Closing Time

 It's not that I've stopped writing.  I've just stopped writing here.

Life is just as crazy as it ever was, but it's not making me crazy anymore. Here's why.  

How time does go by

 It's twenty-four years now.

It was a typical day, really, and I couldn't understand why I was crushed with sadness on my drive home, until I recognized the date. 

Every year, it's the same. 

Love you, Dad.

döstädning

 "Swedish death cleaning"

Apparently, there's at least one book out there about this, and I've seen multiple articles, though I've never bothered to read much past the headlines.  It's a simple idea, really: If you were gone, as in dead and gone, not just on vacation, would the things you're leaving behind be a burden?  

As the daughter of a dedicated pack rat, I am opposed to keeping stuff to just to keep it. I do not believe in "I'll use it someday," especially if it's been sitting in a box or a drawer or a cupboard for more than 10 years now.   Still, in a big house like ours, it's easy for stuff to accumulate because you can just put it up on a shelf and not even see it.  This is how you end up buried in stuff!

My self-appointed job this summer: döstädning, made possible by DH moving his office upstairs into DS2's room, which will be vacant until he gets his next leave and can come visit, and only the Army knows when that will be.  

It's going well, because I have no distractions and can work at my own pace, and I can be ruthless since there's no one else around to say, But don't you think...?  No, I don't.  Out it goes!

The downstairs is pretty much done except for the biggest job, which I'm saving till everything else is settled: the photo albums.  But cleaning out the guest room was huge, because it had become the junk room. We weren't expecting any guests over the pandemic, so no big deal, right?  Plus, all of our go-to donation places were closed, and I didn't want to just throw away good, some very good, stuff, so it just sat there, some of it for over year. 

But now, St. Vincent de Paul is accepting donations again, and I've made two trips there, plus a trip to Bookman's, and another trip to the solid waste recycling center.  DS1 switched around some furniture and there's more space in the guest room now than in the entire history of the guest room -- and even the closet is mostly passable.  I have a few targeted donations that I have to arrange, so those items are waiting in the closet.

It's lovely just methodically going through boxes and bookshelves and cupboards and closets, sorting everything: keep-donate-pitch.  I eliminated seven (!!!) boxes from my closet, at least 4 of which moved with me from Massachusetts over 25 years ago.  I have a much smaller stack of stuff that will fit in bottom drawer of my night stand, so here's to using furniture to hold things I actually like, that have meaning! 

Some part me is arguing, "You're erasing your own past!" when I pitch letters from high school friends or sweethearts, or my super dramatic adolescent journals.  Projecting time forward, I thought, Do I want anyone else to read this?  Do **I** even want to read this, ever again?  No, and no, especially the 2-inch thick file of legal bickering that ended my first marriage, or the tortured letters I wrote after a  (different) devastating break-up.  I do thank God I never sent them -- they were intended to be therapeutic, but looking back, I'm not so sure they were.  Rumination contributes to depression, but I didn't know that back then.  

The photo project will take a lot longer, although I've pitched at least a half-dozen old albums full of murky red-tinted photos that were not-great to begin with.  I've salvaged a few here and there, but I don't need, for example, full documentation of the construction of the deck on my old place in Natick, even if it was a really nice deck.  And no one needs scads of photos of people they haven't talked to in over  30 years, right?  They're not part of my life any more, and there's no reason to weigh myself down -- literally -- with photo albums from the times they were.  

It will be harder to go through the albums from my own family, but I know I can at least eliminate duplicates and bad pictures.  Back before digital cameras, if you weren't a serious photographer, you'd use your point-and-shoot, develop the film, and get your prints.  I never developed (pun unintended) the habit of pruning out bad shots back then, although if my fingers were in front of the lens, I wouldn't keep those prints!  But I know there are a lot of truly mediocre - or worse - landscape shots and architecture shots and honestly, no one needs those if they're not showing something specific. 

Sorting is the first phase, then will come scanning, and then figuring out long-term storage. I suppose if I can reorganize 20+ photo albums into a half dozen or so, that's not too bad, but I'm not thrilled with that idea.  Eventually, I want to move to a smaller house, and one reason I'm doing this is to prove to myself I don't need a house this big to hold all my stuff! 

Now I'll just have to resist filling up all the newly-empty spaces I've made.  

suddenly, summer!

 Technically I have one more day -- maybe an hour or two -- before I can officially declare it summer, but I'm jumping the gun anyway: no more classes!  As far as I'm concerned, that's summer. The entire school year was a surreal experience.  Most individual days seemed very, very long, but by the end, I had a constant feeling of Wait, what? It can't be over yet!

