Friday I took the day off. I got to see my son’s music performance (eight trumpets playing Old MacDonald); I went for a little power walk on the Great Highway (more on that later) and then did some strength training at home, I didn’t watch a movie but I did finish Baby Reindeer (brutal). I also got the downstairs ready to host Book Club, which included a quick mop of the floors. I didn’t end up doing any work, but I made up for that on Sunday.
It was a pretty low key day off. I’m glad I took it. Getting ready for Book Club would have been hard without that time, and I appreciated being outside on Friday because rain was forecasted for Saturday, which was a very busy day.
Saturday
This Saturday was a lot like last Saturday. I took my son to swimming and then we went straight to the dojo (this time for his belt ceremony and board breaks). We hit up Free Comic Day at our local comic book store and got an arm load of free single issues and bought a couple graphic novels.
We got home around 1:30pm and went straight to Golden Gate Park for the youth art day at the DeYoung and an LiveSF event at the band shell. The DeYoung event was definitely geared toward younger kids but we enjoyed a couple exhibits. The live music at the band shell was fun – it had poured rain all morning but by 3pm it was sunny and a lot of people were there. A Weird SF event had been cancelled (due to the rain) and it was May 4th (May the Fourth be with you…) so lots of people were out in eccentric dress or Star Wars costumes. It was very authentically San Francisco.
Exhibit at the DeYoung
At home again my daughter had a friend over and we enjoyed a very silly family dinner with her. Then it was movies and hanging out.
Sunday
Sunday we had nothing planned and I was grateful for that. I made the kids breakfast and did more laundry. I got some work done and worked out and got more work done. I ended up having to work pretty late into the night, but it was so nice to have everything done on Monday morning, because it’s a lot of work to organize stuff after a sub.
It was really nice to have my own little three day weekend, and I definitely felt more rested going into Monday than I would have been. We have six more weeks of school, in 2.5 weeks things should be a lot less stressful for me. I just need to get to Wednesday, May 22nd.
I had high hopes for my chiropractic appointment. My lower back has been killing me and my hips have felt very uneven. I was sure an adjustment (which I haven’t had in well over a year) would set me straight. And she did have plenty to adjust and it did feel great to feel parts of me slide back into place, but my back still hurt in the car on the way to work, and my hips aren’t anywhere near “normal” yet.
It turns out one chiropractic adjustment is not a panacea.
Which of course I know, and yet my disappointment on Tuesday suggests I didn’t really know. I was hoping, nay EXPECTING that once I forked over $110, my aches and pains would be over.
I’m glad that appointment was on Monday and that I’ve had several days to readjustment my expectations around my knee appointment and, more importantly, my day off.
The reality is, she probably isn’t going to say much at my knee appointment. Honestly. I’m kind of wondering why we’re having it. I do have some questions, but I feel like they could be answered over email. I don’t really feel like her tugging on me knee does much (she always says it feels good) and absent another MRI (which I’d rather avoid) it feels like the only way to move forward is by following established guidelines and trying stuff out when those guidelines say it’s safe (ie going for a short run and seeing how my knee feels afterward).
I guess the good news is that my knee does give me feedback when I try to bend it (negative feedback, it does not want to bend!) so I feel confident that once I can start working on that, I actually will know if I’m doing too much. But she’s not going to tell me I can run when I want to, or return to sparring when I want to return to sparring, and she’s not going to tell me anything else about my knee I don’t already know. I will be sure to ask what exactly we’re hoping to achieve when we schedule the next appointment. (I made this one assuming that if I tweaked my knee is any way during the test, I could ask her about that. So I’m partly glad this appointment feels unnecessary).
{If you have any suggestions for questions to ask at this appointment, please mention them in the comments! I’ve never had an injury like this, so I’m not really sure what I’m doing, and I’m sure I’m missing opportunities left and right.}
As for my day off on Friday, countless days off that did not provide the respite I needed have conditioned me to be more realistic with that one, but I could already feel myself reaching for Friday as the answer to my stress and it will not provide that. I get to see my son’s music class perform and I will have time to get the downstairs ready to host Book Club on Friday afternoon. I think besides that I should pick one thing I want to do that day, just for me, and luxuriate in that 2ish hours. Right now I’m assuming it will be a movie and popcorn, but I may splurge on a massage. Even just a 30 minutes stretch class with a roller would feel amazing if I could do it alone in my living room without feeling guilty for not being available to other people.
