Not a Wasted Word

Wednesdays are interesting for me because I am done teaching (and with the yearbook meeting) at 11:40. I have a super long prep period, then (almost always) a staff meeting, and then my work day is done. I commonly schedule appointments on Wednesday because it’s easier to miss (or leave early from) a staff meeting, and sometimes we’re not officially meeting so I don’t even have to put in the hours. This Wednesday I did not have an appointment (I do the next two this month!), but I did have to present during our staff meeting which means it was a little more of an energy suck that usual.

1:00 Prep work in my classroom.

1:30 Staff meeting – I presented on what I learned at the conference in Palm Sltings.

3:00 Drive home

4:00 Get home. Make myself food. Eat and watch Summer House (penultimate episode of season 8!)

4:30 Work remotely with the 15yo on her resume (she was at the husband’s office waiting to go to swim so we texted and commented on the doc to do some editing)

5:00 Read some Summer House recaps

5:10 Decide I am going to go to the dojo (I had been waffling), and rush to get ready.

5:20 Throw in a load laundry I forgot I wanted to start

5:26 Leave super late for the dojo

5:31 On the bus

5:45 Arrive at the dojo for a 5:45 class – Oops! – get to warm ups a little late

6:15 General class starts

7:00 General class ends / High Belt begins

7:45 High Belt class ends, change back into civies

8:02 Get on bus

8:30 Home, eat a snack (then another snack… prob should have been a small meal)

8:45 Remember laundry, move it to dryer

8:50 Do kitchen prep chores: wash dishes, prep coffee, etc (these are husband’s chores, but he is helping the 15yo finalize her resume, which they FINALLY do!)

9:30 Argument with 12yo about his access to podcasts after 10pm (we are cutting him off because we believe it keeps him up, and he is not happy)

9:45 Deal with emotional fallout of argument

10:05 Finally leave 12yo’s room (it was a big meltdown), add 10 mins to dryer, brush teeth/wash face

10:30 Fold laundry

10:45 Play Two Dots in bed (not great)

11:00 Add stuff to this post

11:10 Phone off / asleep

SHU has been time tracking her days for almost a week. I thought it might be an interesting exercise to track just my afternoons and evenings for a week, since those are the hours my husband and I have been tussling over. My work day is pretty prescribed, and I don’t think I can get anything more out of my mornings, but the afternoons and evenings could definitely be streamlined, and knowing where the time goes would be useful. So here are the first two days of the week, one where I didn’t work out and one where I did.

MONDAY 4/13

3:05 Sort papers at school. Print out PO to give to administrative assistant.

3:30 Drive home.

4:00 Return stuff to Costco. Stay longer than anticipated picking up a couple things.

4:50 Home. Make myself a snack. Text 12yo to ask where he is. Play some two dots

5:10 Start scoring papers while watching Summer House.

6:00 Feed cats + reheat pizza for me and 12yo

6:10 Help 12yo start kitchen towel load

6:15 Dinner with 12yo (husband out of town and 15yo on a date)

6:35 Help 12yo clear plates, do chores around the house

{WHAT ELSE HAPPENED HERE!? I CAN’T REMEMBER!}

7:45 Drive to pick up daughter + GF to take them home

8:45 Call husband – we all talk to him a bit

9:00 Tell 12yo to start reading, engage in brief argument about reading requirement

9:10 More chores (gather trash, take out cans, prep coffee, do dishes, putz around)

9:50 Push 12yo past the bedtime finish line.

10:00 Continue scoring papers while watching Summer House

10:45 Try to get me and the 15yo in bed by 11pm (FAIL!)

TUESDAY 4/14

3:05 Sort + score one set of papers, return papers to 1A hanging files

3:25 Drive home

3:50 Get home, eat snack

4:10 Get ready to work out, get distracted by other stuff around the house

4:30 Start writing this post, set up workout spot

4:50 Start Sim 60 Bike Bootcamp

6:00 Finish workout. It was brutal! (And I had to pause a couple times to cast to the other screen, text the husband, check in on the 15yo, hence the extra 10 mins). Feed cats. Argue with 15yo about AP studying

6:10 12yo dropped off from swim, manage kids a bit

6:15 Post workout stretching + putz around

6:30 Dinner prep + continue this post

6:45 Sit down to dinner with kids

{Dinner was long! We had a lovely discussion about how I might have Aphantasia?!}

7:30 Dinner clean up, dishes, coffee prep

8:30 Shower

9:00 Work on Spanish with 15yo (her teacher left suddenly and she has been getting little to no work for almost two months, so I bought the textbook and workbook and we’re working through it)

9:15 Brush teeth, continue this post, read Summer House season 8 recaps (the only think I love more than watching reality TV is reading Vulture recaps of reality TV)

9:45 Make sure 12yo will get into bed on his own, pick husband up from airport

10:20 Get ready for bed, lay on my acupressure mat for 25 mins

11:05 Lights out

Do you ever track your time? Have you ever made changes in your routine based on what you’ve learned?

