Not a Wasted Word

Well, this week thoroughly kicked my ass. I am in rough shape. I want to say I’m so happy tomorrow is Friday, but the weekend doesn’t look like it’s going to be a lot better.

‘‘Tis the season, amiright?!

My son has a belt test at the dojo on Saturday. I’ve been helping him practice most days after school. He’s a very high belt and has a lot to review before a test. I’ll be glad when it’s over.

My daughter has to submit her application to the art school next Friday. She just finished one of the three submissions. She’s partly done with the second and has no idea what she’ll do for the third. It’s been a lot of work to help her manage her time and big feelings around doing the work. I cannot wait for her to submit her three pieces so we can move on. I’m tired.

The plumbers finished the second part of the big pipe replacement job today. It’s been really stressful to have them in the house so much. The downstairs is a disaster. And so dirty. But at least we can start putting it back together again.

Which means I really do need to decide on tile. Except it’s SO EXPENSIVE! So I might just put linoleum in there again, even though it makes me sad when I can’t afford to make my house look like I want it to. But if most of it doesn’t look like how I want, maybe it’s not worth spending $700ish dollars more to put tile in my bathroom when linoleum would probably look fine.

But I did get my new glasses today. And I like them! And I’m so excited to have a dedicated pair of reading glasses, that incorporate my prescription for astigmatism with the boost I need to read these days. I used to put a pair of nose-bridge reading glasses into my regular glasses to read, but after several years of doing that I decided it was time to get a separate pair for reading. I’m wearing them now and they are lovely. Hooray!

Being able to see is never overrated. I learned this the hard way when I forgot my glasses one day this week and really, really struggled to see my computer, and anything the kids wrote.

Oh, and this happened today.

I bit the bullet and started dumping stuff into bags today. Because why not?! But honestly I feel like it needs to happen. Im acutely aware of how much shit is hiding all over my house; and I don’t think I can keep the clutter at bay if it’s also lurking behind every piece of furniture. Hopefully I won’t just leave all this stuff in bags until the summer. I’ve definitely done that before, with stuff I’d cleared off of surfaces when people were coming over (exactly what you described Jenny!) I think this will be different because it’s the stuff in the drawers I am sorting through, but maybe I’m just deluding myself. We shall see. The winter break is in two weeks and most of it falls after Xmas so I have a fighting chance.

The weekend is almost over. Yesterday was spent almost entirely at the dojo, helping them set up their holiday party (and fundraiser kickoff) and then helping during the kid section. At 5:30pm my son and I headed home, just as all the adults arrived for the adult-centric continuation of the party. I was sad to miss the part with my peers, but I was also beat, so I headed home. My husband, son and I ate pizza and watched Blue Beetle, which was surprisingly good.

Today I had nothing planned and I was glad for it. I puttered around doing laundry and picking up around the house. Then my husband asked if we could go over some areas of the house that are causing me stress and I said sure and we did and then afterward I felt even more stress. My house, it turns out, is really just a series of junk drawers full of random shit, which I was reminded of when I tried to find the patches with our last name for my son’s new martial arts Ki. I never did find the patches, but I did find out how many drawers and boxes and baskets full of crap are hiding all over my house.

And I really do need to get the house in order, because in February my husband and I will be spending six nights in Mexico City to celebrate our 15th/10th anniversary. It would be like a second honeymoon if we’d ever had a first, which we haven’t, even though we had two opportunities to do so.

This is our 15th/10th anniversary because 15 years ago (in early January 2024), my husband and I became domestic partners in the city of San Francisco. This process can afford people some protections and insurance coverage, if one of the people involved is a city employee, but for us, at the time, my husband was not. We became domestic partners instead of just getting married, because Californians had just passed Prop 8, which made gay marriage illegal in our state. We also learned that becoming domestic partners in our state was only open to gay couples. This seemed incredibly fucked up to us, so we decided to have nothing to do with any of it, and just became domestic partners in the eyes of our city instead.