I was very productive over spring break and that really helped the end of the year go more smoothly, plus I was able to use materials I developed at the end of last year, too.  But I still had to develop new work for the last chapters of our religion text -- we finished the book this year, a first.  I also worked up a bunch of new material for the 7th grade, since we didn't have a field trip this year, that gave us 2 weeks of extra time.  Not that we would go on a 2-week field trip, but I usually reviewed for at least a week or so before we left.  Here's hoping we get to go next year, but I'm not holding my breath.

Some things were nearly normal: 8th grade graduation, and 7th grade field day.  We even had an all-school mass on the last day of school with all grades in attendance.  But everyone still had to wear masks right up through the last day of school, although by the end they were "optional" when we were outside.  I pretty much gave up wearing mine except when I was working in close contact with the students; since I was vaccinated months ago, there was really no point.  I did my lecturing from the back of the class well away from the students, who were all masked and facing away from me anyway. 

I'm most looking forward to staying in my own room to teach, all day, next year, and sending the students out for their other subjects and specials.  The hardware problems became so routine they only occasionally made me want to scream, but with any luck, that particular requirement will be shelved.  We all noticed how the 7th graders seemed stalled in their development -- they didn't have to learn how to be organized or how to get where they needed to be, because this year, the teachers came to them.  It's going to be a big adjustment for them next year, but a necessary one. 

There were some upsides in spite of the craziness:  I have a nearly completely paperless classroom now.  In addition to saving me the time and the school the expense of printing out worksheets, I also don't have to collect them,  keep them organized, and hand them back. This is a huge time saving! I didn't have a single no-name paper to deal with this year, and I also didn't have a single instance of "I can't read your hand writing, do this again."  No one's work was lost, and no one claimed to have handed something in when they hadn't (Google Classroom keeps track of submissions quite well.)  Grading was much easier, once I moved everything into the appropriate Google form or document.  I'm not brushing off the effort that took, which was substantial, but the time saving was substantial.  Most days I arrived at school about 7:15-7:20AM, whereas in past years I often routinely arrived before 7AM because I needed the time to print and staple worksheets for the students.  

Another big change came as the result of our dismissal process.  We loaded students into their parents' cars individually, since we were limiting people on campus and didn't want people hanging out in the parking lots.  At first I was only on the car line twice a week, but that morphed into every day because I preferred being on the car line to waiting under the canopy with the mass of students trying to keep them relatively quiet.  It wasn't actually too long a process, but I was still out there long enough every day to get a hysterical tan pattern on my feet from my sandal straps, and to bring out the blonde highlights in my hair.  We were always done by 3:30PM and most days, I just went right home.  Some days I hung out with my partner teacher dealing with some issue or other, but most days I was home some time around 4PM.  Since everything is online, there was no particular reason to hang around, so I didn't. 

I kept up my "do something every day" practice and it made such a tremendous difference. I was all caught up with my grading well before the last day of school, and that gave me time to clean out both my closets, all my cabinets, and even my desk!  For  some reason people keep giving me fancy note pads and I must have at least 10 now, but I finally got rid of some things I was keeping for no good reason. I even pitched the expandable file I've had since my very first year of teaching.  It was held together with duct tape and basically on life support, and since I didn't need it even once this year, out it went.  I did not mourn the end of that particular era!  It's always a good feeling to get organized.  

Another innovation: after years of printing out a monthly calendar and planning classes on paper, I finally put it all into a spreadsheet.  It's so much easier and I can't misplace it, I keep thinking, why didn't I do this before?  Planning next year is going to be so much easier!  I'm holding on to the hope that everything will be easier next year.  I won't have to develop curriculum every single day.  I won't have to move from classroom to classroom, the students will come to me.  I will be able to take my classes to the science lab -- or at least, if I decide to do labs in the classroom, I'll only have to set up once, because they'll be in my own classroom!  I can re-use the individual kits I made for the 8th graders' magnet lab and the 7th graders' minerals explorations -- those were great! It's so good to recognize all that work and know the effort wasn't wasted.  