Weekend of 4/4 + 4/5

• Taught Teens class at the dojo
• Went to Sparring, Forms, and High Belt classes at the dojo
• Walked part of the way home (it was a beautiful day)
• Watched Groundhog Day with the family Saturday evening
• Rode the Great Highway (twice!) with the 12yo Sunday morning
• Did a 45 min Full Body Strength workout
• Processed one class’s book bingo pages
• Helped the kids get ready to go back to school
• Packed all the winter clothes into vacuum seal bags and stored them in the shed
• Packed all the rain boots and stored them in the shed
• Watched an episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters with the family

{We celebrated Easter with my parents a couple weeks ago knowing the 15yo would be at lifeguard training this day, which worked out because my parents ended up being out of town this weekend for a funeral.}

Monday 4/6

• Got bagels (bakers dozen for $11!) at Noah’s + quick grocery shop
• Took the cats to the vet
• Met the husband for lunch
• Got my allergy shot + picked up the 15yo’s ADHD meds at the pharmacy
• Went to Costco
• Processed one class’s book bingo pages

Tuesday 4/7

• Changed all the beds (winter to summer bedding)
• Washed all the winter bedding, packed it and stored it
• Washed all the random blankets from around the house
• Took the 12yo and his friend to swimming
• Ordered a couple cute things while I was waiting at the pool
• Went to Sparring concepts + Grappling at the dojo

Wednesday 4/8

• Rehung the door to the downstairs kitchen (after cutting a notch out of the corner so an extension cord could fit through.
• Acupuncture appointment for knee/shoulder
• Quick trip to the mall (found a couple things at Uniqlo that I liked, but didn’t pull the trigger on anything)
• Last minute meet up with my mom – we walked five miles on my favorite running trail
• Watched an episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City with the 15yo
• 30 minute Pilates class (on Peloton)
• Epic last minute run to Grocery Outlet – found so much good stuff!
• Dinner with the 15yo (12yo was at grandparents’ house and husband had a work event)

Thursday 4/9

• Drove the 15yo to school and Panther to the vet
• Finished Alchemized (Spanish version) This was long (40 hours!), but ultimately satisfying.
• Quick trip to the library, found two possible new books
• Physical therapy at Kaiser (also picked up my prescription and got my thyroid lab work done)
• Quick stop at Whole Foods to pick up a few things for hosting book club on Sunday
• Did not use time very effectively at home for a couple hours
• Picked up Panther from the vet
• Managed the cats (we had to keep them away from each other for a while)
• Dinner with family
• Chores around the house (did not workout, although I had intended to)
• Watched an episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City with the 15yo

Friday, 4/10

• Slept in (the husband did the morning stuff with the kids for me)
• Went to a PetCo to get cat/bearded dragon stuff and they had ZERO things I needed
• Went to the downtown Costco to see what they had and found some good stuff
• Got call that the dentist could fit me in for a teeth cleaning while checking out at Costco: got home, transferred perishables to freezer/fridge, and got to the dentist across town in 28 minutes! AMAZE!
• Went to other PetCo (near dentist!) and got what I needed (double score!)
• Finished My Friends (I really liked it)
• Started this post
• 45 minute Bike Bootcamp + 5 min Core
• Dinner with husband (we walked there and back, despite on and off again rain)
• Episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City with 15yo

Weekend of 4/11 + 4/12

• Took the husband to the airport
• Drove the 15yo to lifeguard training day 2 (the husband took her last weekend on Sunday)
• Picked up the house in anticipation of book club on Sunday
• Went to Sparring, Forms, half of High Belt class at the dojo
• Picked up flatbread pizzas from my friends’ bakery (for book club the next day)
• Big clean on the big cat box (this is a time consuming chore) + cleaned up kitchen
• Drove to get the 15yo from lifeguard training (this was 40 minutes round trip in the morning, but 70 minutes round trip in the afternoon
• Made kids dinner + fold laundry + start more laundry
• Five Nights at Freddie’s 2 with the kids
• Real Housewives of Salt Lake City with 15yo (a great way to end Saturday)
• Drove the 15yo to lifeguard training day 3 (last day! Last early morning weekend wake-up!)
• Cleaned up house (mostly kitchen) for hosting book club
• Took 12yo to my parents house (it hailed during the drive!)
• Finished Project Hail Mary (LOVED THIS!)
• Got food ready for book club
• Hosted book club
• Started working out (and finishing this post)

All in all, it was a decent spring break. For some reason I was not that upset about waking up early every day. While I am not a morning person, and love a luxurious sleep in, I appreciated all the time I had in the mornings to get things done. I scanned a bunch of grammar topics from the textbook I use to upload them into an AI tool. I worked on some posts. I did some other small, but annoying, work tasks. I didn’t love the early wake ups both weekend days, but I must say, I am happy that next week I won’t have to get back on my work sleep schedule, because I never got off it.

