Not a Wasted Word

I spent all day preparing to host my sister and hanging out with my sister, so please enjoy these photos of the gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge, which were taken today.

One thing I’ve realized reading blogs is that everyone has different thresholds for what they can manage. Some people that I read seem to “do less” than me, but feel just as overwhelmed and some people do so much more than me and seem to be just fine (Sarah’s recent DITL post had me reeling, but that is not uncommon – she does so much and always seems ready to do more!) I feel like I usually have a lot on my plate, and much of time I do end up getting it done, if not well. This fall things have felt pretty unmanageable, or the waves of overwhelm have felt surprisingly big and heavy. But maybe I always feel like that? I’m pretty sure my problem is that I take on too much, but it feels like if I took out the “unnecessary stuff,” all that would be left is obligations and chores. Am I really supposed to stop doing all but those things so that the days feel more manageable? I don’t know.

Anyway, my point today was to write out some of the reasons that it’s felt so hard, hopefully putting in perspective my feeling of overwhelm and reminding myself that this too shall pass (eventually?!)

Transition to high school. Why was I not dreading this? Honestly I’m glad I wasn’t because it wouldn’t have helped me, but man oh man has it been a hard transition. The 14yo has so much more homework, and is really struggling to get it all done every night. She also has trouble keeping track of it; there are so many very late nights that could have been avoided if she had a good way of tracking her assignments. The good news is she’s doing well, the bad news is her success right now relies HEAVILY on parental support. She’s up much later than either of us want to be awake, so we take turns being the one to stay up with her and make sure she gets to bed at a reasonable (or close to it) time. Honestly, this is probably the biggest struggle right now, and most everything else is tied to this in some way.

Mornings. I used to get up at 6am and spend the first hour of my day blissfully alone getting the kids lunches ready and making coffee and getting ready for work. Now my daughter gets up at the same time as I do and I spend the first hour of the day trying to get her out of bed and done with her breakfast. She is always in a bad mood, which puts me in a bad mood. The fights over phone use are horrible (this is a MASSIVE problem for us – her relationship with her phone is a constant point of contention, despite the copious locks and time limits we have placed on it. I’m SO GLAD we waited until 8th grade to get her one – I honestly wish we had waited longer). It’s just a shitty way to start the day and leaves me grumpy for my morning commute. I used to always listen to an audiobook on my drive down, but now I listen to sad music most of the time, because that is how I feel most mornings.

Husband traveling. My husband had two big trips this fall, one for fun and one for work. I’m incredibly lucky to have my in-laws help with the mornings when he is away, otherwise I’d have to miss 1.5 hours of class every morning and write sub plans for a ton of classes. I don’t really mind that much when he’s away, because I know what to expect and I can manage things without him (maybe not super well, but at a level I deem acceptable). It’s when he comes home and is still not able to step up because he’s jet lagged or tired or getting sick or whatever it is. He’s been home for almost a week from Dubai and he’s barely been helping. But he’s around so I can’t just do things my way. It’s the worst of both worlds, and I am so over it. I’m glad he’s not set to travel again for a while.

Challenges at work. School has been hard this year. I have a lot more behavioral issues than I did last year. I have way more chronically absent students. More of my students are struggling to master the material. I spend way more of time my time trying to catch kids up after they’ve been gone, or reteach them something they don’t understand, or make up assessments they missed. The way I’ve been doing things for the past five years are just not working as well, and re-configuring stuff takes time and energy. This is going to be an issue all year, so I need to figure out a better way to manage it. I met with my principal today (I’m being observed this year) and she mentioned that she doesn’t want me working harder than my students and I thought, OH MY GOD I AM. I am working way harder than so many of them, and that has to stop. I need to figure out how I’m going to manage the chronic absenteeism, make my expectations clear to students and parents, and then hold my boundaries. Of course all that will take a lot of work!

Other random one offs. Getting covid in September threw me for a loop (especially since so many family members had big events they didn’t want to miss right after). The refrigerator swap was awful and then resulted in the broken refrigerator that needed to be fixed (lesson there: hire people to move refrigerators for the love). My sister coming to town now, at the end of my trimester, is just the worst timing, but there is nothing I can do about that. She will come when she comes and I just have to decide how much time I make for her. (She used to live literally ACROSS THE STREET from me, and we NEVER saw each other, so I’m not sure why I try so hard when she’s here.) There has been some other extended family stuff that doesn’t really have to do with me, but that has been stressful. The election was anxiety-producing and then devastating and heartbreaking. It hasn’t been a great fall, but hopefully things will get better.

