's always low, like 97-point-something degrees, so I don't think I'm actually sick... I just feel off.

Last but not least, my weight is creeping up even though, as I said, I've been strict about what I'm eating.  Usually I can drop a few pounds over as many days with intermittent fasting, but that's not working at all right now.  I literally ate a total of 6 Cadbury Mini Eggs from the Easter candy that hung around after the holiday.  I'm drinking water throughout the day and allow myself 1 glass of wine. With this level of austerity, I should have no trouble fitting into my summer pants... but I don't, even though I did, two weeks ago. 

I ran a symptom search on the hot-and-cold thing and came up with... thyroid issues! 🙄 (I started using Emojipedia so I could have some non-verbal communication with my students, like thumbs up, or a trophy, or just a smile so they would know when I say, "No problem!" I really mean it.)

Then I vaguely recalled when I went off last time (turns out it was in 2007) I was OK for a while and started feeling progressively worse over time until I finally went back on.  I tried to find the timing by looking through old blog posts, but I could find when I went back on.  All I know is, I did, and I felt better.  So when my hands were so bad yesterday, I decided to use my last refill of my T3 (Cytomel) to see if going back on it helps.  Picked it up today and gobbled one done. 

I really do hope it helps.  I have too much on my plate.  I don't have time for this nonsense!

what is going on?

By this point, we all know that the lockdown, for the vast majority of the country, was never necessary, but no one in a position of power will ever admit that.  I just hope we can unwind out of this quickly and get back to some sense of normalcy.

I am, again, up way too late, but I'm not even going to pretend to be sorry.  I am never alone these days, and if staying up till 3am gives me a few hours of alone-time, I'll take 'em.  Besides, I was super-productive for most of this too-late time.  I need to unwind now or I'll just lie in bed, not sleeping.

Sleep has been terrible!  My hip is bad lately, and pain makes it hard to sleep.  I stretch it out and that helps but still, it hurts. Taking Tylenol is useless, taking ibuprofen helps but screws up my blood sugar, which is edging ever closer to diabetic even though I'm still fairly strict about carbs. 

A few days ago, I got to sleep very late, only to be woken by the plaintive cries of a cat before 7AM (when my alarm goes off); I shut off the alarm and fell back to sleep immediately, into a horrible nightmare that shook me awake at 7:30.  At least I wasn't late for work.

Besides nightmares, I'm waking up with swollen hands, hence the title of the post.  What is going on?  I noticed that I complained about my hands hurting a little while ago, but I also seem to recall that happened after a marathon session practicing juggling (still can't do it.) So maybe my hands only really hurt when I'm using them in unaccustomed ways? Yesterday I spent several hours tailoring and mending, which involved some close work with a stitch ripper.  It didn't bother my hands at the time at all, and it never occurred to me that it would, or could.  But even now, a zillion hours later, they feel stiff and sore.  We'll see if they're any better tomorrow.

I wonder if going off T3 (Cytomel) is starting to have an affect.  I've been off since mid-January, so it's about three and a half months.  I'd think if it were going to have an affect, it would've happened before this, and generally I have an impression that I've felt physically pretty good.

I seem to be undergoing some inflammatory process.  It would not be surprise me if it were depression-related, because I've been balanced on the edge of that pit for a while now.   I don't allow myself to dwell on it, and I have my defenses lined up, but I'm still running, Alice-like, as fast I can just to stay in the same place.

Not good, me

Well, it's ridiculously late and I have school in the morning.

The only thing saving me at the moment is I actually have all my assignments scheduled to post for tomorrow morning already.  Yay, me!

But I finished all that close to 2 hours ago, and I don't know what kept me from going to bed straight away, but I didn't.

OK, I am shoving the cat off my lap and going to bed! Fortunately I don't have to actually speak to anyone until 2pm!

weirdness, continued

This is without a doubt the oddest spring break ever. 

The coronavirus lockdown is a big part of that, but on top of that, I'm furloughed this week so I'm not supposed to work.