On the home front, DS1 is settling in to his new job position and really, really appreciates being out of his old job.  He is making more money but the best part is the work itself is more challenging, plus he really appreciates not having to deal with irate vendors or truck drivers anymore.  DD graduated and we had an extremely informal photo shoot at the Riparian Preserve, repurposing my cap and gown from my master's degree ceremony (now four years ago!): 

We had a great day with her room mates.  The four of us went out to brunch at Agritopia and I took them for their first-ever wine tasting at Garage-East.  She had a couple of weeks to relax and then started working full time as a lab tech at company that does drug testing.  It's somewhat ironic given her political leanings, but she understands she needs to work, and so she is.  

DS2 was able to come home for a quick leave before heading to Florida for the rest of his training.  I spoiled him with all his favorites as much as I could, although after months of mediocre cafeteria food, all it took was a decent fast-food French fry: 

DH took him car shopping, since the only reason he got leave was so he could get a car to drive to his new assignment:

He took off last Thursday on the cross-country drive, and arrived Saturday outside New Orleans for a last day of family time before reporting in on Sunday.  His Louisiana cousins are excited to have him so close by (less than 4 hours' drive), and I'm happy for him, too.  Odds are good he'll be able to be with family for Thanksgiving this year!

DH has been working mostly insane hours but in just the past few days it has let up.  We have summer plans in place for CT, including Mystic, and the Cape, resigning ourselves to having to drive through brutal summer traffic.  We are so excited to be seeing our families again!  I have my usual slew of doctor's appointments both before and after we go, but no big projects are planned for this summer beyond a thorough cleaning of closets that have been collecting stuff since the last time I did it.  I may even get to read a few books! 

 

All downhill from here

 I didn't mean to go so long without posting.  The temptation is to say there's nothing going on, because really, it's just the daily grind and then some.   It's life.

In one week we went from low 60s to mid-to-high 90s - spring is here! Today is my first day of spring break week, finally -- Easter was yesterday.   It was a good day, but busy-busy leading up to it, with the usual shopping and cooking and finishing up school stuff before break.  All done, now!  

I can theoretically relax, but I don't think I know how.  I feel weird when I'm not working on new curriculum or lesson planning or grading.  It's just how life is, now.  For many months I would take off a few evenings during the week but I figured out that was a huge mistake, because everything would pile up and make the weekends hellish.  So I've been consistently putting in a few hours of something every evening... except for the past four days.   I've had a lot to do to keep me busy but when I plunk myself down on the couch, I find myself chasing down internet rabbit holes because I don't really have to do anything else. 

Kids are fine. Oldest is poised to start a new job role with a big pay raise.  Youngest is enjoying challenging studies, finally.  Middle is about to graduate and is sort of, kind of looking for a job.   I have joked that two out of three ain't bad, but Middle offspring will find her own way, I'm sure.  It will work out. 

DH is working from home almost all the time, still, which is good because he doesn't have to commute, but bad because he works all the time.  Oldest is also working from home, and having them both here will definitely put a crimp in getting renovations done this summer.  We'll see.  

We have no plans right now, but hope to see family this summer.  I'm fully vaccinated and have been for about a month now; DH is due for his second dose shortly.  The hope is that will make it easier for us to travel, but who know what the rules will be by then.  Covid numbers are trending way down in AZ currently but I have no idea what's going on out on the east coast. We'd like to see family this summer.  Here's hoping.

I sense in myself a forward-looking habit, skipping the next 7 weeks of school entirely and going straight to summer vacation.  Knowing we're almost done with this insane year is so encouraging, but I'm worried I'm going to hit a wall before the school year is over.   It's probably not healthy that I'm counting down the days, but so far it seems helpful.

Anyway, in the rest of this vacation, I am going to do as much planning and prep as I can, especially since I have only one assignment left to grade, and it's not a big deal.  The hope is that will make the rest of this year easier.  

One reason I feel optimistic now is because I have the sense of having turned the corner at school: science fair is long over, but also, I'm finished with the awesome but labor-intensive 8th grade chemistry curriculum.  This year's constraints required me to bring the lab into both 8th grade classrooms, so it literally required twice as much setup as in the past.  Plus, I moved everything online, so that required printing and laminating lab instructions so no Chromebooks were damaged by all the liquids we were using.  It was massively successful, but my favorite part of the entire experience was being able to put everything away last Wednesday after school.  There was no way I wanted to have to do it on Holy Thursday, so Wednesday was it.  Can't tell you how many things I washed out and put away, but I made the effort so next year I won't have to figure out where everything is and clean it.  Future me does not need to be burdened by current me!  

One of my philosophies of life involves not making work for others, including myself. I'm doing a better job of sticking to it these days.

still here

 Wow, that was a quick 6 weeks.  What happened?