A realistic treat that I have identified as my “me time” will help make that day feel special, even if I clean up and grade papers before and after that treat.
{If anyone can recommend a good movie that is streaming now, I have most mainstream services except Amazon Prime Video.}
It’s common for my expectations to require readjustment, and that is especially true when I’m really overwhelmed and stressed. The reality is, nothing is going to alleviate the feeling of overwhelm in May, except identifying my priorities, making time to tackle the most pressing tasks, and finding ways to make tackling them more enjoyable (a bingeable show or audio book I’m about to finish two) would be great – again suggestions are welcome!) I know I can accomplish everything if I just keep plugging away at what I need to do. Eventually it will be mid-June…
I’m so underwater at work right now, that I’m realizing when I take Friday off, I’ll most likely spend much of that day… working. And I was trying to think of how many other professions there are where a person might take a day off to do work. Or would even be able to do that.
I used to take days off of work to get caught up on my grading and prepping all the time. Back when I was a newer teacher who had to do a lot more prep work, I would go through all the trouble to write sub plans, just so I could spend the whole day preparing for future projects and grading past projects. It absolutely sucked. And back then I make so little money, it was even more demoralizing to spend my few, precious, sick days that way.
I also worked through most of my breaks, but that feels a little different.
Now that I have the vast majority of my resources made, I don’t work away from school as much. I still arrive at school a full 60+ minutes before my first class starts, which means I spend at least over 20 hours a month not only working but actually AT WORK that I’m not paid for. But I only rarely spend long stretches of my evening and weekend time on work. I very much appreciate that.
This year I have so many students that I have been bringing work home. I’ve spent long stretches of the last three weekends working, and I’m still behind. And this Friday I will likely spend at least 1-2 hours working as well.
Which made me think, what other kinds of jobs might one be using their paid leave to get work (for that same job) done? It would have to be a job where there is a client-facing aspect and a paperwork aspect. I’m using my paid leave to not be in front of my students, so I can grade papers and prepare materials I need for next week.
It’s a bummer to be sure. If my classes aren’t smaller next year I’ll have to jettison some of this stuff, because this level of work is not sustainable for me anymore. I just don’t have the stamina to work this many hours for this many weeks at the end of the school year.
Do you ever take time off to get work done (for the same job)? What does that look like for you?
This week I have a chiropractic appointment on Monday, an appointment with my sports’ medicine doctor on Thursday and I’m taking the day off on Friday. I may even schedule a massage on Friday too. I really hope I feel better at the end of it, because by Friday we’ll be in May and May is always a stressful month.
We’re rapidly approaching the end of the school year. My kids have five weeks left. I have seven weeks left. The end of the school year is always a busy time, and this year we have an 8th grader, and all the events that accompany ending middle school and starting high school.
My daughter is also in a higher group at swimming, which means she’s supposed to be there four days a week instead of three. That means I need to take her three days a week now, instead of two (she can get herself there on Wednesdays, when her school lets out early). Driving her to swim practice is the absolute pits. I have to bolt out of work minutes after the bell rings to get in front of the horrendous traffic in our parking lot. Then I have to pick up my daughter right when her school gets out and drive her across the city to downtown. She usually gets out of the car mere minutes before her group starts swimming. Then I drive back across town to pick up my son, and either take him home or to the dojo. On days when I take my daughter to swimming, I’m in the car for 2 or more hours straight. I hate it.
So while I’m so proud of her for reaching this goal, and so glad she can practice more, I am loathing the increased time in my car.
My back has a lot of complaints about it as well. My back has complaints about a lot of things these days (sitting, sleeping, just being), but it REALLY has a lot of shit to say when I’m driving. It makes that long stretch in the afternoons really awful.
I’m hoping the chiropractic appointment helps. It probably will, a little. I also plan to speak to my doctor about it on Thursday. I’m going to ask her when I can run again too. Please let it be soon! The weather has been beautiful and I miss running so much. I know it would help me feel so much better if I could just get out once a week. This Tuesday it will have been nine weeks since my injury. Someone at one point mentioned three months as the expected healing time for the tibial plateau fracture, which is the biggest concern when it comes to running. Obviously my ACL is also a concern, but with the success I’ve had on the mat, I think it can handle running on a flat surface (with the support of my brace) fine. At least for short distances. I also think it was maybe my physical therapist who floated three months, so maybe my doctor will feel differently? I’ve been so focused on taking my test, that I haven’t pushed running as much, but I’ll definitely be pushing it this Thursday.