I didn’t write this post to bitch, I honestly wanted to remember why I’ve been feeling so done lately. Honestly, just the high school transition stuff and the challenges in my classroom are enough to make everything feel like too much. I need to remember that. And remember that just being home in the evenings does not necessarily make me feel better. When I’m home I need to make dinners for the kids and manage their homework and chores and do my own shit, and it’s not exactly pleasant or energizing. I think sometimes I forget that. Would a weekend at home alone be helpful! Absolutely! But that ain’t happening any time soon, so I need to find other things that actually fill my cup.

Or maybe I’ll just ignore my daughter in the morning and let her figure it out herself. (In fact, I’m definitely going to start doing that.)

I am so behind. My sister could not be coming at a worst time (first trimester ends next week). So instead of a post, here are close ups of my cats, who are keeping me company while I score tests way too late.

I don’t know what to say.

My daughter sobbed into my shoulder last night and I didn’t know what to say.

I will stand in front of my students today and I won’t know what to say.

As this is the third election in my lifetime that has filled me with dread, I wonder if there will ever be a time when this day does not make me sick to my stomach with anxiety. It really sucks.

But at least, after today, it will be over. They moved San Francisco’s mayoral election to the presidential election year, and this year my district had to elect a new Supervisor, so the amount of paperwork we’ve been receiving and TEXT MESSAGES I’ve been getting, has been astronomical. We also had several state and local measures to vote on. Our ballot was FOUR DOUBLE SIDED PAGES LONG! It took forever to go through it all last night.

But we did and my husband brought my ballot in this morning. I’m thankful that after today, it will be over.

I really hope the results are not devastating.

It’s weird to have other things to say today. But I guess I do?

The 14yo’s transition to high school has been rougher than I expected. She has ADHD and she has really struggled to keep track of assignments and get so much homework done in the late hours of the day when her medicine has worn off. Helping her manage her workload is a new job that my husband and I are struggling with. It makes me tired.

My husband has been home for several days and is still totally tired and out of it. This also makes me tired.

I had six students out in one class yesterday and five in another class. I spend SO MUCH TIME trying to help students get caught up when they are out. Yet another thing that makes me tired.

Blerg.

I think I’m just feeling really overwhelmed right now. I just had a conversation with my husband about seeing my sister on Saturday and I started sobbing. Clearly I am not handling all this anxiety with grace.

I need to figure out a strategy for managing NaBloPoMo too. I want to comment more (WAY MORE), but I’m struggling with it on my phone. I want to experiment with a couple different strategies, but so far I’ve had time to try out zero. I want to think this week is just crazy but every week will end up being crazy, especially once my sister is in town (she comes Thursday). I will figure it out eventually, but thank you for your patience as I do so.

And here are cats!

This weekend was busy. I really appreciated falling back and getting the extra hour on Sunday

Saturday

I did my regular Saturday morning chores, and prepped for my dad to take the 11yo to swimming. They left at 10:30 and I walked out the door soon after. I taught Teens, then went to Sparring, Forms, and High Belt at the dojo. I was there from 11am to 3pm.

Back at home my kids were done with the lunch my dad got them on his way back from swim. I cleaned up a bit, then took a quick shower before grabbing sandwiches for myself and my husband and heading to the airport to pick him up. He had been traveling for 28 hours and was super out of it.

I ran down to the Day of the Dead celebrations after I dropped off my husband. It was cold and I was alone, so I didn’t stay long.

That evening was pretty chill. My daughter and I watched Interstellar, which she loved. I haven’t seen it in ages and really enjoyed it. It was nice to hang out with her.

Sunday

So much to do Sunday. While I knew on Friday we were falling back this weekend, I totally forgot about it on Saturday. So when I woke up on Sunday I kind of freaked out, feeling like I had slept in too much, and was confused when my phone said it was just 8am. Then I remembered and was very happy for the extra hour.

Sunday was a busy day. I took my daughter and her friend up to my favorite park and they walked the circuit once while I ran it twice. It was a beautiful day and I was so happy to be outside. Back at home, I helped my son with his martial arts form for about 45 minutes, then did a 30 minute Dale Duro class on Peloton. After I showered I made pumpkin pancakes, both for dinner and for my son’s lunches. After family dinner, I took the 14yo’s friend home, then we hit up Grocery Outlet to buy milk and a couple other things. We ran into the 14yo’s old friend and her mom and talked to them for a while. At home again the kids made their lunches, then we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Rec, before going to bed. I try hard to take advantage of this time change to get to bed earlier, at least for a couple weeks.