Monday through Wednesday I felt really good about how I was using my time. My days felt full, but not frenzied, and I went to bed feeling like I accomplished a decent amount. Thursday I definitely felt like I was spinning my wheels a fair amount, and I was frustrated by the end of the day. Friday was better, and then this weekend, without the husband felt pretty good. I’m not excited to go back to work tomorrow, but I don’t have the Sunday Scaries either.

I finished THREE audibooks over the break and really liked them all. I spent a lot of time listening to all three books, so when I was suddenly without anything to listen to today, I was kind of freaking out. Luckily I needed to catch up on the third Scythe book (The Tolls), which filled in nicely.

The husband and I started the break on pretty shitty terms, but eventually got back to a good place with one another. Things have been tense between us for a looong time, so it was a relief to finally feel like thing were better between us. I hope we can keep thing that way moving forward.

I wanted to write more but now it’s bedtime and I worry that if I don’t publish this it will languish in my draft folder forever. So I’m going to put it up! Apologies again for my subpar blogging of late.

A big thanks to everyone who commented on my “struggling to show up here” post. I appreciate all your insights and assurances. I guess we’ll find out together what the future of this blog brings.

In the meantime, here are some pictures that I feel like describe the past couple weeks.

Bonus shot:

Okay, let’s get this post up! I wrote most of it over 10 days ago (the Monday of my kids’ spring break), so I might as well finish it up and put it out there. Wouldn’t want to waste the initial effort.

March Goals

These were the goals I wrote out in my January Look Back/February Look Ahead post.

• Check the chore app daily and with the kids weekly ❌❌❌ Nope! How many times do I keep trying to do this before I admit defeat?
• Enjoy myself – and learn something! – at the CALIE conference in Palm Springs ✅ I did this! Hooray!
• Hold kids accountable for doing chores weekly (they are supposed to lose privileges on the weekends until chores are done) ❌ ✅ I did this some weeks better than others. I haven’t taken away any privileges, but I’ve reminded them to do their chores and given them their extra allowance when they did them pretty well.
• Add a chore to each kid’s list 1-2x a month ❌ I think I added one chore to the 12yo’s list, but nothing to the 15yo’s list.
• Write 2-3 blog posts a week, ideally on consistent days ❌❌❌ Wow, I just saw on WordPress that I posted a grand total of four times in March ::face palm::
• Respond to comments and/or comment on someone’s blog when they comment on mine ❌❌ I did comment on blogs, but not as much as I want to. And I didn’t respond to comments on my blog, even though I only wrote four times so it wasn’t that hard to respond to comments.
• Do shoulder rehab exercises 1-2x/week ❌❌❌ I did shoulder rehab exercises ZERO times.
• Continue at the dojo without aggravating my knee or shoulder ✅ I guess I did this, even though my knee still hurts.
• Weekend check-ins (on Thursdays) and weekly check-ins (on Sunday) with husband ❌❌❌ Sigh. There are a lot of ❌ on this post.
• Daily planner check + Google Task update on week day mornings ❌❌❌ Nope. I’m wondering if I’m actually capable of integrating a reliable planning/task habit into my life.
• Add March weeks to Tri2 + Tri3 planning document ✅ I just went and did this for THREE weeks so I could check this off. Man, my planning life really went off the rails in March.
• Look into PADI certification for 15yo’s birthday ❌ I tried to just do a cursory look at stuff in the last 24 hours of March and couldn’t manage it.
• Car rentals for Hawaii and St. Louis ✅❌ Got the car for Maui (my MIL told me there was some car rental shortage in Hawaii which lit a fire under my ass) but have not for St. Louis.
• Find a couple Rec & Park camps for the 12yo and sign him up ✅✅✅ The husband has the 12yo’s summer planned to the day! I did not help much with this, but it got done!

Reading / Watching

Books

• Listened to That Mean Old Yesterday, Stacey Patton (this was a memoir for book club. It was really intense and I’m still not sure how I felt about it. Trigger warnings for child abuse, sexual abuse, negative stories about foster programs/adoption, racism, internalized racism).
• Listened to Thunder Head, Niel Shusterman (listened to this while my son read it – second novel in a really great YA series)
• Continued listening to My Friends, Frederik Blackman (this is the book I ended up picking for book club, because I couldn’t think of anything else. It took a while to come off the hold list again)
• Continued reading The Elsewhere Express, Samantha Sotto Yambao (just finished this in early April!)
• Continued listening to Alchemized (Spanish Version), SenLinYu (Ankara Cabeza Lázaro and Patricia Isabel Mora Pérez, translators) I’m really liking this! It’s also 40 hours and I have about 10 hours left). UPDATE: I have 30 minutes left!!!
• Started listening to Project Hail Mary (Yes, I’m late to this party but I’m really enjoying it so far).