I typically spend some part of spring break planning the rest of the year and getting caught up on grading and anything else that needed catching up, but I'm not supposed to work.

I looked it up, "not supposed to work."  Admin sent an email with details that actually included the sentence, "You are not allowed to work."  Legally, if you're furloughed and you do work, then your employer is obligated to pay you, which moots the whole point of the furlough in the first place.  (Fortunately, the drop in income won't affect us much, especially since all three of the men are still working, and in fact DS1 got a pay bump recently.)

 Consequently, I haven't worked since last Friday, although there is a rising sense of panic when I think about getting back to work on Monday.

I would like to say I've been super-productive with non-school related things, but that's simply not true.  Easter was a massive undertaking and was delightful in spite of a series of minor disasters.  After Easter, I've just been continuously exhausted mentally and physically.   I did manage to sew face masks for the family, and for DD and her room-mates, and since the sewing machine is out, I have a stack of repairs and alterations waiting for me, too.  I may get to that.  But I haven't knit, and I haven't read a book, either, even though I have a series that DS2 has been asking me to start.  I don't have the mental energy to devote to a huge book series right now.

Worse, my sleep is quite disturbed, and I rarely go to bed earlier than 2AM.  This is the biggest red flag for me that I'm struggling with depression.  I end up sleeping very late, of course, because I have no particular reason this week to do anything else.  In spite of that, I'm paying strict attention to things I know I have to do or I'll just fall completely into a pit, physically and mentally: grooming, daily exercise, getting dressed (and wearing actual pants every day, not flowy skirts that would fit me even if I gained 20 pounds), praying.  Cooking for the family, and trying to balance shopping with using up what we've got at home.

I have a familiar feeling of dislocation.  This time feels very similar to how I felt after my contract was revoked on the last day of school back in 2017.  Our lives are a construct of expectations, and when you can no longer do what you expected, then your construct is threatened.  In 2017, I was able to mitigate the sense of loss by looking for a new job and applying and all that.   But there isn't anything I can do except wait this "pause" out, the same as everyone else.  I just hope I don't go crazy in the meantime.

Adds: I drove up to Flagstaff to deliver a lot of stuff to DD and her roommates, and it was uplifting in every sense of the word, but I still didn't get to sleep that day until 2:30AM.  Also, I'm tracking some physical changes and wondering if I should make a doctor's appointment, but dragging my feet on that because I don't know if my agitated mental state is making me see and feel things that aren't there.

still here... where else would I be?

I've moved past depression, mostly, and I'm edging into anger.

My school has switched to distance learning through the end of the school year, and I learned Friday that we're keeping our school calendar the same.  So spring break the week after Easter, thank God, but then straight through to Memorial Day with online learning. 

Lord, have mercy on us. 

There's a lot of grumbling among the faculty about what we're being asked to do.  I am holding myself mostly about the fray.  I can't let myself be bogged down by all the negativity.  It boils down to one thing, really, which is I love my job and I'd like to still have it in August when the new school year starts.

I don't love how I have to do my job right now. We're being asked to continue to deliver curriculum, keep in contact with our students, and maintain our grade books essentially the same way we were when all actually met at school.  There's a lot wrong with that, especially the grading part.  It's very difficult to know who's doing  the work or when the work will be completed.  We can't penalize a student for late work because we don't know their situation, but admin insists that we put in the missing work as zeroes (tagged "missing"), because that's what we would do if were still in school.

There's also the fact that we took a snapshot of our grade books from before distance learning started, and that's more than enough grades to go on for the year.  There's a non-zero chance we'll use those grades to determine promotion... which means all the grading I'm doing over these weeks is a complete waste of time. 

The grumbling is centered on that point, This is ALL a waste of time!  We're going to have to re-teach at the beginning of next year anyway! (We always do.)  The public schools are sending home "enrichment packets" for students who need to bring their grades up.  They're entirely optional. (Is that true? Really?) Some schools aren't even doing that!

None of that matters, because we're not a public school.  We're a private school and we rely on tuition, even for the rest of this year. We're contracted to teach, so we should teach. 