We went on to have our daughter, and buy a home together, and then have our son. And in early January of 2014, after Prop 8 was overturned in court, we got married in my parents’ living room with our 3.5 year old daughter and three year old son, and our mutual friend (who introduced us) officiating. (We got married on almost exactly the same date as our domestic partnership ceremony so we’d only have one anniversary moving forward).

Neither of those times, did we go on a trip of any kind. In fact, we have never gone on a trip together without our kids, ever. We’ve spent a night or two at home alone, while they stayed with my parents, and we’ve been on trips alone or with friends, but we’ve never gone anywhere as a couple without them. So this is kind of a big deal. And we’re both really excited to do it. Except for one thing. My in-laws will be staying at our house with the kids for the second half of the trip, which means our house has to be clean. And right now it is not clean.

Right now our house is kind of a disaster area. There is shit everywhere you look, and I just found out, everywhere you don’t readily look. The whole house is just full of shit.

And I have 2.5 months to fix that.

Originally I thought my daughter would stay with a school friend and my son would stay at my in-laws house, and my house could remain as it has been, a gigantic mess. But then my husband said his parents thought staying here was a better idea, and after a muli-day tantrum, I had to relent. It would be better for them to spend the school days of our trip at home, sleeping in their own beds. I just need to get over myself and clean up my house.

My husband offered to help, but in the past he has been categorically unable to participate in any organizing, let alone cleaning, of the house. How was he going to participate while battling depression?! But today he stepped up. WAY UP! And two giant book shelves (built into our mantel) are organized, along with his work-from-home desktop downstairs.

If we keep this up, maybe we could have the house ready for a cleaner to come and finish the job.

The good news is, the second week of the break I have nothing going on except taking down the Christmas decorations and checking to see if I have jury duty (rescheduling my jury duty for that week was a massive mistake – I’m so annoyed at myself for doing that). And hopefully I can find the time to work on small areas every day or every couple of days.

One thing I’m considering doing is taking a Costco bag and going around and just dumping every random junk drawer into it, and then reorganizing it all. I know this goes against many professional organizers advice, but I think it might be the right move because it could all fit in a Costco or IKEA bag while I’m working through it, which means it wouldn’t be making me more miserable before it felt productrive. And there really is a lot of stuff that probably should be put together before it’s culled and reorganized. There are three or four areas with random tech stuff around the house; two or three with important paper work and memorabilia; a bunch with workout/PT materials; even more with tools and office supplies, personal care products, cat stuff, etc. And I have enough bags that I could sort them as I dump it all out, so that I can tackle each area as I purge and sort and put it all back.

It’s a thought. And I even have space under my bed to keep the bags while I’m working on them, because anyone who has ever dealt with bed bugs (even tangentially) never keeps storage stuff under their bed.

So yeah, it’s a lot and I’m struggling to be excited for the trip because all I can think about is how much work I have to do before we go. And yes, we could just leave the house as is, and let my in-laws deal with it, but that doesn’t feel like the right move. They are doing us a favor staying here with the kids, and my house stresses me out, so it would make them miserable (there house – like my parents’ – is always pristine). I know I should reframe this as an opportunity to get my shit in order, just like I did in 2018 when we deep cleaned the house to AirBnB it so we could pay for our first family trip.

And please know, that I recognize how lucky we are to get to take this trip, and without AirBnBing our house to pay for it! It will push back some much needed house renovations, but our massive plumbing project is what really did that, so we might as well enjoy ourselves while try to fill the $8K hole in our “fix the back room” savings. We’ve lived without the back room for a lot of years now. We can keep making do. This is a very big deal for us and I’m really grateful that we get to go.

So yeah, I’m processing some big feelings about my inability to manage my own shit, but I’m also resolved (after much pouting) to do something about it. I checked out How to Keep House While Drowning (thanks Jenny for the reminder that I hadn’t read that yet – I love her podcast but never read her book) and maybe Organized Living will become available at my library to provide some inspiration before I’m done (I was the 11th person to put a hold on the 10 copies they got when it came out).

Who knows, maybe I’ll even find those patches that have disappeared. They have to be around here somewhere…

If someone came to stay in your house would you feel the need to do a big clean? Or your living space ready for guests without much fuss?