Movies / TV

• Stranger Things, Season 5 (first half)
• Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Season 4
• Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 15
• Summer House, Season 8 (yes, I skipped seasons 5-7 because of the Amanda/West drama)
• Started Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Season 2 with the family (we love this show)

Connection

What went well:

Connection with the husband this month was pretty miserable. We spent most of the month kind of fighting. We didn’t hang out or go on a date night (or even have lunch together) once. I worked with the 12yo a lot to get him ready for his test, then assisted during his test. I saw the 15yo swim in two high school meets. We spent the morning with my parents for early Easter. We spent a morning at the ILs. I took a day off to hang out with my SIL, niece and nephew while they were here. The husband and I had dinner with his sister before she left. I spent the night at my parents’ house, then took them to the airport early one morning. We ate at In-n-Out randomly one night as a family, and we all went to Lucha Libre one afternoon at the Chase Center. My friends and I had drinks one evening.

What I’m still working on: The husband and I have so much work to do on the connection front. I really need to focus on that in April, especially since I’ll be really busy. The kids will also be busy – especially the 15yo – and I want to make sure they feel like they are getting some quality time with me during each week.

Health/Wellness

What went well: I emailed my sports medicine doctor, requested physical therapy, and went for a first appointment. I also made an acupuncture appointment for my knee. I started weight training in earnest again (at the end of the month), after the physical therapist said it should fine, and after realizing that my shoulder wasn’t bothering m as much anymore.

What I’m still working on: I think in April I’m going to focus on a more consistent strength training program, now that I feel like I can handle the heavier weights again.

Work

What went well: I feel like work was a mess this month, mostly because I was out four days (when my ILs were in town, two days for the conference, and one day for my kids’ spring break). I did not get nearly enough done for yearbook, which means April will be more stressful.

What I’m still working on: YEARBOOK!

Home

What went well: This was also a pretty big bust, although the kids are still doing more chores than they used to.

What I’m still working on: You will probably not be shocked to learn that I failed on my family roll out of the app. Every week I meant to sit everyone down and really talk about how I wanted us to utilize it and every week I failed to do that. I’m really hoping to manage it this month. I think it’s my best bet at actually getting the kids (and my husband!) to do more around the house. (I wrote this paragraph last month and kept it for this month, but also am pretty sure I’ll fail at this again in April).

Fun

What went well: The Palm Springs work trip was fun, despite the crazy heat. The Lucha Libre afternoon was really fun.

What I’m still working on: I think this month I should focus on a couple of fun things during my spring break week, because right now I just have appointments scheduled for most of the days.

Planning/Recording

What went well: I feel like I really stalled out on Planning/Recording this month. But! We did manage ourselves relatively despite the husband being out of town the first week, and totally absorbed in work the last week of the month, an unexpected, week-long strike at our kids’ school district, and a winter storm messing with our snow trip. Also, I wrote a January goals post and managed a February goals post, which isn’t nothing! Also, I have used Google Tasks some, but not consistently.

What I’m still working on: The husband and I are not meeting regularly to look at the work week or weekends. I don’t have a reliable “task capture” system and I’m not checking in with my planner regularly at all. I did not do a financial review in January (and I don’t have a plan yet to do one). I don’t have a good system for actually using Google Tasks effectively yet. I am checking my planner consistently every morning.

Goals moving forward

I’ve decided to revamp my goal setting for the future. I think these monthly posts don’t really work for me. I do like the idea of a quintile system (like SHU uses), but I think for me it makes more sense to plan my quintiles around the academic calendar. I’m trying to decide if my summer break should be Q1 or Q5. Do I think of the summer as the end of the beginning of the year? I think maybe the end… And the fall is Q1, a fresh start as it were. I think of the weekends as being the end of the week, especially as far as my workouts are concerned, mostly so that if I need to “make up” anything, I have two full days to do that. I kind of think of the summer that way too; any projects that don’t get done during they year are pushed to the summer. Some of them even get done during those months!

Anyway, I have more to write about this, but right now I just want to put this up, and hopefully I’ll have a post about my (still being) planned quintile system and some goals I have for Q4 (the end of the school year).

Hey all. Sorry to be gone again for so long.

In all honestly I am REALLY struggling to show up here right now. I’m not sure what it is. When I think about coming to write a post I just feel… meh. It’s like I can’t muster the enthusiasm to show up.

I even found myself considering… stopping. Like either suspending posting for a while or… stopping all together.

I have been writing a blog for a looong time. Since before the almost 16yo was born. I have never, in all of that time, seriously considered not blogging.

And it’s not that I’m seriously considering not blogging, it just when I thought, maybe I should stop? Instead of feeling shocked and dismayed by the thought I felt.. not much? That feels significant in and of itself.

