RIP summer break!, as my daughter would say. Tomorrow I’m contractually obligated to be at school, participating in professional learning. It’s always a rough day, but I’m thankful for it, because I wouldn’t be very productive on the first day back anyway, so I might as well flail about in a bunch of meetings, instead of when I have time to do things I actually care about.
The first day back also is a reminder of how bored our students are on their first day back, which is why I always plan games for the first couple days.
I can’t really believe summer break is over. I feel like I really wasted this past week. My house is in shambles, my classroom is a mess, I didn’t even manage to get the kids’ rooms in decent shape, despite them being home this week. It definitely feels like I failed, and I fear I’ll really be regretting my lack of effort later. But honestly, I could not seem to muster whatever was required to get shit done this past week and half, so I guess I just have to hope that the repercussions are not too dire.
Anyway, I am soooo glad that I had a week and a half of re-entry time between Hawaii and returning to work, because ho boy did I need it. I can’t remember a time when I was less productive than last week. My brain really did feel broken, and all the articles about dementia floating around (I think a study came out linking impaired sight and hearing to dementia at earlier ages?) were not helping.
But tomorrow I’ll have some time to put my “working” hat on, and hopefully I’ll even get a few things done before 3pm.
After 3pm, I’ll be borrowing my friend-from-work’s truck and taking it to another friend’s house to load a refrigerator into the truck bed. Then I’ll be driving home, and hopefully getting it upstairs so we can see if it will work in our kitchen.
I have to admit, I’m VERY ambivalent about this fridge. I’ve been actively NOT committing to it for years, (yes, you read that right, years PLURAL) but my friend was finally like, I NEED to get this out of my house and since it’s free, is a little bigger than our fridge, has a bottom freezer, and (almost) fits in the very restrictive spot our kitchen has for a refrigerator, I feel like I can’t pass up the opportunity. We’ve been worried our fridge would bite the bullet many times, and buying a new one is so uninspiring because the only two that fit are basically the exact same as what we have. This one is different – bigger and nicer – and it has a freezer on the bottom (which I’ve wanted for a while), and measuring suggests I’ll only have to cut about 3/4 of an inch from the bottom lip of our cabinet for it to fit.
I feel like I used to be ALL about taking advantage of a situation like this, but now all I can think about are the things that could go wrong. What if we can’t get it out of the house, or into the truck, or out of the truck? What if it still won’t fit, even if I cut the cabinets? The freezer door opens outward and the trays pull out and what if that design annoys me? What if the extra 2 inches of depth is really annoying when we’re opening the doors? What if I move everything out of the old refrigerator and we can’t even get the new one in the spot!? And then I have to put everything back into the old refrigerator and then move the new one downstairs to the very back of the house. (This is the only reason I committed, because the downstairs fridge is truly heinous and we have plenty of space down there for a bigger one, so we will be using it regardless.)
Ugh! I really don’t want to be doing this, but I’m worried I’ll regret it later when my fridge dies on me and I can’t find anything else that will fit there except the exact same boring fridge we already have, and it will cost $800 to boot.
Blerg. I really do not recognize myself here. I used to be so gung-ho to attempt stuff like this, but right now I’m freaking DREADING the whole endeavor. At least we’re getting the first really hard part done tomorrow, so it’s not looming and amplifying all the other back-to-school anxieties.
Speaking of back-to-school anxieties, we’ve been managing some REALLY big feelings around starting high school these past few days. Today, I asked my daughter to go through some of her larger books, and she made a pile with all her books about dragons and fairies, and then she promptly started sobbing and I realized I had picked exactly the WRONG day to be doing any of this. We did a lot of snuggling in front of the fifth episode of Good Girl’s Guide to Murder afterward, which almost made up for it, but still, it was an unforced error I’m definitely regretting. Luckily the teeth cleaning appointments and ADHD meds/sports clearance appointment went fine. Her pediatrician even called me in the morning and asked if we’d like to take a newly opened spot to see her instead of the random guy, to which I very appreciatively said YES! The pharmacy even had her ADHD meds in stock! A miracle!
Tonight I went to the dojo and I was able to SIT ON MY KNEES! Like fully and for a couple of minutes. It didn’t feel great, but I wasn’t in agony and it was absolutely the first time I’ve been able to sit that way since my injury in February. I’ve been working on knee flexion again this past week – after taking the summer off – and I was starting to wonder if I’d ever be able to sit on my knees again, so this felt phenomenal. Later, I was able to sit cross legged for the meditation, which was also a first.
Of course, when I stood up afterward, my knee felt kind of awful, and kicking felt precarious, but I”m hoping it will pass quickly and that I can keep making progress toward full flexion in my injured knee. My knee always feels pretty stiff and sore after I work on bending it, so I’m not surprised that it felt especially stiff and sore after today. I can’t really believe that I was able to sit like that today. I honestly got hot eyes, and almost started crying I was so happy.
And this post has been all over the place, just like my brain these days. Here’s to hoping tomorrow at work is not awful, and that we can at least get this refrigerator up to the city without too many issues. If anyone has any refrigerator-moving advice, I will definitely listen! Please share!
Happy another year of teaching! I have mixed feelings about going back, but mostly they are hopeful: I hope to get good kids this year, I hope to teach them what I want to teach them and I hope they are all receptive. All I can do is my best, everything else is out of my control.
My first day back is August 28th, so next week, maybe a Wednesday and a Thursday, I will go in and decorate the classroom, move some books, print some stuff… I have a Google drive folder that lists ALL of the tasks that I can do digitally, at home, so that I don’t have to spend time on that when I am actually IN SCHOOL. Simple stuff: pull and print rosters, extract accommodations for the students with disabilities, make a phone chart, make a seating chart, copy, paste and spice up the first two weeks of lesson plans, decide on SGO, etc. You now the admin stuff that all can be done from home, so when I show up for that prof dev day I can just do the physical classrom stuff- that I actually enjoy. I love bulletin boards LOL
I legit just helped my mom install a new fridge last week, and it so was NOT a big deal. Make sure you have a dolly (obviously) and some strong help. You should be able to just pop the pins on your doors to pull them off and give clearance to get the fridge through. Before you start moving it, make sure you have a little screwdriver or whatever is needed to pop the fridge door handles off.
Also, no reason to move the food out of your existing kitchen fridge until you know the new one fits. 🙂 Just pull it out, unplug it, and roll it to the side. Keep the doors closed. And then figure out if the new fridge fits, cut to fit, etc. Fridges get to temp quickly. so once you’ve got the new fridge in spot and plugged in, just quickly move items from one fridge to the other (quickly, ha, it may take an hour if you have as much stuff as my mom did!). You’ve got this!
ps – I ADORE having my freezer on the bottom and would never want to go back to a side-by-side design. It keeps all of your fresh items eye level and easier to grab/use before they go bad!
Thank you for all this. I was just thinking last night that I should just pull out the old one with everything in it, push it to the side and use an extension cord to plug it in while I’m setting up the new one. I’m sure it will all be worth it, I just need to get it done.
fingers crossed new fridge works out and you all are happy with it. Love freezer on bottom. Side freezer is never wide enough and on top means way too much bending over for veggie drawers.
Transition from vacation to home life is rough, then transitioning to back to school even rougher. Give yourself some grace and acknowledge all that you DID get accomplished (the to do list will forever be a mile long, always remember that. All you can do it is keep checking things off as you go.)