Not a Wasted Word

I woke up early today, but I’m getting a ride to school (so my husband can take our son to Dave and Buster’s for half-off games Wednesday), so I can’t leave early. Instead I’m sitting in front of the heater, negotiating the many bandaids I have on my finger tips to help heal the skin fissures that refuse to close to tap out this post on my phone.

And now I’m also negotiating kittens.

Well the heater turned off and my sweater was done in the dryer so now I’m sitting in front of the heater (it came on again) but fully dressed and with my coffee ready to go too. I really love heaters. We didn’t have any heat for a couple years, when our heater broke and we were too financially strapped to fix it. Those years were rough. It was so cold at night and rarely got over 60* during the days.

I know it never gets truly cold here but our houses are also not built for the cold. We don’t have the insulation needed to trap heat. Our doors and windows are old and drafty. My good friend, who is from Chicago assures me that we hang out in much colder houses here than they did growing up on the shore of frigid Lake Michigan. My visits to St. Louis at Christmas corroborate her story.

The thermostat at my school is forever set to “Holiday” so it’s a crap shoot what the temperature will be when I arrive. On Monday it was 50* in my room when I got there. It took 30 minutes to get it to 64*.

But at least we don’t have to teach with the windows and doors open. Maybe that would be a good idea with all the respiratory illness circulating, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. It was so miserable last year. I am wearing a mask again this week, in an attempt to stay healthy for the holidays. Hopefully that will be enough.

My friend just texted that she’ll be here soon. Just two more school days.

Let’s do this.

Some happenings around here:

It’s been quite chilly – highs in the 40s – and I’m VERY glad we got our downstairs heater fixed in November. I’m also loving leg warmers, which actually keep my legs warm! It’s not just a clever name! I’ve been wearing them with my holiday leggings and Uggs almost every day.

It’s December 20th and I’m STILL AT SCHOOL. Tomorrow and Thursday are minimum days. Yesterday was supposed to be a regular day but a water main broke and they had to shut off the water at 11:30am so we had to dismiss students early. It was an absolute shit show, but I was relieved because I didn’t do any work over the weekend and realized when I walked into my classroom at 7:30am that I was kinda screwed. Not having to meet with my 5th or 6th periods helped me out.

The weekend was obviously not worked-filled. My parents took the kids on Saturday and my husband and I went out for dinner and drinks. Sunday we went to brunch and I wrapped presents before heading down to my parents’ house to join them at WinterFest, the holiday themed extravaganza at our theme park. It was VERY cold (36* by the time we left!) so we only lasted a few hours, but it was fun to see the lights and go on a few rides.

Monday I had to drag my ass to work at 7am, but as you read above, the day was short. I ran an errand on the way to my parents’ house, where I picked up my kids. Monday night I scored the tests and projects I had not gotten to over the weekend, so today at work was a lot better.

But it was still stressful because I had to attend a 504 meeting during 5th period, which was one of the classes we missed yesterday because of the water main break. So now that class is WAAAAAY behind. I’m not sure if I want to scramble to get them caught up of just say fuck it and figure it out in January. (I’m leaning toward the latter, mostly because five kids were out last week and have some portion of their big assessment to make up).

Tonight I’m going to sparring, which I’m excited about. My husband rocked it hosting my son’s friend and then my daughter’s friends and now he is totally wiped, but he’s still telling me I should go to sparring, so I’m going to go. I need some time away from my house and family and the dojo is closed the rest of the break.

Tomorrow is our holiday party at school. Thursday we get out early and I may run after work. My husband is taking the the rest of the week off, and we may hit up a museum on Friday. Honestly, I’m tired and I just want to get the weekend over with. I’m ready to be done with Christmas, but I always feel that way right before it finally happens.

How are you doing? What’s happening around your parts?

I’m not quite sure where head’s at these days. I feel most days I go to sleep sure I’m going to wake up sick, with my ears aching and my throat twingy, but sickness never comes. I’m tired all the time. I have a headache I can’t get rid of. I just want to crawl into a hole.

This afternoon I’m meeting with friends for dinner,. and it’s all I can do not to cancel and stay home, curled up on the couch. If my kids weren’t at home requiring things of me, I’d probably do that.

My kids start their winter break this afternoon. My district doesn’t start until next Thursday afternoon. We haven’t had different winter breaks ever, not in the eight years my daughter has been in school. It sucks when Christmas falls on a weekend.

I remember once when it fell on a weekend we had a Wednesday to Wednesday break. IT WAS AWFUL. We lost one of the weekends so it felt extra short. Tons of kids were out on the Monday and Tuesday before and the Thursday and Friday after. Those of us that stayed felt like suckers.

So I’m glad we’re not doing that. There’s always a silver lining right?