I plan to be on the elliptical more, and to push harder on the elliptical, so I’m ready for running once I’m cleared to go again. I’ve really liked the stationary bike – more than I expected actually – but it’s in our dark little kitchen and I only have a few “equipment” classes I have to keep cycling through (I get three free with my cheaper membership, and I record them with zoom so I can keep taking them over and over). The classes are great – I like the music and the instructors and I really get my heart rate up. I love getting off the bike half way through for strength training (I do the “bike boot camp” classes), and I feel like they provide a super effective 30 or 45 minutes workout. But I’m ready to have more options. I really hope May is the month!
I also have to figure out what I’m doing at martial arts now that I don’t have the test looming. I sparred during my test and my knee felt fine. Having said that, I promised myself that I wouldn’t push it on the mat once my test was done. I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to test so soon after my knee, without making it worse, I would be gutted if I re-injured myself right before summer. So if my doctor says I need to wait a while longer before I can spar, I will likely respect that. Even though sparring is the reason I love martial arts. If I can start running again, that would make it a lot easier to stay away from sparring.
My husband and I are talking more about the house cleaner. I will admit, part of why I got so upset about the concert tickets was the fact that I have been putting off the regular house cleaning because I felt it wasn’t in our budget. I even waited longer than I should have to schedule the chiropractor appointment because $110 isn’t nothing, and I know if I go once I’ll probably go again soon. I’m always stressed out about spending money, and part of that is because I don’t have a solid budget I’m following (if I knew how much money I could spend, and am spending, I’d feel okay when I actually spend money), so I plan to work on that this summer. I feel like I’ve kind of lost track of what is a reasonable credit card bill, because I buy pretty much everything for myself, the kids and the pets. And yes, sometimes I buy them and myself things we don’t really need. Having a budget would help alleviate my stress, but it also seems like it would be a ton of work. Still, I’m 43 years old. I should learn this shit finally and use it.
Blerg, this post is all over the place. But I’m glad I used my time on the elliptical machine to work some stuff out instead of to get work done. I’ve worked a lot this weekend and I’m so over it. I still have work to do tonight, but it’s on paper. But I got a lot done today, around the house and for work, so I’m considering it a win. And now I need to clean the shower before I take one.
I hope you all have a smooth transition this week, into the month of May.
Again, I got the idea to attempt a photo-every-hour from Engie last week. I did post it, but it wasn’t super complete. Now SHU and Coco are sharing some DITL posts, and I thought today might be a good day to document with photos, as it’s a good mix of planned activities and downtime.
7:58am
I’m sure I took this in the 8am hour but I was up by 7:30am and since I wasn’t planning to write this post then, I didn’t take a photo right when I got up. But this photo was taken early in the morning. Usually on the weekends my husband gets up before me. He feeds the cats and plays video games with our son. He also plays video games by himself. Or with a cat on his lap. 🤣 I love Panther’s face in that photo. So salty. She does not like to be bothered during quality lap time.
8:46am
I spend Saturday mornings shaking out the rugs, sweeping and vacuuming. Oh, and doing laundry. And this fat cat loves nothing more than a bag of warm laundry. When it’s clothed I try to keep him out, but I let him luxuriate in the towels.
This morning I didn’t have as much time to do my chores because my son has a new 9:35am swim lesson and after that today he has his belt test. I only pulled this load out because it had his gi (karate uniform) in it.
9:46am
We’re at the swim lesson, at the Stonestown YMCA. I spent HOURS here before the pandemic while my daughter tried to get into the pre-swim team group. She was about to make it in March of 2020, but well, you know what happened. I haven’t been back since and it’s weird to be back now.
Getting into swim lessons in the city is crazy hard. SF natives are notoriously bad swimmers, because swimming is just not part of the culture in a place where it’s windy, foggy and cold all summer. I grew up swimming in Hong Kong all year and then in St. Louis all summer because those places are humid and hot. I want my kids to be able to swim. But in a place like SF that takes way more work than you might imagine.