Thank you to everyone who commented on my post. I really appreciated your stories and perspectives. I was realizing as I read them that my kids have never asked me, directly or even indirectly, if Heart or Santa or the Tooth Fairy are real. If they had, I wouldn’t have lied, though I probably would have said something along the lines of, everyone has to decide for themselves but I like to believe.

Because it’s true.

And if they do ask in the future, that is how I’ll respond.

We first started our traditions with Heart because I wanted to get advent calendars for the kids but didn’t think they could handle only opening one box a day. So I got the advent calendars, but left it to Heart to portion out the surprises. It was much easier for them when they had no choice but to wait.

I still do that. Every year they get an advent calendar (they either ask for one specifically or I find one I think they will like) and each day Heart leaves the treat from the calendar in a little stocking near her spot. On the weekends they usually get something else, like candy or a pack of gum (I NEVER buy them gum unless it’s for something special like this. I HATE gum.) And that is why I first embraced Elf on a Shelf.

It’s definitely a lot of work. And by the end of the month I’m super over it. But I know it means a lot to my kids, and talking to my daughter about it last night made me feel good about my efforts, both past a present.

I haven’t really changed the way I talk about Heart with my daughter, but instead of asking her what Heart have her this morning, I asked her if she liked what Heart gave her. A small change, but a significant one. I think she noticed it.

My little girl is growing up. My son isn’t far behind her.

I’ve done a lot of NaBloPoMo’s before, but I haven’t done one like 2023’s in a long while. And I don’t know if I’ve ever participated in one that was so well curated and organized. Hats off to San for showing us all how it’s done.

December starts tomorrow. I’ve already kind of been operating in December mode – I erased November’s calendar on the white board last week, since I could fit the final five days at the top of December’s calendar. I’ve even been using the December’s calendar for this week in my paper planner. And my school planner! So it kind of feels like, about time!

Having said that, tomorrow is very different from today in that Heart, our Elf on a Shelf comes tomorrow. My kids are 10 and 13 and they both might still believe in Heart. I say that not jokingly. My 13yo has given no indication that she understands someone else moves Heart around, or is getting her the little gifts Hearts has for them every day. Last year she marveled at how well Heart knew what she wanted! Where does she get her intel?! It didn’t sound like she was joking.

While we were at Great America, my son asked his friend if an Elf on the Shelf came to his house and his friend said, oh you mean one of those parent tricky things, and my son’s face suggested that he had never considered Heart might have anything to do with his parents. After a few awkward beats he responded with a fierce, “It’s not a parent tricky thing!” I quickly stepped in to say our family chooses to believe in Christmas things like our Elf on a Shelf and left it at that. But later talking to my husband, he admitted that he didn’t know what the end game was on Heart and Santa and all that stuff. When do we tell our kids that we have been deceiving them?

This really hurt me. I never considered that I’ve been deceiving my kids when I move Heart around the house and put little treasures in the mini stockings she brings for them. But I suppose I am. And I guess I just assumed that one day they would figure it out for themselves. I never considered that they might be mad at me for deceiving them all this time. And I never considered that they might end up believing for a lot longer than their friends do.

My daughter used to believe in dragons. Like really, truly believe in them. She had an imaginary friend/pet dragon named Aqua that she talked about all the time. Lately I’ve been learning that her friends gave her a ton of grief about Aqua at sailing camp when she was 11 until she finally stopped talking about her. She told me, around that same time, that Aqua had her own baby dragons and had moved on to live with them somewhere else. I didn’t realize that happened because her friends made her feel silly for believing so fiercely in something that wasn’t, to them, true. I talked to her about it recently, just like I talked to my son after the incident at Great America, reminding her that we all choose what we want to believe, especially about things like dragons and Christmas, and it’s fine as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, and I think she understood.

But I remember last year I said something about forgetting to put the money under her brother’s pillow when he lost a tooth and she seemed shocked. She was probably 12 at the time? She is a smart kid who reads a ton and listens to hours and hours of podcasts. Can she really believe in things like Santa and the Tooth Fairy? Is it bad if she does?