I worked like crazy to finish all my grading before Christmas break began, and I was a very good girl and worked hard on my planning in the first few days off.  So when the offspring arrived I had plenty of free time, which was lovely.  DD came down from Flagstaff with her cat and stayed for the better part of a week, and DS2 flew in from Missouri on December 22.  His arrival was my best Christmas present this year.  

It's not like we spent a lot of time together, but we did have some Christmas shopping expeditions and one truly fine outing to see the Sistine Chapel exhibit at the Croft in downtown Phoenix.  It was exquisite.  These are the Sybils -- each prophetess at a different stage of life, all beautifully rendered. 

One thing I loved was being able to walk right up to the panels reproducing each work.  If you go to the Chapel in real life, you have to crane your neck to see everything -- not that I've been.  Yet!

It was just really lovely having everyone home again.  We had lots of great meals together and accompanying conversations.  I was able to take my second annual Happy New Year photo, too: 

Over New Year's I read Brandon Sanderson's latest epic The Rhythm of War, all 1200-odd pages, and loved it.  I only regret not having read it in time to talk to DS2 about it, but we'll have time for that eventually.  

I had my semi-annual thyroid cancer check up at the end of December, and just before going back to school got all my results: ultrasound looks good, but my TSH had ticked up all the way to 1, which is shockingly high for me -- the highest I've been off Thryogen in ages.  So my endo upped my meds a bit, and we'll see how it goes.  That was weird, I admit.  I also didn't like how high my fasting blood sugar was, but honestly, we were still working our way through all the holiday treats.  My students and their families are incredibly generous, and this year truly surprised me, given how generally bad things have been for everyone.  

Tomorrow marks the end of our second week back from break, and we're just stuck in this groove and not getting out any time soon.  It's wearying, having to teach the way we are now, but I'm doing my best to preserve the experience for my students.  It's going to get very weird as we move further into chemistry and we get to the hands-on stuff... It will be a lot of extra work (It's always extra work, this year it will just be more extra work)  but I'm thinking I can manage it.  Here's hoping. 

The house seems extra quiet now, even though it wasn't much noisier when the kids (not kids anymore!) were here.  Well, having another cat made things a little more lively, as he was likely to attack the Christmas tree on occasion.  But now the house just seems simultaneously too big and too full of stuff no one is using.  I have a strong urge to clean out cupboards and book cases and offload all the stuff that's just sitting there that no one will ever use or want.  It's such a satisfying feeling, but I don't really have time for it now.  But if we're going to renovate? That's the perfect time for that kind of a purge!  I hope we can. 

I managed to do some things I'd been putting off: some tailoring (every shirt I buy from Loft needs to be taken in, they're styled for people built like bricks...) and re-making (my birthday skirt from Anthropologie was too short, so I bought another one on clearance and frankensteined them together.  Looks fine!)   I'm thinking about starting a knitting project... or an embroidery project even, since I finally took the task light I bought months ago out of its box and set it up.  (It's what made reading those 1200+ pages possible without massive eye strain.)  So far I've just looked at a million patterns and not decided on anything yet.  Ha!

I do seem to be freezing all the time, though, these days.  My favorite place is on the couch under the blue blanket.  But really being honest, I'm cold, then I put the blanket on, then I warm up and take it off, and that cycle repeats endlessly.  Sometimes I just put the blanket on and like an infant, when I am warm and still for a moment, I drop off to sleep.  It helps. 

I survived the holiday sweets blitz with only a few pounds gained and I'm already back to where I was when they started.  I'm also back to doing my (almost) daily exercises and they have been tremendously helpful with my hip but my left shoulder is just not happy with me.  Of course it is not the shoulder itself but the muscles around it, and the problem is almost certainly a posture issue plus I haven't been doing my neck stretches.  The surgery was 15 bleeping years ago and my body will not let me forget it.  I'm hoping another week of diligent attention to both posture and stretching will get me out of this flare.  At least the hip is under control at the moment. I'm also keeping up with my face yoga/massage, trying to counteract the effects of gravity, extra pounds, and aging... having to see myself on Zoom screens all day long has unfortunately piqued my vanity.  I took a selfie I actually like:

The world is still a mess and I am mostly on a news fast except for headlines. Considering the circumstances that seems to be the best decision, since there is literally nothing I can do about any of the nonsense currently underway. Somedays I catch myself worrying about it but I know that's pointless.  It seems with all the white hair I'm now growing I'm finally gaining some wisdom? Perhaps!

 I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

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.