Not a Wasted Word

It’s late Friday night. There are five kids and two kittens around me. Well, the five kids are in two bedrooms, and right now, at 11:35pm, they are finally quiet. The two kittens are quiet too. We may all just make it to tomorrow morning.

Yesterday was a nice day. A very nice Thanksgiving. I ran in the morning. The weather was beautiful and running in the 65* sun was EXACTLY what I needed. I am SO GLAD I went for a run.

My second attempt at stuffing-from-scratch was better than the first. I’m glad I did a trial run because the tweaks made it better.

Dinner was really nice. My parents didn’t bicker. It was fun seeing old family friends. The kids did a really nice job. The whole evening was entirely pleasant, which I honestly wasn’t expecting. I was happily surprised.

Today we went to the SFMOMA to see Diego Rivera’s America. It was a an incredible exhibition and I’m glad I saw it before it leaves in January.

We also saw some other amazing art. I haven’t been to the SF MOMA in a really long time (maybe a decade?) and I’m so glad we went today. It’s a great museum and we should take advantage of it more.

After the museum it came together that each of my kids could have a friend spend the night. And so we planned for that. And then my daughter ended up with two friends spending the night, which is why there are five kids sleeping in my house tonight. Let’s just hope they all stay asleep.

And now it’s after midnight and I didn’t technically post on Friday, but Friday is in the title so we can count it.

Only two more day – a measly regular weekend amount of days – left of the break. I’m only on July for the calendar and I still haven’t graded any of those tests or reflections. Who knows, maybe I’ll get it all done in the next two days…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how lucky I am. I feel like I’ve enjoyed so much good fortune, and I don’t want to take it for granted.

I also realize that these may ever well be some of the best years of my life. My marriage is good. My husband is my partner and my friend. I enjoy being with him, and I enjoy parenting with him. He is helpful and supportive. We had so many hard years together, I absolutely do not take how happy we are right now for granted.

My kids are happy, and still want to be around me most of the time. They are old enough to be pretty self sufficient but not old enough to be dealing with the really big issues yet. They are happy and thriving at school, and have good friends that they enjoy being with.

Both sets of parents are doing well, mentally and physically. They are definitely starting to show their age, and it’s clear that they will only face more challenges as they age, and that’s if they avoid any major health issues.

My work is going relatively well. It’s stable and engaging. It provides pretty decent compensation at this point. In fact, for the first time in our adult lives we have some financial breathing room. We are no longer living from paycheck to paycheck, and most thing we really want are within our reach. (The only thing that isn’t really is home improvement, but at least most of those are wants, and not needs.)

We have friends and feel like we’re part of a, or really various, communities.

Things are pretty great now. We really have no where to go but down. It’s a strange place to be, recognizing that you’re living some of the best years of your life, and knowing something has to give eventually, but having no idea what it will be.

All that to say, I’m very thankful this Thanksgiving, for pretty much everything. I hope I’m appreciating these years in a way that will feel adequate later when things aren’t this good. I hope I won’t feel like I squandered it.

I forgot to post again last night. Boo. It’s been such a busy break. I can’t believe it’s almost over. And last night I remembered that I need to score tests and a reading reflection before Monday. I had totally forgotten.

I’ve been trying to figure out what is making this break feel so busy. It’s definitely the kittens. Getting the house ready for them is a never ending set of tasks. Keeping the house clutter free, with clean floors, is also incredibly time consuming.

Going through photos for the calendars is also taking forever. I’m only on April. There are so many photos of our cat. And our lizard. So, so many photos.

It’s been harder to look through all the photos of our cat than I expected. A lot harder. I wonder if I’m weird for how hard it feels. She was just a cat, but I’m struck by such sadness when I look at photos of her.

My daughter has matured so much this year. She looks noticeably younger in the photos from earlier this year. My son looks pretty much the same, but my daughter does not. 2022 was a transformative year for her.

Yesterday I took the kids to see Strange World, mostly to get them out of the house so my husband could work. It was a good movie, I liked it more than I expected to. But the weather was amazing and I was annoyed we were spending the day inside. I also still felt pretty shitty, cold wise (I wore a mask during the movie). I’ve been thankful to be getting this cold over with when I’m not at work, but also annoyed that I have to spend my break feeling like this. I guess there is no good time to feel like crap.

Today is also supposed to be beautiful so I’m going to run, even if I don’t feel that great. I don’t have to run fast, but I do need to get outside.

I’m also making stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner. As you probably know, I am not someone who spends much time in the kitchen. I know stuffing is almost a non-dish, but I wanted to make it from scratch and I didn’t know what I was doing, so I tried it out last night. It took longer than I expected and was only pretty good. I’ll make some changes today, but I think everyone who told me I should just make it from a box was probably right. Oh well. It my favorite part of today’s meal and I’m glad I know how to make it from scratch now.

I’m a little nervous for how tonight will go. It feels like event with my parents are a toss up these days. We shall see.

I hope everyone who is celebrating Thanksgiving has a day to be grateful for.