I’m starting this post while I wait. Then it’s shower and change into gi pants before we head straight to the dojo for his belt test. I’m hoping to be there in time to get my “fire stripe” on my belt from last weekend’s test.
10:45pm (my son took this)
After swim O realize I forgot my son’s lunch so we drive a little out of our way to Noah’s for a “good” bagel. Then we drive across the city from the Sunset to the Mission. Parking is always hard by the dojo but this morning it’s especially rough. Then a truck leaves as we’re waiting for a light and I absolutely make an illegal three point turn to snag his spot, which is right in front of the dojo.
Getting my fire stripes
I get my fire stripes! All that work for two little pieces of red tape.
Now I am a high blue belt. 12:14pm
My son’s belt test is today. I stay in my uniform to assist toward the end of the test. But first they have to do line drills and forms. My son’s rank form is hard and the last time he tested it, he made a few mistakes. This time he practiced a lot. Last night we got into a little tiff because I made him practice the end until he could do it without messing up. And today he tests it perfectly.
1:02pm
There are five high belts testing so they call me out to be my son’s partner for arm bars and weaves and take downs. He hip throws me. And then I return the favor.
2:06pm
I used to always take my son to Mitchell’s for ice cream after a belt test. I’m not sure why we stopped doing it. But he has too free scoop coupons for selling raffle tickets at school so we use them both. He eats the cone but the cup ends up in our freezers.
2:55pm
We get home around 2:20, and my husband, daughter and I head out immediately for a Youth Art Exhibition where they will be showing a short film she made in her Media Arts class. Unfortunately, there is a scheduling snafu and we leave after 30 minutes without seeing her video. But we do see her teacher, who is thrilled that we came. She is the only student from the Media Arts class to show up.
4:12pm
When we get home I lie down on the couch and both cats come to sleep on me. It’s nice to have a reason not to get up again for a bit.
When I finally do I catch up on all the chores I didn’t do in the morning. Then I get ready to work out.
5:45pm
I stall for a full 30 minutes before I finally get on the bike to do a 30 minute Upper Body Bike Bootcamp with Jess Sims. I love Jess Sims. She is my spirit animal. I finish it up with knee rehab exercises (Bulgarian split squats are no joke) and the 12 minute dead bug workout video that Jenny recommended.
I shower and head up for dinner around 6:45, but I don’t get a photo in the 6pm hour.
7:11pm
My daughter is at her grandparents house so after dinner my son, husband and I watch Police Story. It’s my favorite Jackie Chan movie. The stunts are nuts, and it’s filmed in Honk Kong in the mid-80’s, which is when I lived there. It’s a small island and I recognize a lot of areas.
My son has never seen it, but he loves it. We watch the original with subtitles. It’s awesome he can follow a movie that is fully subtitled now. He also very much appreciates the fighting sequences, which are incredible.
8:26pm
We’re still watching Police Story, but I’m also working. Le sigh. I worked for 1.5 hours last night and I’ll work more tomorrow but I need to eke out at least an hour today. I’ll be so glad when the free reading program is over.
9:18pm
I put my son to bed. We snuggle while he listens to a Headspace Sleepcast. I start a load of laundry and pour myself a drink. Then I sit down to play some Two Dots. Please don’t look closely enough at that photo to see how long my daily streak is.
10:23pm
My husband and I end up watching a movie – Passages – that I am not a big fan of. The main character is awful and I want to punch him in the face the whole time. But I do make myself furikake popcorn which is delicious. We head to bed right before midnight.
I have been trying REALLY hard to turn my mood around, but dumb shit keeps making that hard. On Thursday my husband told our daughter that he got Charli XCX tickets, the third set of concert tickets he bought her recently. I asked him how much all those tickets cost and the amount was absolutely absurd (one of the sets was a pass to a big music festival in the area, so they were $$$). We never make purchases at that amount without consulting each other. I could not believe he had just bought all these tickets without us talking about. I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I felt betrayed. I felt really, fucking, mad.
We have since talked it out, but I’m still a little shaken. It may seem like not that big of a deal, but it’s just so outside of the realm of the way we operate as a couple. We’ve been together a long time (16+ years!) and I haven’t felt blind sided like this in at least a decade.