I’m not really sure what is going on. The meh feeling is not just affecting my enthusiasm for this space. Things between my husband and I are not great but I can’t seem to muster the energy to do much about that either. Usually the lack of connection between us feels so bad that I am eager confront him about it, even if I know the conversation will be unpleasant. Lately, I’d rather just avoid the conversation, even if it means maintaining a fairly unpleasant status quo at home.

In the meantime, it’s my spring break. I’m still waking up at 6:30 to get the 15yo up and out the door, so it doesn’t really feel like a vacation. Yesterday I was out of the house almost all day (bagels/groceries, cats to the vet, lunch with husband, allergy shot, Cotsco trip) and today I stayed home all day running many loads of laundry and cleaning up. I have a mixture of errands/appointments and home time for the next two days. Friday I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing.

The husband leaves for a last minute trip on Saturday (he’s going to a conference that he wasn’t able to go to when we still planned to visit friends in LA). I’m kind of looking forward to him being away and having a little more space. When I get back to work it will be yearbook, yearbook, yearbook until mid May.

And with that I guess I’ll press publish. My March recap + April goals post has been sitting, almost done, in my draft folders since LAST Monday (when it was still March), so if I don’t pull the trigger on this it might never go up.

Conference

The conference in Palm Springs was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the time with my colleagues, many of whom I didn’t know well before the trip (we teach on different campuses). I only got two hours of sleep on Wednesday night so Thursday was a struggle. I still enjoyed dinner out with everyone and a couple episodes of RHoSLC S4 (in which they travel to Palm Springs!) before I passed out pretty early. Friday evening I had dinner with a friend who left the Bay Area to teach in Palm Springs over ten years ago. I couldn’t believe it had been that long! Saturday we heard the closing remarks and attended two final sessions before heading back home. The 105 degree heat was very oppressive, and it sucked to show up at 9am with my back soaked in sweat each day, but all in all it was a positive experience and I’m glad I went. I’ve already tried a few things I learned at the conference in my classes!

Fun things (recent and upcoming)

Last Sunday we went down to my parents’ house to celebrate Easter early, because my parents are going to be in St. Louis over the actual weekend. My kids may be 12 and 15 but they still love looking for eggs! That afternoon we went to an outdoor Lucha Libre event at the Chase Center. It ended up being a really good time. Our family really loves Lucha Libre and this event was a lot of fun. We weren’t sure we could make it and get decent seats with our Easter celebration that morning, but it ended up being totally worth it.

My kids have spring break starting tomorrow and through next week. I wanted to take off Tuesday, but couldn’t get a sub, so now I’m taking off Monday, which is more annoying for me as far as planning goes. The positives of being of Monday are that I can take my parents to the airport and my daughter to her physical (which she needs to keep competing on her school swim team). I’m not sure what else we’ll do that day, but I’m determined to get them out of the house to do something fun.

My own spring break is the week after, and right now I have nothing but appointments planned. I may spend a night at my parents’ house alone, so I can at least get a 24 hour break. I’m really bummed our LA trip was cancelled and that we didn’t manage to make any other plans. The husband is now going to Nashville for a conference the second weekend (since our trip was cancelled), so at least he gets to do something he wants…

Work

Work was rough this week after being gone Thursday and Friday last week. I ended up with a sub I don’t love on Thursday, and she texted me all day Thursday about how “disrespectful” my students were, but still managed to leave me three pages of handwritten notes as well. I left my phone number so she could let me know if anything wasn’t posting on google classroom right, or she couldn’t get into the computer I left with the agenda slides, and while I was able to put out a few fires, it really sucked to spend all of Thursday at the conference, but having to engage with my sub. I really think it’s hard for non-teachers to understand what a PITA it is for teachers to be away from their classrooms. It absolutely sucks.

Also, the spring crunch has begun. The 7/8 classes are inventing original stories and then filming video skits of those stories. It’s a lot of work on my end, and the filming days are stressful (and fall on my already horrible Thursdays!) I’m starting to feel the pressure with yearbook. I’m not panicking or anything, but I’m definitely very aware of how many weeks are left until mid-May. There are a couple more parent volunteers that are eager to help and I am gratefully offloading work to them. I know it will all be fine, but I wish I had made some different decisions in February, that’s for sure.

Marriage

The husband and I have been butting heads lately about work load around the house and I’m feeling really over it. I think I do more than he does, and feel especially frustrated when he is stressed and I take on his work to provide him more margins, but then I am shown no such consideration when I am totally overwhelmed. When he’s out of town he returns to a blank slate, chore-wise, but when I come back I have all the laundry still to do, the floors to vacuum, and the sheets to change.

He suggested he should over the stuff I do in the mornings, but then was almost catatonic both evenings after he did so. I just feel like there is no way for him to do more without paying some kind of price and I need to just keep offloading chores to the kids instead of him. I absolutely participated in the creation of the systems I now wish I could change, and I don’t totally blame my husband. I also truly believe that he needs more sleep to function, and that has less capacity to things done during the work week (due to both his schedule and his energy levels). We both feel like much of what we do isn’t recognized or acknowledged.