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get into this on the last day of NaBloPoMo. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot since last weekend, and it’s weighing on my mind a lot tonight, as I prep the elf and her reindeer and the stockings with the little treasures for their debut tomorrow morning.

Am I deceiving my kids when I do these things? Should I be saying something to them, and if so when? I love how much fun they have with Heart and her little surprises; it absolutely takes the edge off waiting for Christmas, and makes the whole month special, not just the one day. But maybe, in the long run, I’m doing more harm than good. I really don’t know.

UPDATE: I just talked with her and she does know Heart isn’t real. But she still likes to pretend that she is. She likes to believe. She’s a good kid. Growing up can be tough stuff. I’m glad we talked. We should do more talking.

Thank you for the kind words on my last post. I know there are extenuating circumstances making life harder right now. I realize I have not mentioned that my husband is seeking mental health support at Kaiser. The process is slow and byzantine, but he’s taking the necessary steps (and filling out the endless, infuriating forms). Eventually he will ask about medication, but he can’t really do that yet; he’s not far enough along in the process. But he is getting there and that is HUGE.

In the meantime he has stepped it up a bit this week around the house. And I’m taking small but meaningful steps to clearing the clutter. I just need to insist on following through, on not leaving shit partly done all over the place. If I can just put the bag of clean laundry away right when I fold it that would be huge. Every night I clear off a surface that is causing me stress. Already the house feels a little more manageable.

Today I went for a run. I was going to (no staff meeting!), then I wasn’t (it rained all night!), then I was (it cleared up!), then I wasn’t (it’s still cold and a little cloudy and I forgot my running jacket!). I finally committed at the last minute (the sun came out again and I decided I’d probably be warm enough once I got started) and I’m so glad I did. I really needed the break from thinking about anything, and the time outside.

I got back home and my husband and I had a good talk. I had some time to work before my daughter got home from swimming and even though I was spinning my wheels a fair amount, I did get some stuff done.

Oh and this happened!

Tomorrow is my marathon teaching day, and my student teacher will be navigating her first full block period. She is supposed to be teaching two classes a day entirely on her own but at this point she needs me to teach the first one then she does the second one. It’s frustrating because this was supposed to be my big pay back for all the prep I lost, but it is what it is. Hopefully next week she can take both classes each day.

I really want to get to bed early tonight, so I’ll leave you with pictures of these cats, who have been quite the characters lately. The Christmas decorations have them all riled up.

I was at the dojo for four hours today, so this will be short.

I’m really in the weeds right now. At work. At home. Everywhere. Stuff is coming into the house and I have no where to put it. We still haven’t put everything back into the bathroom because the floor needs to be done, but the plumbers will be ripping out the floor in the downstairs kitchen next week, so a ton of stuff from in there needs to come out. I only just moved my warmer weather clothing into storage and pulled out my colder weather wear. I wanted to have everything more in order and it’s not and I’m disappointed in myself. But of course this month is packed and there is no way any of it is getting done any time soon.

My classroom is the same. Shit everywhere. Piles and piles of stuff. Grades are due and no one can tell us how to post them. Kids are still trying to turn in late work. I’m tired and I just don’t care anymore. I hate the week where we are teaching new stuff for the next trimester, but the last trimester is still technically not closed. I am so over loaded.

It’s only been two days and I feel like any lingering feelings of rest and relaxation from the break have evaporated. I’m already counting down the days until the next break, but will it really change anything?

Not if I don’t change something myself. That is the reality of it. I need to make the changes. It will all keep coming at me and I need to do things differently or I’ll always feel this way.

I wish I knew how to break these cycles. I wish I knew how to affect real change in my life. Instead I just keep doing the same stuff that makes me feel the same way and I wonder why nothing changes. Or I wonder when it’s going to change. But “it” won’t change. I have to. It’s important for me to remember that.

November is almost up and with it NaBloPoMo. I have some posts I wanted to get to and I’m realizing that even if I wrote one every night until Friday I wouldn’t be able to put them up. And there is no way I’ll write them this week, because grades are due and our new gradebook is the worst and I’m already overwhelmed and it’s only Monday.