Today the heat was back on and the washing machine was installed by 10am! It was pretty amazing.

The washing machine is really nice. It can hold a much bigger load of clothes than the last one, which I love. I’ve done three loads of laundry in it so far, and it works great. I’m very pleased. I hope that continues to be the case.

My daughter spent much of today with friends, and my son and I hung out. We went to the mall and he picked out some Pokemon cards and we got his favorite pizza for lunch. It was nice to spend the one-on-one time with him.

Then I met up with some friends for a sunset walk on the beach and then a yummy dinner. I really needed that time with friends, but I also needed to stay home and rest a little. I’ll probably be paying for my choice tomorrow.

It was a nice day. Exhausting, but nice.

I stayed up tonight to start sorting through the photos for the calendar. I didn’t even get out of December of last year, which has a lot of photos because my sister came to visit. And since I made the calendar during Thanksgiving break of last year nothing from December 2021 made it on there. It’s going to take a REALLY long time to sort through everything. The only good news is that I already sorted through the photos from our two big trips. and I don’t include photos from St. Louis because I make a photo book of that trip, so maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m assuming.

The kittens continue to remind us that nothing is safe or sacred. I’m realizing we may not be able to have a Christmas tree this year, at least not where we’ll see it much. I’m really sad about it – I LOVE my Christmas tree – but I’m trying to accept it. I’m going to attempt it, probably just starting with the tree, and then adding lights if I think I can, and then maybe adding some old ornaments I’m not attached to. If I can get the tree up with lights, I’ll be pretty happy.

Here are some photos from the sunset walk with friends. Doesn’t get much prettier than this.

Today was an errand day, because tomorrow I’m stuck at home waiting for both the PG&E guy to look at our heater and the washing machine to be delivered and installed. By some miracle, both have the same 8-12 window. If we can leave the house by 1pm I’ll be pretty stoked.

I woke up with the beginnings of a cold. My son seems to have it too. We’ll see how we feel tomorrow. My daughter gets to go out with friends, but every one of my son’s friends are out of town or unavailable. If we both feel up to it we’re going to see Strange World (with masks on, if we test negative).

I’m so relieved the new washing machine is coming. I usually do 5-7 loads every weekend, but of course this weekend I did none because we don’t have a working washing machine right now. It’s stressing me out to have so much laundry that I can’t actually wash. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to.

Tomorrow we may let the cats into the kids’ room. It will be the final cat expansion. I’m a little nervous because they really do get into everything. Our little chaos agents.

Fall is a long slog to the holidays. We started in mid-August and this is our first break. We’ve had a few random days off, but nothing substantive. I’m very ready for a week away from work.

But of course my kids are home too, so it’s not going to be very restful or relaxing. And I was reminded of that today.

It was good to be reminded of it. Realistic expectations will make this week better, to be sure. I’m grateful for the reminder.

I also remembered to get started on the calendars, thank goodness. If I don’t get them almost done this week, I’ll be in trouble. I already backed up my phone today. Tomorrow I’ll start looking through the thousands (over 10,000!) photos I took this year.

I already saw a bunch of my cat. I miss her. It will be hard to see a bunch of pictures of her this week, but hopefully it will also help me grieve. And of course this crazy kittens will help. We let them into more of the house today and they love the new space. By the end of the week, they’ll be able to go wherever they want. They are chaos agents to be sure, and they keep things interesting.

Today my husband and I went to a tailgate in Berkeley before the Big Game (Cal vs. Stanford).

We met at this tailgate 16 years ago. If it weren’t for this group of people, meeting before football games season after season, I wouldn’t be living this life.

I was thinking before we left, that 26 year old me, the one who went with her friend to these tailgates because she didn’t have anything better to do, would be really happy to see where I am now. So happy and so, so relieved.

I wish I could tell her that it was going to be okay. Better than okay. But I can’t. But I can imagine how great it would be.

And that’s pretty cool, that I can take a nostalgia trip, but recognize that I’m happier now than I was then.

I wrote this last night and I swear I published it last night but I guess I didn’t. It’s fitting really.

I swear today was soooo loooong.

But I made it! We made it!

Tomorrow is kind of a nuts day, but hopefully in a good way. We shall see.

I know this doesn’t really count as a post but it’s what I got today.

Also, these cats are craziness.

… yesterday was the first day in November where I failed to post. I meant to come and say: today I just can’t so here are some pictures of kittens.

And honestly… I still just can’t so here are some pictures of kittens.

Today felt like I was hitting a wall over and over again. Finally I recognized that even though having kittens has been easier than we expected in many respects, it’s still really hard and stressful. And we knew it would be, but I think when so many things weren’t an issue (sleeping at night being the biggest one), we stopped recognizing that it’s still a lot of work and kind of stressful.

But today I published my Trimester 1 grades, which felt good. I also ran, and went to both my kids’ parent/teacher conferences.

And I found out we need a new washing machine, which means we need to order a new washing machine soon, so that I can do laundry.

I’m really tired. Things feel untenable right now, but hopefully the Thanksgiving break will help.