And honestly. I appreciate having more time off after the holidays. I remember last year Christmas was on Saturday and we had the week before off and I didn’t like all that down time before Christmas. I kept thinking I should go get more presents, even though we definitely didn’t need them. But I don’t travel, so I understand why having the week (or at least some days) before is important.

My husband is taking multiple days off. And grandparents are helping. It’s only four days, and we’ll make it work. But it’s weird and next week is going to feel interminable. There won’t be any kids at school and a ton of teachers are out too. It won’t be fun.

I think I have all my presents at home or ordered. I think I’m pretty much ready to go. But whenever I think of this break I feel stressed. I don’t anticipate returning to work refreshed, but maybe with four days of my kids in school and me off, I will regain my footing.

There is so much going around right now though, it feels like if we all stay healthy (or healthy enough) it will be a miracle. I’m definitely wearing a mask at school next week. I’m not sure it will be enough.

So many gift cards! So much $$$$! But teachers need it, especially the teachers at my kids’ schools so it’s what we do every year.

So… for today’s post it’s…kittens! For real though these kittens are so nuts. They are just out of there fuzzy little heads.

Am I the only one who sometimes doesn’t know what she needs? Or isn’t sure what to prioritize when two goals are seemingly not in sync?

On Saturday, I woke up to wind and rain again. You may remember that last Saturday that was the case and I delighted in a day at home. This Saturday I was supposed to go to the dojo, but on Friday night I’d felt a little off (ears felt achy and hot, throat was twingy) and I was already wondering if I’d be able to go, so when I woke up feeling better, but saw the rain, I wasn’t sure what to do.

I agonized over the choice for a couple of hours. On the one hand I had LOVED staying home last Saturday, and found the idea of not leaving my house, after a week of relentless errands, very appealing. On the other hand I hadn’t gone to the dojo all week because I expected to go on Saturday. In fact I hadn’t gone since LAST Tuesday, because it was closed last Saturday (hence no dilemma last weekend when it rained). So it felt really important that I went this Saturday. But my week had been rough, and wind and rain were ugly, and I didn’t relish the thought of waiting for the bus in the storm. Also, when I haven’t been for a while, it’s so much easier to continue not going.

In the end I didn’t go. And I ended up being find with that decision, and eventually I reveled in staying warm and dry at home, and got a lot done. But I also think I would have been happy that I’d gone, if I had made it to martial arts.

I guess I’m just not sure how to manage those moments, because I really did agonize over the decision all morning, and I’d love to save myself that kind of mental anguish. I suppose I need to really know what my priorities are, and I did end up looking at it like that. In my little planner, my goal for December was to get through the holidays with my sanity in tact, and that week I definitely felt my sanity slipping away. I also plan to start preparing for my next belt test in the new year, and I know I’ll have to show up at the dojo a lot to do that. So I made the choice to stay home this past Saturday, instead of braving public transportation during a storm to go.

I don’t know. Maybe I did figure it out, in a way, and I’m just writing about it to process the experience so I’ll learn from it. Or maybe not. I do think that sometimes my goals are in conflict with each other, and I’m not sure how to reconcile that when there are hard choices to make. We read a lot about learning to say, “no” and a lot of those articles imply that most of the time we know when we should say no, we just say yes out of habit, or a sense of obligation, and recognizing that is all we have to do to fix the problem and start saying “No!” But I’ve always felt like it’s not as simple as all that. Like I’ve mentioned before, I never want to assist at the dojo in the moment, but I almost always am glad I did after the fact. I could tell myself that I’m prioritizing my own well-being by saying no to volunteer requests. But I also find that I enjoy assisting there, and also feel generally better when I’m there knowing that I do assist on a regular basis (so I don’t feel bad on the days I don’t respond to requests to assist).

I guess all that is to say, it’s more complicated than the articles make it out to be (shocking!), at least for me. And if you’re struggling with knowing how to prioritize your goals, so that making the hard choices is a little easier, you are not alone.

If you have any thoughts on this, or tips you’ve developed to manage it, I’d love to hear them!

Lately, I’ve noticed that by the end of the day, my brain is tired. Like, so, so tired. I used to work long hours into the night, prepping and planning, grading papers. Or doing PTA stuff! Or copy editing! But these days there is no way. Just making a new retake test for my 1A class felt like a horrible slog. My brain just doesn’t seem to have the stamina it used to. Is that just because I’m getting older? I’m only 42. Some women, many where I live, are having their first or second kids at 42. They are getting no sleep and continuing to work at their jobs. How do they do it, when I hardly feel like I can get through the week with my reasoning in tact?