This is neither easy nor fun and it would be really nice if there were some consistency, but we go to work with what we have.  Working at home has some benefits, like being able to use the bathroom whenever, and having a cat nearby to help me with my lesson planning. I miss my co-workers and my students, but I see and talk to people every day using technology that I didn't even know existed a month ago. 

Times of growth and change are hard -- how appropriate that this is happening in the spring -- but the reality is this is easier than my first years of teaching were, and it's easier than that year I taught both math and science.  I'm on a similar hamster wheel, though, of pulling together lesson materials every single day.  The thing is, I can do it, and it's good to shake things up and make sure everything's current.   And it's not all for nothing, since I can (and will) re-use a lot of the material I'm creating now for future classes.

I still fervently want all of this to be over yesterday, but I'm not letting that overwhelm or paralyze me.  Onward.

too many triggers

I tried to plan my lessons for the week yesterday and found it so upsetting I had to put it aside for a while.  There are just so many things I'm usually doing with my students at this point in the year.  We've worked hard all year, and now we're supposed to be doing the really fun stuff together, like making models of the solar system that are accurate for size and distance (that's two models, doing a combined one would be very tough!), or making wet mount slides and getting in some good time with a microscope so as to be familiar with how they work... that is certainly not going to happen.

I was so distressed because I couldn't read my students "The Microscope" that I actually made them a video.  It's a minute long but it probably took me more than an hour to make. I do love the poem though.  It's sweet and funny and even a little educational, and yesterday I couldn't bear the thought that my 8th graders wouldn't get to hear it.  Many of them still won't hear it, of course, because there's no way I can make them actually click on it, or listen all the way through.

This week I'm taking a side tack into Cornell Notes with them.  I'm not there, I have no idea what they're actually doing, so I figured I would give them more responsibility for their learning than last week.  So I assigned: here's a lesson I made you on taking Notes!  And here, practice taking notes from this power point.  After that, take this online quiz thing, using your notes.  The only thing I'm grading here is completion of the online grading thing.  We'll see how it goes. 

Tuesday, both 7th and 8th are doing "skills practice" in a new-to-me platform called iXL.  It looks pretty solid and it is nicely coordinated with my lessons, so I'm not having to re-invent the wheel.  Yay for not having to develop new material. 

We've got slightly less than 2 weeks of school before Easter and our spring break, and then I'm hoping maybe we can be back to normal by that point or we'll extend our spring break to the beginning of May so we can all have a good cry and then actually go back to school.  This is just so very, very weird and every time I think about what should be done it makes me sad because I know what I want to do but that's not at all possible right now.

And then I end up spending an hour making a one-minute video that no one will probably watch.  But my heart feels better.  Plus next year, when kids are absent, I'll have all this material to give them for make-up work!
***
Today was DH's birthday.  I almost forgot, but remembered late yesterday when I was updating the menu.  We have a weekly calendar and as I was writing in the days I stopped short.  Wait a minute, the 29th?! Fortunately I remembered yesterday and could therefore actually make him his favorite dinner (chicken parmesan)  and his particular favorite dessert (he really isn't a dessert guy), cheese cake.  We had a nice dinner and even gave him the night off from the dishes.  We tend to go low-key on celebrations these days anyway, and I think he enjoyed his day.  None of the boys (including DH) seems remotely as traumatized as I'm feeling, but that might be because they are better at hiding it.  I just want to cry all the time.  I don't actually cry at all.  It's exhausting and now I am up too late again.  Perhaps after sleep I will feel better, but I am grieving this loss as though it's permanent even though I know it's temporary.  I never deal well with uncertainty.

The boys & I make a great team. I love them so.

laugh to learn

Among the things my administration is insisting we do: video lessons for our students so they can have "face" time with us even if they can't attend a Zoom meeting we hold during school hours.  I can't believe the amount of new technology I've absorbed and deployed in just the past few days!  Today I made four little video lessons (hosted on my own [private] YouTube channel, a thing I never imagined saying before).