I tried hard on Friday to shake the week off, and I was doing a decent job. Then at the beginning of 5th period I knocked a FULL metal travel mug with scalding hot water INTO my Ugg. It burned my ankle and part of my foot and soaked my boot. I was beside myself. I was in pain and upset that my favorite pair of Uggs was probably ruined. Oh, and I was in front of 34 8th grade students.
The pain eventually subsided but putting my boot back on at the end of the day truly sucked. Damp wool lining scratching against raw, burnt skin. What a fucking way to end the week. It felt like the cherry on top of the shit sundae that has been the last seven days.
But then I went to a tent sale at the running shoe store and found the exact pair of Brooks Glycerine GTS’s that I tried on Wednesday for $75 instead of $180. They look like they’ve never been worn before, so maybe they were tried once or twice before being returned (this place lets you return running shoes for up to a month). I was very excited to score the deal, because I want my return to running (hopefully in June, fingers crossed) to be positive and my Hokas are almost a year old.
Then I ran into a former student who said she was doing great in Spanish 2 this year and was going to take Spanish 3 Honors next year, at her teacher’s urging. That felt really, REALLY good to hear. I’m always so worried that I’m not preparing my students enough for high school, since I focus more on language acquisition than language learning. It’s always such a relief to hear they are doing well.
I really appreciated those little bright spots after dropping 18 ounces of scalding tea into my favorite boot.
Maybe the rest of the weekend will bring more bright spots.
This is not what I thought this week would feel like. I thought I would feel light and jubilant. Those adjectives could not be farther from how I feel.
I feel so bad that I realized pretty quickly that it’s probably hormone related. I wish I didn’t respond so poorly to even low dose birth control or I’d be knocking down my doctor’s door asking for HRT. But my assumption is that it will make me feel even more out-of-control emotionally so I haven’t pursued it. I also believe that if I say, “every kind of hormonal BCP made me a raging bitch who cried all the time, do you think HRT will do the same?” my doctor will have any idea how to respond. I think Western medicine has no idea how or why some women respond in certain ways to hormones, because it doesn’t care about the emotional well being of women, especially not of those past child bearing age.
My lower back is killing me, but I can’t do any of the stretches that make it feel better because they all involve bringing my butt to me heels, which I can’t do. I’ve been working on increasing flexion in my knee so my knee is sore. I don’t feel like I’ve gained ANY flexion in my knee, despite working on it consistently. I’m starting to worry I’ll never be able to bend my knee comfortably again. I’ve cried ugly tears over my fears that my knee will be like this forever. Now that I’ve finished my test, I’ve moved past that one concrete goal to the simple, burning desire to just have my knee back the way it was. I want to run. I want to sit cross legged, or on my knees. I just want my knee back.
A bunch of teachers are leaving at my school and it’s a bummer. Every year teachers leave, but this year a lot of teachers are leaving. They leave every year for myriad reasons, but this year many of them are leaving because of frustrations around the way things are run in our district. It just makes me wonder why I’m still there, why I stay there and have plans to always stay there. It just makes me question a lot of things, and when large amounts of staff leave it creates a lot of uncertainty.
A lot of changes are happening at the dojo too. It’s a non-profit, community dojo, so change is bound to happen. The next few weeks will bring a lot of upheaval in main leadership positions. Again, it means uncertainty in a space that has come to mean a lot to me. I’m struggling with it.
Things at home aren’t great either. I feel like the efforts I made while my husband was away are not being recognized, and instead I feel like I’m being criticized for reacting negatively under pressure. It drives me all kinds of crazy when I’m put in impossible situations and then when I’m pushed to my limit and snap, he tells me I need to chill out. If he had to get through last week he would have totally imploded, but I’m not allowed to even blow off some steam after seven days of intense stress.
He’s also miserable at work, so he’s totally unable to support me. Right now I have nothing to give him, and I can tell he’s a little surprised by my lack of empathy. I just can’t right now.
It’s been a shitty week. And this weekend won’t provide much respite. But I took next Friday off (or I’m going to put in for it – my friend said she can sub for me), and I’m really hoping I can recharge then. It feels impossibly far away, but hopefully my hormones will even out before then, and my chiropractic appointment early next week will provide some relief for my back.
Tomorrow is Thursday. I hate Thursdays, and tomorrow will be as especially bad Thursday. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. God I hope it’s not as bad as I’m imagining…
I finished my belt test without hurting my knee. I am so relieved that it’s over.