The final complication is our attitude toward time spent with the kids. I prefer to do my own thing in the evenings and then spend a shorter, more focused amount of time with each kid (or both together), which he feels like just being upstairs and around while they are doing different stuff is important and that it counts toward his “on time.” This might be the biggest issue honestly, and I don’t know how to reconcile our views.

Knee

I requested physical therapy and was able to get in super fast when someone cancelled. I went on Tuesday and he wants me to focus on stretching for the first two weeks. I see him again during my break and then we’ll start working on strength, though he doesn’t feel any weakness on that side. I also made an appointment for acupuncture during my spring break. I really hope all this will help me finally see some improvement. I am so over me knee not getting better.

Um, has it really been almost two weeks since I posted!? I did NOT realize it had been that long. But honestly, things have been so crazy that I’m not really surprised.

And things have been crazy, but they haven’t really been very interesting. I’ve been slammed at work and running on fumes at home and now I’m heading to Palm Springs for a work conference. It’s 6:50am and I’ve been up for two and a half hours and maybe I got the much sleep last night and I have a lot of day left ahead of me.

California is experiencing a pretty intense heat wave right now. It’s been in the 80s in San Francisco and it hit 90 a couple times at work this week. It’s going to be 102 in Palm Springs today, which is way hotter than I’m used to.

Is it really only mid-March?

We just boarded and I have my MOAC (mother of all coffees) an I’m going to put this up because why not?

Sorry I’ve been AWOL so long. I should have some time and bandwidth to post over the next couple days.

Two cancellations in two weeks. I mentioned in a past post (I’m not sure which one) that I was really looking forward to a Spring Break trip to LA to visit friends and meet their new baby, and the music festival La Onda in May. Well, last week La Onda emailed ticket holders to announce that the festival is not taking place. There was no explanation, they just cancelled it. This past week I confirmed my dates with my friends in LA and they told me that I couldn’t actually come that weekend because a friend from Canada was coming with her baby then. I’m not sure how our wires got crossed on the dates, but now I have nothing to look forward to before summer break and I will admit to be pretty bummed about it.

Snagging a coveted wait list spot. The husband found a really cool Marine Biology overnight camp offered by UC and in the 24 hours we spent deciding if we should spend $3K on it (yep, you read that right, $3k for ONE WEEK of camp), it filled up. But last week a spot opened up and my husband was the first of 70 people on the wait list to snag it. Nothing like a scarcity of spots to make me feel better about spending an insane amount of money on a week of my kid’s life.

Hard drive data retrieval. Speaking of feeling okay about spending a lot of money on something, the guy at the data retrieval center was able to get my photos and videos off my busted external hard drive! I’ve been dragging my feet on taking it in for half a year because I was worried it would be a lost cause, but after a week he was able to retrieve all my data! It was $150 for a new hard drive and $350 for his services (a great price from what I’d read online), and I was happy to spend that $500 to get every photo and video I’ve ever taken of my kids (and cats!) back.

The 12yo tested! The 12yo’s belt test is done! He worked really hard for the past two weeks to perfect his form and review the massive amount of techniques he would be tested on. He was at the dojo for over ten hours this week! Luckily it was conference at school, so he got out early all week and had a little more mental and emotional bandwidth to handle that amount of training. He had a good attitude about it, for the most part, and only “crashed out” at the very end. I appreciated when he demonstrates resilience, because that does not come naturally to him.

No news isn’t necessarily good news. My knee and shoulder are… exactly the same. They don’t get worse, but they also don’t get better. I know I came back from my previous knee injury, but this feels different for a couple reasons. That was an acute injury and I knew how it happened. The injury was identified and I did a ton of PT to strengthen the muscles around my knee while the injury healed. This is an over use injury. I have no real understanding of what I was doing to cause it, and while I know it’s my meniscus that is inflamed, I don’t really know what to do to avoid further inflaming it. The doctor basically told me to stop running, hope it eventually felt better, and call to get a cortisone shot if it didn’t ever feel better. But is a cortisone shot really going to help me in the long term, if I don’t know how to correct whatever made it start hurting in the first place?

Ditto my shoulder. I’m not sure what caused the initial ACJ injury and I don’t really know how I aggravated it again. I feel unempowered and hopeless, and like I’m heading toward, “I have a bum knee.” I really don’t want to be one of those people who is not doing the shit she wants to do because she “has a bum knee.” I know it hasn’t been that long (almost two months?), but I just don’t know how I can expect it to get better if I don’t know what caused the problem in the first place. If it doesn’t feel better, I’m clearly not avoiding whatever aggravates it, and so they cycle continues.