Here's my favorite of them -- a brief and silly-on-purpose demonstration of the difference between rotation and revolution of objects in space.  I have found that truly goofy things will stick in students' brains, and I have developed a little repertoire of items over the years.  I didn't want to deprive this year's 7th graders of this particular bit of goofiness on my part just because we can't be in a classroom together.

DH was my camera man, and my sweet girl kitty, who hadn't seen me all day, decided to join in:

I'm having trouble getting streaming to work, but it plays just fine on YouTube: Demo, with cat

Thing I would say if I tweeted

I'm the only person in my house who changed out of my pajamas and left the building today.

I am not entertained.

There is a complete lack of diverting stories out on the web these days, not that I have time for them anyway.

I spent all weekend paralyzed and obsessively following the news, which made a little bit of sense back then because things were developing so rapidly.

Now, I'm home, moving my curriculum online and dealing with co-workers and students and admin, many of whom are just so upset that they're not thinking at all, much less thinking straight. 

Everybody just needs to stop and take a breath. Pause a moment.  Say a prayer, reflect, or just empty your mind, whatever, but do something so the mental hamster wheel your brain has been on for the recent past just stops, or better yet, disappears.

As with any big emotional event, I eventually suffer emotional fatigue.  In this case, concern fatigue or anxiety fatigue or whatever.  I can only spend so much time being keyed up before I just can't do it anymore.  It's like my emotional state is a muscle pushed past it's limit. and it can't hold any more.  That's where I'm at right now.  It's not that I'm not worried or anxious or concerned, because I am.  I just can't sustain it as my primary focus.  I have too much work to do.

I have scheduled assignments for tomorrow and Thursday for my science classes, and dealing with religion class should be relatively quick; I'll do that tomorrow morning.  The rest of the day is reserved for grading and entering grades, because I still haven't done that.  It seems kind of stupid at this point, but these are grades from before the quarantine order, so they actually mean something, and I'm dreadfully late putting them in.  Of course, I have a good excuse.

Perhaps if I get caught up on my grades, I can start a book?  Dangerous territory, given my historic lack of self-discipline when it comes to reading.  But I just might go there anyway. Or perhaps pick up my knitting again...that might be safer.

two weeks of limbo

AZ schools are closed through March 27 to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

I've spent the last 3 days reading obsessively any little scrap of news, and texting with co-workers and family.  On Friday, we were still going to open next week.  This morning, we got the word we were closing for the week, but by this afternoon, that changed to two weeks.

We have a meeting set for Tuesday morning (Monday is a vacation day for us), where admin will go over what they want us to do in terms of delivering curriculum to the students for the next 2 weeks.  We (the teachers) have many questions which will just have to wait until Tuesday to be answered.  The chief question is, are they going to make us come to campus every day for our online "office hours" with our students?  I have a horrible feeling they will, and that just makes me want to throw up  my hands and utter inappropriate phrases.  But maybe they won't.   We'll see.

I haven't felt this unsettled by something since the election in 2008.  I was able to get over that rather quickly since it basically didn't impact my personal life too much, but this is obviously a different situation.   My head is spinning with lesson plans and how best to present them to the students, and weighing whether or not I should push through to finish Chemistry with my 8th graders or just back off a bit for now?  I don't know.

Plus, about half the 7th graders cheated on a recent assignment by using Google to look stuff up when they were explicitly instructed not to do that, and I'm supposed to be lowering the hammer on them.  I kind of feel like that is counter-productive, or at the very least not a good use of my time right now, but I'll have to discuss that with my colleagues and admin to figure out what to do. 

This is certainly the weirdest break I've ever had, neither relaxing nor productive.  Tomorrow I have a blood test in the morning and then I'm going on a news fast to see if I can't get through my grading (and entering the grades in the gradebook!).  Shopping was surreal this weekend but we have a fridge full of food and no worries on that score.  I wish I could pretend that the world hasn't lost its collective mind, but that's how it seems right now, Lord help us.

another 10 days...