Since seconds after I hurt myself almost 8 weeks ago I’ve hoped that I could take my test. Every time I didn’t skip my rehab exercises, every time I strapped on my brace, I did it to make my chances of testing a little higher. And now that test is over and I can put all the weight of that worry down.
I can also stop reviewing one steps and forms and arm bars and weaves in my head. I can just let it all go. It’s such a relief.
And yet, this morning I woke up and was reminded that the rest of my life has been waiting for me and still needs attention. A lot of attention.
My husband came home late last night and I was reminded that his presence does not solve all problems. In fact, in creates a few.
So yes, I’m feeling all kinds of relief. And I’m very grateful.
I’m also tired and facing down a long list of things to do. A very long list.
Engie had a photo by hour post up today (ahem, Thursday) and I thought, what a fun idea! I’ve done “Day in the Life” posts a few time but never with a photo every hour. I thought it might be fun to try it out. Thursdays are my longest, hardest days and this week is one of the longest, hardest weeks so far this year. Maybe this post will remind me that it’s not all as hard as it feels.
6:17am
I finally get out of bed, 15 mins after my first alarm and way too late. I check on the weather through the window by the desk. I don’t even close the blind on this window when my husband is gone, because I’m worried I’ll forget to open it and my little tree will go without the scarce sunlight it gets in that spot.
7:43am
I get into work a little late but I still score a spot in the parking lot right in front of my classroom, which is important because I need to leave right when class ends today to get my daughter to swimming on time.
This shot is a real snapshot into my life. As you can see I’m listening to Iron Flame in Spanish. It took me a while to get into it, but I’m liking it now. This shot also has my coffee and my new YETI full of cold water (that I keep in the car so I don’t forget it in my classroom). The space in front of the passenger sheet is full of my stuff for work today and my kids stuff for after work today. Finally my glove box is open so I can pick the lanyard I’ll wear today. Because I’m a crazy lanyard lady who picks her key lanyard based on what she’s wearing. Today I traded out the awesome Lucha Libre lanyard I got in Mexico City for a cute cat one I got in Japantown.
8:27am
I get to school an hour early every day so I can get some work done before the school day starts. This time is important because most days I have to dart our minutes after the bell rings to drive my kids to things, leaving my room kind of a mess.
Usually I sit on the floor to work but with my knee I’ve been sitting at my actual desk to work. Which maybe I’ve never done before? Which is ridiculous because I have an obscenely expensive chair at that desk, one I spent an embarrassing amount of money on many years ago. And now I’m finally using it.
9:42am
We’re filing a video skit of a story we invented together as a class in 5th period (which is the first class today because it’s our block day). We got scenes 1, 2, and 2.5 all in one take but scene 3 is a comedy of errors. It’s been fun and there has been a lot of laughing but now we only have 18 minute to film the rest of the skit so we need to get it right this time. And we do! We finish the skit with 30 seconds to spare and then we head out to the quad together because I have break duty this week.
10:25am
We’re watching Encanto (in Spanish) in my 6th grade class because I just can’t teach them anything today. I haven’t seen this movie in so long and I’m really loving it. Oh and I’m starting this post, instead of getting some quiz scores uploaded. Better get on that now.
And I did! And then for the rest of the day I remembered to take some photos and not others and didn’t get anything else written anyway, but I’m going to try to finish it up now. As everything in my life is lately, this will be an incomplete and somewhat disappointing attempt. And yet, it’s better than nothing (or so I tell myself).
11:15am and 11:22am
We had a Drop and Cover drill, followed by an evacuation, at the end of 1st period. It’s weirdly the least scary drill (for me), because I know it’s highly possible for there to be an earthquake at school, but I’d rather face that than an active shooter, which is another one of our common drills.
12:37am
I tried to take a picture during 2nd period but it never happened. At one point I was holding my phone with the camera open and I took this by accident and I kind of like it. It’s my students’ (chosen) Spanish names so I can put them here.
2:52pm
Today I gave out prizes for free reading bingo and I set them up in the service closet that I’ve kind of taken over as my own.
I thought I took a photo at 3:10 when I pulled out of the parking lot but I guess I didn’t. I also didn’t take one during the 4pm hour because is spent 3:10 until 5:15 driving my daughter to swimming and then taking my son and I to the dojo. So much car time.