I really do have some thoughts about this NaBloPoMo, about what amounts to me crashing this blogging community that already existed for a long time, after so many years of longing for some semblance of the blogging community I used to have. About how maybe I don’t need it as much anymore, because I have some really solid friends in the real world that I text with daily and see regularly. And maybe I do, because maybe blogging is about something different for me now, than the connection is used to provide. Suzanne asked, earlier in the month, about what blogging friendships have meant to those of us who write this way on the internet and I have so much to say about my own history of connection on the interwebs. Blogging friends were my only friends for a long time, or the only ones I interacted with on a daily basis. I have magnets on my fridge with pictures of blogging friends I ran a half marathon with in the summer of 2016. Two blogging friends were the only people invited to my wedding almost 10 years ago, who were not my parents or our friend who married us. There were years where my blogging community made up my whole social world.

And I’d love to write about why that was. About that special combination of sucking so hard at real world relationships, and needing to write to process my feelings. About how I can’t really articulate why I don’t need to process my life so vociferously these days. Why I don’t need to announce how I feel to the whole world so much anymore. Why most days I come here just to recap the day, a kind of writing I would never have engaged in 10 years ago. Back then I had thoughts and opinions and I needed to write thousands of words about them. These days I’m content to read a book or listen to a podcast. I just don’t feel the pull to create. I only have the head space most days to consume, and if I can manage to string words together, they won’t be about anything resembling a coherent thought.

Part of me thinks I need to shelve this post until I can finish it, but another part of me knows I won’t, and if I leave it on the shelf, I probably won’t take it down again, let alone send it out into the world. So maybe I’ll just press Publish even though it’s an incomplete (incoherent?) thought, sloppily tossed onto the “page,” and hope it’s not a total waste of everybody’s time.

I mean, it’s not like my recap of a busy week is that enthralling either. (winky face emoji)

Today was… not what I wanted it to be. I felt like I was spinning all day, just turning in circles but not getting anything done. I did finish the calendars, and ordered them in time to get the fourth one free. But I didn’t check the original one enough, so I kept making changes on the copies that I then I had to go back and make in the original. It was such a giant waste of time, and it could have been avoided if I had taken the time to really check the first calendar.

I make three different calendars every year, one for us (the original) and then one for my parents (very close to ours, I mostly just take off my in-laws’ birthdays), and one for my in-laws. The in-laws one requires a lot of editing, because I add photos of our niece and nephew. It’s a lot, but my in-laws love it and they do so much for us, so it’s truly a small token in the grand scheme of things. Since the hard part is making the calendar for my in-laws, I order a second copy for my sister-in-law. She seems to like it. I also designed and ordered the ornament (more on that later).

I pulled out some school stuff and quickly started truly spinning my wheels. Luckily I brought home last year’s planner so I was able to get more done than I would have (thank you me that went into work on Monday!) I looked over my to-do list for the first time since before Thanksgiving and was able to check off more than I realized. That made me feel a little better. But I know tomorrow is going to feel hectic and unorganized and I hate that. Boo.

I’m purposefully keeping my afternoon open tomorrow. No one is going to the dojo, so I can stay at work for a little bit after my last class. And I’m not working out so I’ll have time to get stuff done at home too. I’m hoping that by tomorrow night I’ll feel more settled.

It’s always hard to go back to work after a break. I’m not ready to go back, but when I think of how long ago Monday feels, I am reminded of how long I’ve been off. I just hope I don’t have to pay too high a price for not thinking much about work this past week. We shall see.

I took the kids (and a friend each) to WinterFest at Great America (the local amusement park) today. We had a great time. We went on a ton of rides and took pictures with the lights and Christmas characters. My son rode on his first roller coasters and loved them. It was super fun. And exhausting. I’m ready to stay home and do nothing tomorrow.

We listened to Christmas music on the way down and back. Listening to four kids belt Wham!’s Last Christmas was the icing on the holiday cake.