Wow, time is really flying here.  The weather finally warmed up a little and then went straight to hot (85!) but should settle back down a bit for a while, I hope.

School has been incredibly busy: chem labs for my 8th graders.  I love the curriculum, but it is a lot of literal running around, and I barely have time to breathe.  One issue this year is many absent students, all of whom have to then make up the lab at some later time.  I ran make up labs three days in a row during lunch this week!  That was too many.  From now one, only Tuesdays and and Thursdays!

Thyroid medication wise, I guess I'm OK?  I'm doing well staying on top of work, although I have a pile of labs to grade this weekend -- unavoidable, they just finished them! But I have used Google Forms for two tests with essay questions and they make grading so much easier!  I'm having my TA's set up the quizzes and tests for me, so all I have to do is review them for corrections and put in the point values.  Then all the unambiguous questions are scored for me, and when I grade the essays, the form does all the addition for me, too.  It has saved me a tremendous amount of time!  I'm excited about that.

The relationship to thyroid meds may not be clear: the point is, I'm having no trouble concentrating or keeping up with my work.  If anything, I'm doing better than I had in the past, and it doesn't seem like extra effort, but I'm good at deluding myself about these things, so who knows?  All I know is that I'm actually able to relax more during evenings and weekends because I'm more productive when I'm at school.  All that's to the good. 

Not so good?  My digestion is still screwed up.  It has been worse, true, but it does seem to be taking forever to straighten itself out.  I'm taking one Imodium every 5 days or so, so it's not like I'm surviving on medication, but it is annoying. The probiotics don't appear to have any effect, either. More not good: warmer weather has me bringing out different clothes a whole bunch of which don't fit me because I gained so much weight over the holidays (well, really, October through January).  I'm slooooowly taking it off again (finally below 150! yay!) but it will be a while before I can wear the capri pants I lived in last summer. 

What else?  DH and I went to a fantastic concert of the ASU Symphony last Saturday.  Honestly, I was only going to check them out to see if it was worth it go later in April when they play Mahler's Symphony #2, which is my favorite symphony.  The answer to that question was a resounding yes!  Last week's program, from their website:

The first half of this concert presents two thrilling new works by living American composers: the other-worldly Sinfonia for Orbiting Spheres by Missy Mazzoli (Chicago Symphony Composer-in-Residence) and a world premiere performance of a new concerto written for the ASU Symphony Orchestra and Saxophonist Christopher Creviston by Carter Pann (2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music). The concert closes with Dvorak’s joyous, Bohemian-inspired Symphony No. 8.

Sunday, DS2 and I went to an educator preview lunch performance at the new-ish Medieval Times restaurant up in Scottsdale.  Between the dinner (lunch) and the performance, it was close to 3 hours, and it was... I don't really know what.  Weird, I guess I'd say.  It reminded me of the jousting and tournaments they have at the Ren Faire without the dust and heat and sunburn that you get when you do that.  (You're sitting in an air-conditioned arena, basically).  Also, the 'castle' is set in 14th century Spain, and the horses are all the beautiful and extremely well-trained Spanish horses that look tiny compared to the chargers they use at the Ren Faire.  In addition to the knightly contests, there's a bit of scripted goofiness (obligatory), a falcon flight, and several dressage performances showing off the horses' skills.  I didn't dislike it but I didn't exactly like it, either: I can't imagine going back, but I'm still glad I went. 

So last weekend was lovely and I was kind of sailing into this one thinking it would be nice to have another one just like last week's, but I have that pile of labs to grade, and we have nothing planned.  Perhaps I can find something somewhere... Next weekend, DD will be home for her spring break, so we're thinking about the Ren Faire on Sunday, and I have off both Friday and Monday as a sort of mini-spring break (I'm skipping the professional development on Friday, it's optional, and I need the break!)  Hey, maybe I'll have time to read a book?  DS2 has been pestering me to start Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series while we wait for Brandon Sanderson's next Stormlight Archive book.  It's either 10 or 12 volumes, but at least I know it's finished!