Workouts

MONDAY: Rest after Fri-Sunday workouts

TUESDAY: Dale Duro 30 min Upper Body Strength

WEDNESDAY: Rest (this was the first day I was sick with the 11yo’s cold and I didn’t feel great)

THURSDAY: Dale Duro 30 min Full Body Strength (I can’t believe I did this at 10:30pm on Halloween night, with a cold!)

FRIDAY: 20 min climb ride (Tunde, 5/26/24) then 15 min core (Samuela, 10/26/24)

SATURDAY: Sparring + Forms + High Belt at dojo

SUNDAY: 5 mile run, then Dale Duro 30 min glutes and legs

Well helloooo there! It’s day number 3 of NaBloPoMo 20204 and I’m finally getting around to introducing myself. My (blog) name is Noemi. I’ve been blogging in this space for about 10 years (aak! I missed my 10 year anniversary here in September! ALL THE FACE PALMS! (but totally not surprising)). I started blogging at a different site in 2008, and was a big part of the ALI (adoption, loss, infertility) community for many years. I had many close blogging friends during that time, and traveled to meet some of them. That blogging community saved me during some really difficult years, and I was saddened when it eventually became undone by the passage of time.

I blogged in what felt at times like a vacuum for some long years before finding San’s NaBloPoMo last year and participating. I found so many new blogs to read and this past year has felt like a kind of blogging renaissance for me (of my god if you could have seen how to I tried to spell renaissance right then! HA!) I am so thankful to have found this community of bloggers and am thrilled to be participating in NaBloPoMo again this year.

So what else to tell you about me and this space…

I keep my identity here on lock down. At least I try hard to. I don’t post pictures of myself or my family. I’m a teacher and I don’t want students to find this space. I’m not on ANY social media and I want to stay anonymous here. I hope that remains the case, but I wonder sometimes if I give away too many clues. I suppose I’m not as worried about someone who reads this blog figuring out who I am, I’m more worried about people who know me “in real life” finding it.

I was born in Singapore and lived in Hong Kong for seven years (six of them formative). I was back in the Bay Area for most of middle school and all of high school. I studied Linguistics at UC Berkeley and eventually went to SF State to get my teaching credential. I moved to San Francisco the same summer I got a job teaching Spanish in the same district on the peninsula that I attended as a kid (where my mom was still teaching). 21 years later I am still in that position. I never considered teaching Spanish (it is not my native language), but I love it and am forever grateful that I fell into what ended up being the perfect teaching position for me.

I still live in San Francisco, with my husband (who was born and raised here and still lives here as an adult – a unicorn!) and two kids. My 14-year-old is a freshman in highschool and my 11-year-old is in 5th grade at a Spanish Immersion elementary school. They both go to public schools in San Francisco.

It can be hard to live in such an expensive city, especially when you’re living on public school teacher and civil servant salaries. We try hard to take advantage of living here. My husband works for the city and always knows what’s happening in different neighborhoods. We go to events and visit museums. We try out new restaurants and see live music. We take public transit as a family, so our kids can get around by themselves. We are really trying to LIVE with kids in this city, and I appreciate that because it can be really hard to stay here with children.

What else to say about me. I’m an active person who loves to exercise. I run, bike, strength train, and practice martial arts. Martial arts is actually a really big part of my life right now, and I think I’ll dedicate another post to that because it’s not something you read about on most people’s blogs! But I do love moving my body, and have run a marathon and ridden several centuries and I swam competitively when I was young. I’m also 44 and learning that my body needs more attention than it once did. I injured my knee last February and have been dealing with lower back pain for a couple years now. I recently saw someone and learned a lot about my posture and what I need to do stand and sit in ways that doesn’t put pressure on my back. I should probably write another post just about that too.

I’m managing other things about getting older too – like perimenopause, which I’m experiencing early because of having diminished ovarian reserve. I’m quite a few years in and not loving it (shocker!)

So what do I write about here? Daily life. Trying to stay organized even though my ADHD brain struggles mightily with executive functioning. Raising kids in a big, expensive city. Crazy projects around the house that I take on myself (sometimes to save money, sometimes because I’m incredibly stubborn). Marriage and all the highs and lows that come with sharing your life with another imperfect person who is trying their best. Friendship, and all the ways I struggle to show up for others in the ways I want to. The myriad ways my body is failing me, and the work I make it do anyway… My cats! I have two of them, and I honestly don’t write about them enough. Their faces will definitely grace these “pages” this month.

