Five 5s on Friday: End of School Year Updates

This is all over the place – much like my life right now – so Buckle up.

Work

• Today is my final Friday (with students) of the school year. Yesterday was my last four-block, no-prep Thursday. Next week we have two normal school days and two six-period, minimum day (basically babysitting) school days, The end of the year is almost here!
• After feeling perpetually behind on scoring work and updating my gradebooks, I stayed up late last night and sloughed through a bunch of stuff. It feels good to feel somewhat caught up.
• We’re distributing yearbooks today (to the 8th graders) and Tuesday (to the 6th and 7th graders). Wish us luck.
• The 8th graders are out of their GD minds. The behaviors are exasperating. Managing the behaviors is exhausting. I’m so ready to say goodbye to them.
• I need to move a bunch of furniture from a corner of my room so a heating and cooling system can be installed. This fact is looming over me and causing me stress.

Home

• The kids’ last day was Wednesday. Yesterday my parents picked up the 11yo and took him to the county fair and then for a spend the night. The 14yo (for two more days!) was supposed to go, but instead stayed in the city to attend her good friend’s 8th grade promotion. (Can I say how much less stressful it is now that both kids can be home alone for significant amounts of time?! Loving that aspect of this age!)
• Tuesday was the 11yo’s 5th grade promotion. Both sets of grandparents attended and came back to our house after for lunch. The ceremony was lovely, but in the blazing sun and we all got sunburned.
• I am so thankful for the 11yo’s elementary experience . He transferred to a different school than the 14yo attended after the pandemic and it was a great fit for him and he made a ton of friends. Most of those friends are heading to the same middle school which is awesome.
• The city’s budget is a mess and layoffs were announced. The husband’s position is not being cut, but it’s stressful to manage the turmoil and he feels perpetually behind. He also finds extended family-gatherings really exhausting so I’ve been managing the fall out of the 11yo’s promotion and the anticipatory fall out of the (almost) 15yo’s birthday.
• We decided to have the grandparents’ at our house (instead of trying to find a restaurant that could accommodate us) late Monday night, which was stressful in the moment but means I have less cleaning to do for the (then) 15yo’s birthday tomorrow.

This weekend

• Tomorrow morning I’m taking the 11yo and a couple dojo friends to a cars show in South City. I’ve never picked up these kids or taken anyone to a card show, so I’m fairly anxious about the whole thing. We need to be back by 2pm for the (at that point) 16yo’s family birthday party with the grandparents. I need to grab flatbread pizzas from my friend’s restaurant in between. I’m not a fan of tight turn arounds like this, but hopefully it will go okay.
• The (almost) 15yo isn’t getting much. We considered a new computer since she stepped on her Chromebook and cracked the screen, but it still works and she has a school-issued Chromebook in better shape so we held off. We also considered getting her PADI scuba certified this summer and doing the open water certification dives in Maui, but decided to just do a couple discovery dives in Maui to see how she felt about it. I took her shopping last weekend and will take her again soon. I ordered her a couple silly shirts (that she knows about) and got her some LEGO flower sets (that she doesn’t know about). She’ll get some video game money for Marvel Rivals skins and some real money for whatever she wants. That’s about it.
• The 15yo’s two best friends are spending the night tomorrow, after the family birthday. Her only request was that there be no “you should really get to bed” messages coming from us, so the 11yo will spend the night with this grandparents (the IL’s this time), and the husband and I will stay downstairs for the evening. It should be a lot like any other sleep over with friends and I’m grateful for that.
• We have nothing on the docket for Sunday except the girls still being at our house and the 11yo eventually coming home. I hope to work on the summer fun photo book, because if I don’t get it ordered soon I won’t have them in time for our trip to St. Louis.

Personal

• I’ve been taking the higher dose of my thyroid medication for two weeks now and I’m feeling a little better. I’m still getting hot flushes but they’ve been less frequent. I’m still waking up a lot in the night, but I’m not tossing and turning as much. I feel like the brain fog is more intense this time, but maybe it’s just stress and hectic schedule. I really hope I start feeling better soon because this is exhausting. I’m also trying not to spiral about managing this for the next two years and keeping my focus on the immediate future.
• I got my red belt and it feels good to wear it. The teaching schedule at the dojo this month has required a lot of coverage and I’ve been stepping in quite a bit. I definitely feel a lot more comfortable on the mat and it’s clear the teachers and parents appreciate my presence. Obviously I am bringing a lot of school experience to my teaching style there, and I feel pretty natural standing in front of a class and knowing what to say next. It’s nice to feel like I’m good at something and like my efforts are appreciated.

• I figured out that I have a new (or much worse allergy) to a perennial weed that grows (ALL OVER) our backyard. It’s called Parietaria judaica (colloquially, wall pellitory) and it’s always been my biggest op because it sticks like velcro to freaking everything. But lately, when it just grazes my skin as I pass it, it causes an immediate reaction (redness and welts), and the other day I suffered a systemic reaction after pulling a bunch of it out of the walls in our backyard (I was FULLY covered, but should have been wearing N-95 a mask). I took some Benedryl and passed out early, and it confirmed my suspicion that this is the new (to-me) allergen that has been making me miserable in the spring (especially), summer, and fall. I’ve always hated that stuff, but it has never made me react like I did on Tuesday to it. I’m not sure if I can add it to my allergy shot, but that requires I start coming once a week again and I’m not ready to commit to that anyway.

• I’ve also been having ocular migraines again, which I believe are related to stress and dehydration. I’m writing down when I get them and for how long, and I plan to call my doctor about them next week if they continue.

Oh, and I got my computer back! Hilariously I wrote most of this on my phone in my bed when I woke up at 530am this morning. But! I did finish it on the computer so that felt nice. It’s sooooo good to have this computer back. I’m very grateful that it was fixable, and that my work paid to fix it for me!

I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend, and a fabulous start to summer (if summer is something that “starts” for you). I’m soooo ready for summer at this point.