5:17pm
At the dojo, getting ready for test prep.
6:31pm
Still at the dojo, prepping for our test. At this point my son is done with class and watching a show on his iPad while he eats his dinner in the hall.
7:45pm
I stick my head into the bigger room to say goodbye before I leave. This room is usually full of people taking a class, but most classes are open mat this week to make space for test prep. I will be so happy when our test is over.
8:58pm
Oh my god these cats on this island will be the death of me. They drive me so crazy. And so does all the chores that happen in the kitchen. I like eating a lot but pretty much everything required to eat annoys me, from buying food to preparing it to cleaning up when I’m done. I’ll be glad when my husband is back to do pretty much everything in the kitchen.
At 9pm I’m doing the dishes from the day and prepping to make the kids’ lunches in the morning. They put together the non-perishables in their five Bentgo boxes every Sunday so all I have to do is add a sandwich and some carrots. Every night I get the coffee maker ready and fill up the water filter and empty the ice cube trays. My kingdom for an automatic ice cube maker. 🤣
9:34pm
My daughter realizes she has math homework and starts to do it. She is very upset because there is a lot and it’s late.
10:20pm
She is melting down. I am too. She says it takes her 10 minutes to do one problem. I time her and she finishes in just under two minutes. She asks me send her a screen shot of the time and I’m glad she does because I have a final shot to finish the day.
We head to bed around 10:45pm, MUCH later than I was planning. At least Friday is an easier day. I’ll definitely bring going to bed earlier the night before my belt test.
I’m feeling really under the water right now. I use that phrase a lot, and it’s because it’s really how I feel. I swam for years, competitively, and I love being in large bodies of waters. I’ve lived near the ocean my entire life and I’ve swam in it where the water is cold and the waves are crashing, as well as where the water is warm and the sand gleams white even at several feet. I’ve been thrashed about by massive swells and I’ve felt the crushing weight of still water above me as I’ve tried to steal glances of coral and fish. The water is a wonderful thing, but it can drag you under and push the air out of your lungs. And when my life is putting pressure on me from all sides, it absolutely feels like I’m underwater, like I can’t breath and I’m unsure if I’ll make it to the surface in time to take that all important breath.
When my kids were young and we had way fewer resources (mostly because we had less money, but for other reasons also), I pointed my finger at all manner of circumstance I could not control to explain why I felt so overwhelmed. Now we have more resources (mostly because we make more money and have to spend less of it on childcare), and I recognize that the overwhelm I feel is largely due to my own choices. I prioritize certain things, and sometimes those choices add stress to my life, and make certain avenues of alleviating that stress less accessible.
One way I know I’m really feeling underwater is when I start to read other people’s blogs and feel an urge to mutter “must be nice” when I read about their situations and circumstances. When the resources they have, that I don’t, are all I can pick out of the page. I KNOW how much I have and that I can afford so much more than what I need. I would not change most things about my life and I don’t want the lives of the people I read. So when I start hearing myself mutter “must be nice” in the back of my mind, I know that my current regimen is not sustainable. I may want it to be, I may want to keep prioritizing things the way I have been, but it’s clearly not working for some part of me. I am not getting enough of something (usually downtime or effective rest) that I need, and I’ll have to shift my priorities to regain some balance.
The problem is, shifting my priorities usually means less of the things I enjoy, but that are not necessary, to make space for things that are serve me but are not necessarily enjoyable to execute (more sleep, healthier food, etc). But also, this year has been an outlier for us in that we’ve traveled more during the school year than ever before. We usually take one little trip a year, generally to the snow for a long weekend or down to LA or San Diego to see friends and visit a big park. This year we went to Universal Studios, camped at Pinnacles, went to Mexico City and camped at Joshua Tree. So many of our long weekends and breaks have been taken over by travel, and I’m learning that I can’t really handle that happily. It’s just too much for me. I need more of my breaks to be actual breaks! In the future I will have to advocate for my needs around this, now that I better know what they are.
I also need to hire a house cleaner. I keep telling myself that when the school year is over, and we stop paying so much for after school care, I can make it work. I really need to stick by that promise to myself.
And now I need to get back to work. I really didn’t have time to write this post, but sometimes I just need to get a thought down so I can move past it and focus on everything else. I really hope this was one of those times.