Actually, maybe that is a perfect way to end this imperfect (re) introduction, with pictures of my cats. And of the beautiful city I live in (taken on my run this morning).

Thanks for stopping by. I’m looking forward to posting every day and to commenting a lot more than usual! Let’s do this!

At 11 and 14, my kids still like to participate in Halloween, although the ways they do are changing. They both wore costumes to school. The 11yo wore his Deadpool body suit to school – without the swords and mask – and the 14yo dressed like a random video game character and everyone thought she was supposed to be Velma. I dressed as a Minion because that is what our staff voted for as our theme. The 11yo wore his Fall Guys hot dog out to Trick-or-Treat, but ended up being super annoyed by it.

The school day was long because Thursdays are always long and Thursdays with kids in costumes are longer.

I made sure my kids ate dinner early and by 6pm we were out of the house. The 14yo went to her friend’s house, where she thought they would go Trick-or-Treating, but they ended up staying in and she had big feelings about that. She was okay not going this year, but is not okay with never going again. It’s hard to grow up.

I went out with the 11yo and his friends. We went to a neighborhood that is close by, but that we’ve never been to on Halloween. It ended up being a great spot, and I’m sad we never went there before.

We passed by one house with over 100 beautifully carved pumpkins. Evidently 45 of them are fresh and the rest are foam and reused every year.

The 11yo’s party ended at 9pm and we were home by 9:30pm. I picked up the 14yo at 10pm and grabbed milk at the store on the way over there. I had to wait for the 14yo to shower (she takes forever) so I got a little workout in at 10:30. It was nuts but it worked. I was asleep by midnight.

Today is Day of the Dead and I was able to check out the festivities in the Mission after I picked up my husband from the airport. It was crowded and I was cold so I didn’t stay long, but I appreciated seeing some of it.

Ah! I’m so torn. Today is Nov 1, which is the first day of the month and the first day of NaBloPoMo, which I am enthusiastically participating in (sign up with San if you want to too!). I think I shall push my reintroduction post a couple days, because I want to spend today looking at some “Must-dos” for November.

As you may know, I read Kendra Adachi’s The Plan recently, and have been trying to create an organizational system that works for my ADHD raddled brain. Reading her book, I was made aware – AGAIN! – that my biggest problem is trying to take on too much. One of her recommendations is to look at the month ahead and write down a list of “Must-dos” and “Hope-tos”. Then, and this is maybe the most important part for me, she recommends breaking them down into their component parts, so you really see what each “task” requires. Most of the time one “task” is really a many step project.

November is a busy month for me this year because my sister is in town (she usually comes in January). A couple things happen every November (making the calendar and putting up the tree), and some are specific to this November (cleaning up the downstairs because of my sister in town AND I’m hosting book club on 12/1). So here are my five Must-dos, with a bonus Hope-tos at the bottom.

Make calendars

• Text SIL to get her photos
• Move photos on phone to folder
• Upload photos
• Choose template
• Make calendar for fam
• Make calendar for ILs
• Final check and order calendars

Put up tree

• Get tree from shed
• Put together tree
• Get down Xmas box
• Put up lights + star
• Decorate with kids
• Reorganize Xmas box

Clean up downstairs

• Straighten up kitchen
• Wipe counters/mop kitchen
• Straighten room
• Vacuum/mop floor
• Straighten bathroom
• Wipe counters/mop floor
• Clean shower

1A free reading program launch

• Library inventory
• Library barcodes print
• Library barcode stickers
• List page finalized
• Boards copied
• Patron QR codes printed
• Slide deck updated

Sister in town

• Sat (11/9) LoH DJ day with kids
• Sat (11/9) evening plans?
• Sun (11/10) dinner at parents’ house
• Walk after school one day?
• Something the weekend of 16/17?

Hope-tos

• Clean out bench (to store Xmas presents)
• Learn 2/3 of form (martial arts)
• Donate clothes
• Get rid of fridge
• Tri2 pacing guide doc
• 1B library ready

Now that I have these lists written out, I will put events (when my sister is in town) on the calendar and tasks in the three priority bullet points for each week of the month. Hopefully then I’ll stay on top of these important projects and not end up having to do the whole calendar during the Thanksgiving break.