My husband and I have a lot of friends who are just now having kids. We talk a lot about the benefits and drawbacks of having them earlier and later. (Have I written about this before?) It was pretty hard on us to have them at 30 and 33. My husband wasn’t really ready. We, as a couple, certainly weren’t ready. We felt like we’d barely enjoyed our lives together and we were already throwing kids into the mix. We also had so much less money. Paying for childcare was a real hardship back then.

But our parents helped us out a lot, and they could do that because they were younger. It’s clear that now, in their 70s, they wouldn’t be able to handle two young kids like they did back then (and my in-laws have confirmed as much after every visit with their now 3 and 5-year-old grandchildren). Of course all our friends who are having kids now are much more financially stable, so paying for the childcare we got for free from grandparents is much more feasible. We also wonder if it was easier to give up our no-kids lifestyle since we’d had less chance to enjoy it. Or if actually it’d be easier to give it up if you’d lived that way for a long time and felt ready for something new?

Obviously this is all a pointless thought exercise. Very few people really get to “choose” when they have kids. I suppose we could have, but I suspected we’d have trouble conceiving and so I pushed us to start early and when I found out at 33 I had the ovarian reserve of a 45 year old, my suspicions were confirmed and I felt incredibly grateful that we rushed into it. That my husband was willing to rush into it.

But the real point of this is that these days my brain is tired. And I can only imagine how tired it would be if I had a newborn or toddler and were properly sleep deprived. Now I’m just menopause and stress-induced sleep deprived, which are not the same. When I think back on all I took on back when my kids were little – copy-editing for the GGMG magazine, taking writing classes at Berkeley Extension, running the PTA at my kids old school – and what I feel capable of taking on now, it’s like I don’t even recognize the person I was. How did I have all that energy? How did my brain keep working so late into the night?

I honestly can barely finish this post, which I started in November and just reopened tonight. Sometimes it bums me out, how much less I can do now. But most of the time I’m just too tired to care.

Yesterday it was cold and rainy all day. Which I loved because it gave me permission to stay home and do nothing. When it was time to take my son to his spend the night at 4pm, I realized I was still in my pajamas.

My daughter went to her grandparents’ house to sleep over too, so my husband and I got a date night. We planned to go out, but with the weather we decided to order in. It was nice. Just what I needed.

I also cancelled on helping out at the dojo. I told them I had a sore throat, which was only partly untrue. I did have a bit of a sore throat, but I’ve had a sore throat for weeks now and nothing’s really come of it. I honestly didn’t feel bad about it. They had plenty of volunteers and I really needed to stay home. So I did.

Sunday the weather was beautiful and I went for a run. I also got some shit done. The weekend ended up being just what I needed: a day to stay home and hibernate, and a day to get some stuff done.

I’m definitely feeling grateful.

Let’s hope this week follows suit. 😉

Lately, I’ve noticed that by the end of the day, my brain is tired. Like, so, so tired. I used to work long hours into the night, prepping and planning, grading papers. Or doing PTA stuff! Or copy editing! But these days there is no way. Just making a new retake test for my 1A class felt like a horrible slog. My brain just doesn’t seem to have the stamina it used to. Is that just because I’m getting older? I’m only 42. Some women, many where I live, are having their first or second kids at 42. They are getting no sleep and continuing to work at their jobs. How do they do it, when I hardly feel like I can get through the week with my reasoning in tact?

My husband and I have a lot of friends who are just now having kids. We talk a lot about the benefits and drawbacks of having them earlier and later. (Have I written about this before?) It was pretty hard on us to have them at 30 and 33. My husband wasn’t really ready. We, as a couple, certainly weren’t ready. We felt like we’d barely enjoyed our lives together and we were already throwing kids into the mix. We also had so much less money. Paying for childcare was a real hardship back then.

But our parents helped us out a lot, and they could do that because they were younger. It’s clear that now, in their 70s, they wouldn’t be able to handle two young kids like they did back then (and my in-laws have confirmed as much after every visit with their now 3 and 5-year-old grandchildren). Of course all our friends who are having kids now are much more financially stable, so paying for the childcare we got for free from grandparents is much more feasible. We also wonder if it was easier to give up our no-kids lifestyle since we’d had less chance to enjoy it. Or if actually it’d be easier to give it up if you’d lived that way for a long time and felt ready for something new?

Obviously this is all a pointless thought exercise. Very few people really get to “choose” when they have kids. I suppose we could have, but I suspected we’d have trouble conceiving and so I pushed us to start early and when I found out at 33 I had the ovarian reserve of a 45 year old, my suspicions were confirmed and I felt incredibly grateful that we rushed into it. That my husband was willing to rush into it.

But the real point of this is that these days my brain is tired. And I can only imagine how tired it would be if I had a newborn or toddler and were properly sleep deprived. Now I’m just menopause and stress-induced sleep deprived, which are not the same. When I think back on all I took on back when my kids were little – copy-editing for the GGMG magazine, taking writing classes at Berkeley Extension, running the PTA at my kids old school – and what I feel capable of taking on now, it’s like I don’t even recognize the person I was. How did I have all that energy? How did my brain keep working so late into the night?