Workout rut. On a not unrelated note, I’m in a bit of a workout rut right now. It’s been really hard to get started this week. Some days I can’t think of anything I’d actually like to do, and then I get started and that feeling never goes away and I just have to slog through whatever I picked. In the past when I wasn’t super excited to start a workout, I’d usually feel a lot better about it once I began. That has not been the case recently. It’s a bummer and I’m not sure why it’s happening and I’m not sure how long it will last. Exercise is usually my emotional escape, but lately has not provided that. I’ve also been feeling kind of low emotionally, so maybe that is the ultimately problem. I’m just not sure why exercise isn’t helping me feel better mentally and emotionally like it usually does.

Three posts in three days!? I’m as shocked as you are! Expect the unexpected in the big 2-6!

Now on to the third post (a monthly goal post no less! I’m on a roooooll!)

I still have not formally posted my 2026 goals! If I’m hoping to do that by the Spring Solstice I only have a few more weeks to get it done. But here is how February went, and what I hope to accomplish in March.

February Goals

These were the goals I wrote out in my January Look Back/February Look Ahead post.

• Have fun on the snow trip weekend (even though the snow is evidently not great) ✅
• Steam clean the downstairs (when I’m off and the kids are not, after the snow trip) ❌ (This did not happen, but I did clean the bathroom)
• Add a chore to each kid’s list and use the app consistently ❌❌❌ (Mega fail!)
• Write 2-3 blog posts a week, ideally on consistent days ✅ ❌ (Kind of?! I do think I was more consistent – mostly because of FJIGs posts, but I wasn’t 2-3x/wk consistent.)
• Respond to comments and/or comment on someone’s blog when they comment on mine ❌❌❌
• Continue Strong Glutes program 2-3x/week ✅ (This actually got hard as the workouts got longer and more challenging and I’m proud that I kept it up.)
• Do shoulder rehab exercises at least 3x/week ❌❌ (I kept stuff for this upstairs and I think that made it hard to execute. I’m going to figure out how to do it better in the downstairs space.)
• Slowly return to the dojo without aggravating my knee or shoulder ✅ My knee and shoulder never hurt when I’m at the dojo, but are usually sore for a few days afterward.)
• Weekend check-ins (on Thursdays) and weekly check-ins (on Sunday) with husband ❌❌ (We did some scattered check-ins but nothing consistent or especially effective.)
• Add February weeks to Tri2 planning document ✅ (I am so pleased I’ve kept this up! I’m beginning to believe I will have a comprehensive set of pacing documents for both 7th and 8th grade classes next year!)
• Sign the 15yo up for life guard training ✅ (We got the second-to-last spot! It starts on Easter Sunday, which I didn’t realize when I signed her up, but it’s definitely the best one for her schedule.)
• Decide on Hawaii trip for this summer ✅ (This was actually really hard and took a while…)
• Buy flights for Hawaii ✅ (…and then the minute we decided my husband got tickets.)
• Figure out dates for St. Louis and possibly buy those tickets too ✅ (This was also a really time consuming process, both deciding on the dates and finally pulling the trigger on flights. It’s so hard to spend $500+ on flights to St. Louis! Why are they so expensive?!)
• Start thinking about summer camps for the 12yo ❌ (Registration day is 3/21, and if we’re not ready by 10am on that Saturday, there will be no space left for anything.)

Reading / Watching

This is a new addition, but I don’t see myself writing more comprehensive posts about what I read, so I might as well list books in these monthly posts.

Books

• Listened to Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy
• Listened to Scythe, Niel Shusterman (listened to this while my son read it – a really great YA novel)
• Started listening to Nuestra Parte de la Noche, Mariana Enriquez (reread – my husband started it (in English) but he stalled out, so I stalled out on my reread)
• Started listening to My Friends, Frederik Blackman (I’m reading this very slowly with my daughter who is also reading it very slowly)
• Listened to La Red Púrpura, Carmen Mola
• Started reading The Elsewhere Express, Samantha Sotto Yambao
• Started listening to Alchemized (Spanish Version), SenLinYu (Ankara Cabeza Lázaro and Patricia Isabel Mora Pérez, translators)

Movies / TV

• Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (w/ family)
• Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (w/ family)
• Sinners (rewatch w/ 15yo)
• Die My Love
• Gravity (w/ family)
• The War of the Worlds (w/ family)
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Season 2 (w/ family)
• The Night Manager, Season 2
• City of Shadows
• Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Season 3
• Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 15

Connection

What went well:

The family spent a long weekend in the snow. The husband and I met for lunch downtown during my break and we watched Die My Love. The 15yo and I finished RHoSLC Season 3 and are watching the most current season of RHoBH. We’re spending a long time in the car together on Saturday! The 12yo let me help him with his cell project and we’ve been working on his current form for martial arts. I took him and his friend mini-golfing one weekend. My friends and I spent an afternoon playing pinball on February first and thank goodness, because we didn’t see each other the rest of the month.