I’m realizing right now that this might be the most boring post ever! And I putting it up to start NaBloPoMo! A harbinger for what’s to come?! 🤣🤦‍♀️

I’ll check in at the end of the month to let you know how all these projects/tasks worked out. They all have to happen, so I know they will, I just want them to happen more intentionally. Maybe what I really hope to do is realize how much I’ve already committed to and make decisions about what else to commit to accordingly (a couple Hope-to tasks originally were on my Must-do list but I moved them over after seeing the entire list and being more honest with myself about what really had to happen and what I wanted to happen.

Happy Halloween! I meant to post this yesterday but it didn’t happen. Par for the course around here lately. {I do plan on participating in NaBloPoMo this year, though my recent track record would suggest I will struggle to post daily.}

Blerg. I try to keep it pretty positive here, but sometimes you just need to get out the gripes and grumbles, you know? And now is one of those times.

I lost a bag with some running clothes and my (very expensive) pair of Shokx open ear headphones. I remember I threw it all in a TJs bag and brought it into my room one day when I hoped to run after work. But I didn’t end up running and that bag went… who knows where! I haven’t run in ages so I didn’t realize it was gone until I went last weekend. At first I thought I just misplaced the headphones, but then I went looking for that particular running shirt and couldn’t find it either and remembered THE BAG. I have spent hours looking for THE BAG to no avail. I would look all over at home, then assume it was at school. Then I’d look all over school and assume it was at home. I was still in this endless cycle of increasing frustration when I went looking for a blue tutu I swore was at school (I have a bunch of different colored tutus for class video skits), but that was gone too! So I added a blue tutu to my “it’s at school, no it’s at home” cycle and thoroughly lost my mind.

At one point I realized I was as mad about the time I was wasting as I was about the lost items, and I finally just let it go.

Except, when I look for something for long enough I just get in that mindset and every time I walk into a room I look around wondering, could it be hiding in here? It’s truly driving me crazy. I HATE losing things. I’ve lost so many things in my life. I hope when I die I get to sit in a room and watch a slide show of where everything I lost ended up going, complete with a flimsy tripod holding the projector screen.

Another thing driving us crazy is our academic calendar. They moved our January PD (professional development) to Nov 1st, which means we have one less instructional day in our first trimester. I do get to visit our feeder high school that day, which I’m VERY excited about, but that day off is making it hard to finish everything I need to comfortably in the first trimester.

My next gripe is actually about the regular calendar because Thanksgiving week being the last week of November is making me crazy. Because it’s so late, we end our first trimester a week before the break, and have one week of the second trimester right before the week off. This is soooo annoying for so many reasons (assessments that count for Tri1, need to happen in Tri1, which means will be starting new material and then leaving for a week long break. Blerg.) But my grievances don’t stop there! The late Thanksgiving Break means we only have 3 weeks of instruction in December, except it’s not even a full three weeks because we have Friday 12/20 off and that Thursday is a short day?! Why?! Again, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have an assessment when we come back from a two week break – somethings really should get done before we leave for such a long time. And when we come back from that break we’ll have TWO FULL WEEKS before MLKJr day off on 1/20. UUUUGH.

I really do not appreciate our academic calendar this year. It’s making the part of me that loves to make things fit nicely into the time provided want to tear her hair out.

Update: I planned out November and December for my 1A class and I feel a lot better about it.

Many of my classes have been watching Coco this week, as a culmination of our Day of the Dead unit, and I’ve been trying to use that time to put barcodes on all the books in my 1A and 1B libraries. I finally figured out how to generate the barcodes, but didn’t realize until it was too late that they printed in a totally random order. It took forever to locate each one. The good news is, I think I know how to avoid it happening for my 1B library. Fingers crossed!!!

Speaking of work gripes, I have so many kids this year who are missing so much school. I have 11 students who have missed 7+ days already this school year! I probably spend a third of my time posting digital copies of work for missing students (which they don’t do), or responding to their emails, or scoring and inputting their work weeks after we did it. I obviously don’t want students here sick, but none of these students are out for that many days because they are really so sick they need to stay home each time. School avoidance is real and it’s a massive time suck for teachers. Massive. (A few of these students are missing school for travel sports, which I will not speak my mind on because my views might not be popular.)

My final grumble is that I got my son’s cold. It’s not a bad one, but I don’t feel great. And today I’ve sneezed a thousand times I swear! I’m not sure what is going on, but my nose just itches constantly and I’m sneezing like crazy. It’s driving me nuts!

Tonight my daughter will be out with her friends and I’ll be taking my son out with his friend group. I’m exhausted and just want to stay home, but my husband is still in Dubai so I’m on tonight. Blerg. Maybe next week will be better…? I can’t believe tomorrow is November.