I’m trying hard not to fall into an end of break funk. This break has been fine. It’s been good! I feel like I’m not checking all the things off my to-do list, but I also feel like I’m using my time relatively wisely. I’m certainly not wasting it. And there have been plenty of very lovely moments. I think my “Five” this Friday will be highlighting the positives of this break, to help combat the end of break funk I feel creeping in.

The Calendar

I’m actually a little behind on the calendar, but I’ve gotten a rough draft of it done. And looking through the photos from this year, I am reminded of how much fun we’ve had on different trips. Our trip to the snow in February was a surprisingly good time. The 4th of July at my uncle’s “farm” in St. Louis with cousins was super fun. The week after in Charleston with my cousin and her kids was amazing. And our week in Hawaii with my husband’s friends was incredible. We also had a great time at Universal Studios. That is FIVE really awesome experiences that we shared this past year. We are very lucky, and I have tons of photos documenting it all.

Visits with friends and family

I had an impromptu visit with a friend earlier this week. Wednesday night we brought dinner to friends and met their new baby. Of course yesterday we were with my parents and long-time family friends (my dad’s best friend from childhood) for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we’re going to my in-laws in the morning and spending the evening with the kids’ friends at Great America. It’s been a nice mixture of family time and seeing other people. I’m glad for that.

Productive purchases

I have quite a few things for the kids for Xmas already, all purchased at deep discount. I got my parents and sister tickets to a show at SFSketchFest (a regular Xmas present for my parents, because I’m always trying to get them experiences, not stuff). For Black Friday we got a tent and two sleeping bag at almost half off (we plan to go camping this year, with my son’s 4th grade National Parks Pass), a bigger memory card for the Switch, and a new neck/back massager for me (my old one has been sewn back together so many times, I just couldn’t fix it again). I also got my son two pairs of the Nike’s he wears to shreds, and my daughter a pair of Converse (for Xmas). Woot!

Runs in the sun

I ran twice, last weekend of the Great Highway and today at my favorite park. I haven’t been up to the park in a while and it was nice to be up there in the sun. It wasn’t even windy! I really needed to get out, and away from my family for an hour today, and was so happy to do it here.

Good TV + Reading

I watched Season 1 of Yellowjackets by myself and my husband and I are finishing Season 2 of The Bear. Both were stellar. My son and I finally started Season 2 of Loki, which is also great. I’m also listening to a really good audiobook (La Ciudad y la Ciudada – the Spanish version of The City and The City by China Miéville). My husband is reading it in English and it’s fun to talk to him about it (it has a very strange premise). It’s been nice to have the time in the evenings to watch some TV. I’ve also had some time (though not enough) to read my print book, which is also really good (a police procedural in Spanish called Las Madres).

Tackling the to-do list

I may not have gotten as much done as I wanted, but I have crossed off many a to-do list item. The tree is up and decorated (and withstanding the frequent assaults by the cats). {I am SO GLAD I got an extra box of the lights we use from Costco years ago – they change from white to colors and I love them and when half of one set went out this year I just grabbed the new box!} The TV is now secured to its stand (because said cats have started attacking it too). My daughter’s art nook is ready for her to create her three submissions (due mid-December!) The advent calendars and other treats for at least the first half of the month are ready for our Elf on a Shelf’s arrival (our Elf leaves little gifts to make the wait more manageable, she does not surveil bad behavior). The new bathroom tile has been chosen (this took WAY longer than expected) and will be ordered soon (I just have to ask the handyman some questions about quantity). A bunch of old junk got picked up. The outdoor couch (from the pandemic days) was retrieved by a new owner, leaving a ton of space in the shed. Stuffing was made and shared (yes I only bring over the simplest side dish). Christmas resents were purchased. My niece’s birthday present was ordered. The car was serviced. I ordered new glasses (including my first dedicated pair of reading glasses (with my astigmatism Rx included). FSA paperwork was submitted for the second half of the year (which will help pay for all those productive purchases!) It’s a lot of things! And they’re all done now!

And there are still two more days before I go back to work. Tomorrow is probably a wash, but Sunday I can get things done. Just writing all this out has definitely helped tame the End of Break Funk I was feeling. And now to finish Season 2 of The Bear!