What I’m still working on: I didn’t feel like the husband and I really connected once a week, though we did find some quality time here and there. I’m still struggling to follow a consistent blogging schedule and even more so with comment reciprocation. Also, I didn’t see my parents in any meaningful way this month.

Health/Wellness

What went well: I’ve continued to be on the bike a ton; I’m about to hit 100 cycle classes (a lot of my “bike” classes before were Bike Bootcamps, but now I’m doing more “Intervals & Arms” classes which are in a different category). I finished the Crushing Your Core program and have continued the Strong Glutes program (I did it at least twice a week all month, which was my goal!)

I hit “Gold” on the Peloton Pilates challenge, which means I completed 15 classes – and I didn’t even start until the second week of the month! I’m actually really proud of that one, because it was a late February goal and I am glad I attempted it and met it. {Actually I exceeded it, because I only hoped to hit “bronze” (5 classes) but then after that I went for “Silver” (10 classes) and ended up doing five more ten minute classes to hit “Gold” (the first five classes I did were all 30 minutes long and the second five were mostly 20 minutes long).} I’m really liking the Pilates classes; they are a great addition to my workout routine right now, with my busted knee and shoulder. Basically I’ve been doing Pilates and a Strong Glutes class on my “rest” days which means I worked out almost every day in February. I usually don’t do that so I’m pretty proud!

What I’m still working on: While I was really consistent with my Strong Glutes program, I fell off the shoulder rehab pretty quickly. Which is not good because my shoulder is still bothering me! My knee is too actually, so maybe it doesn’t even matter. Sigh. I am definitely still working on eating more fiber and drinking more water. And sleeping 6.5-7.5 hours a night is not happening.

Work

What went well: All the weeks of February have been added to my Tri2 planning doc. I administered, and scored the big 1B assessment. I recorded notes for each class every day for the two of the three weeks (who was absent, who was moved, etc). We voted on the theme of the yearbook.

What I’m still working on: I still have not added audio books to my free reading program, or started a yearbook master document. I haven’t gotten student page editors started on the yearbook.

Home

What went well: Erm… not much honestly. I did give each kid one more chore and helped them each do it a couple times. I did a big “bedding” clean downstairs and washed everything on our bed for the first time in… a long time (we’ll leave it at that). I got all the snow clothes out, and then packed back away (not a small feat!)

What I’m still working on: You will probably not be shocked to learn that I failed on my family roll out of the app. Every week I meant to sit everyone down and really talk about how I wanted us to utilize it and every week I failed to do that. I’m really hoping to manage it this month. I think it’s my best bet at actually getting the kids (and my husband!) to do more around the house.

Fun

What went well: The snow trip was fun, even though it was abbreviated. Black Chasm Cavern ended up being a real bright spot. We watched Percy Jackson Season 2 as a family, which was a nice palate cleanser after Stranger Things Season 4. We watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning and loved them both. And technically I did meet up with my friends once, on February 1^st.  The husband and I met for lunch once and went out to dinner once, which I will count as our “two date nights.”

What I’m still working on: I still am not scheduling 1-2 things to look forward to a week.

Planning/Recording

What went well: I feel like I really stalled out on Planning/Recording this month. But! We did manage ourselves relatively despite the husband being out of town the first week, and totally absorbed in work the last week of the month, an unexpected, week-long strike at our kids’ school district, and a winter storm messing with our snow trip. Also, I wrote a January goals post and managed a February goals post, which isn’t nothing! Also, I have used Google Tasks some, but not consistently.

What I’m still working on: The husband and I are not meeting regularly to look at the work week or weekends. I don’t have a reliable “task capture” system and I’m not checking in with my planner regularly at all. I did not do a financial review in January (and I don’t have a plan yet to do one). I don’t have a good system for actually using Google Tasks effectively yet. I am checking my planner consistently every morning.

March Goals

And here are some things I hope to accomplish in March (some of these are repeats, but I really do want to do them!)

• Enjoy myself – and learn something! – at the CALIE conference in Palm Springs
• Check the chore app daily and with the kids weekly
• Hold kids accountable for doing chores weekly (they are supposed to lose privileges on the weekends until chores are done)
• Add a chore to each kid’s list 1-2x a month
• Write 2-3 blog posts a week, ideally on consistent days
• Respond to comments and/or comment on someone’s blog when they comment on mine
• Do shoulder rehab exercises 1-2x/week
• Continue at the dojo without aggravating my knee or shoulder
• Weekend check-ins (on Thursdays) and weekly check-ins (on Sunday) with husband
• Daily planner check + Google Task update on week day mornings
• Add March weeks to Tri2 planning document
• Look into PADI certification for 15yo’s birthday
• Car rentals for Hawaii and St. Louis
• Find a couple Rec & Park camps for the 12yo and sign him up

Sorry if it’s boring to see the same stuff on here, but I didn’t hit a lot of these last time and I really want to keep trying!