I honestly can barely finish this post, which I started in November and just reopened tonight. Sometimes it bums me out, how much less I can do now. But most of the time I’m just too tired to care.

Last night I googled “why am I so grumpy” last night and a lot of posts on irritability came back so I guess I’ve been really irritable lately. That does seem to be the right word.

I suspect part of it is hormonal. My skin is flaring and my breast’s have been (very!) sore. I actually had a little bit of a period a couple weeks ago, which only happens very irregularly (every 3-4 months) these days. So hormones are definitely part of it.

But I also feel really under appreciated and annoyed by people who I perceive to be taking me for granted. My husband and I got into a bit of a tiff on Thursday because it rained hard for most of the school day, but he sent our son in his regular tennis shoes. This annoyed me because I had to go to three Targets last winter to find a pair of rain boots in his size and I made sure this fall they still fit. Just like I made sure his raincoat still fit. Just like I always make sure they have enough of all the different kinds of clothes they need for every season. And just like I make sure their backpacks and other schools supplies are stocked before school starts.

I think one of the reasons our marriage has been so much better since the pandemic is because we recognize and appreciate what each other does more than before. But this is one area where I still feel like he doesn’t really understand the mental energy that goes into making sure everyone has everything they need. I spend a lot invisible time and labor on this and when my husband is like, I forgot to send him in rain boots, oh well! It makes me mad because a pair of his shoes just got ruined from getting wet (they started to smell horrible and I when I tried to wash them he said they stopped fitting right). If I hadn’t just bought him another pair on Black Friday I wold have been furious.

Honestly, we haven’t resolved that argument yet. We’re just not talking about it.

I read recently that couples are most satisfied with each other when they both do some of all the chores (instead of splitting them up by person). I have disagreed with that in the past – I loved that my husband was willing to do all the cooking while I took on other tasks – but I do recognize that I am probably most appreciate of when he does the chores we share, like the dishes and even cooking now (I do a lot more in the kitchen than I used to, though it’s still not much). He has never washed a load of laundry (when I’m out of town his mother comes and gets their laundry!) or cleaned a toilet since we’ve been together. So it does feel like he had no idea what managing those chores (knowing when to do them) and actually doing those chores implies.

And when he started helping me look for and register for camps in the summer, or when he made the kids’ their COVID and flu shot appointments last year (.and TOOK them to said appointments), I was absolutely floored and so, so appreciating. He did it again this year.

And there is more to it right now as well. I’m doing pretty much everything for the kittens (as far as purchasing what they need, which is mostly a lot of food that is available from only two, annoying to get to, pet stores. I feel like that is on me though because I was the one who wanted to get them in November instead of waiting for the winter break. After the new year I’ll be asking for more help on that.

And of course it’s also December, which means our Elf is bringing little advent calendar-esque presents to the kids every day. Which of course means *I* am making sure there are little presents for them every day. And somehow, even though I have a 12.5yo and a 9yo I am still getting no credit for that, because both my kids still seem to believe she is a real entity operating of her own accord.

All this to say I’m probably not defining and upholding my boundaries right now, because when I feel like this about things like these it usually means I’m not maintaining the boundaries to take care of myself.

I think part of the problem is I’ve been sick so much this fall, that my boundaries have changed and I haven’t registered that enough to identify new boundaries and enforce them. Also sometimes I’m just not sure what I need. Every other Friday I’m annoyed that I’ve signed up to assist at the dojo but then every time I’m glad I’ve done it. But maybe I can be glad I did something and still maybe shouldn’t have done it?

I definitely need to make some changes at school. That is where I’ve been feeling most irritable, and it’s spilling over into the rest of my life. I plan to start a new management plan on Monday, and I think that will help.

Wow, such a long post (that I wrote on my phone!) Time to get up and start some laundry.

Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post. It’s nice to be reminded that people do read this. And I totally understand not commenting much. I read plenty of blogs daily but only comment rarely (or never!). Commenting on my phone with my monicker, especially on Blogger, can be difficult, if not impossible. So I totally get it!

This weekend there are some fun things to look forward to. Today I’m assisting at the dojo, but then my husband will pick up our son and I’ll meet my daughter and her friends (and my friend) at the movie theater to see Wakanda Forever. On Saturday my son has a sleep over (his first away from home!) and my daughter will be at her grandparents’ house, so I’ll be meeting my husband for dinner after I volunteer at the dojo’s end-of-year party.

Sunday I hope to lounge around and get stuff done. Hopefully I’ll go for a run too.

What do you have planned for this weekend?