Uncategorized

Perimenopause punch!

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

After a couple months of quiet slumber, my perimenopause has awoken! Oh how I have NOT missed you perimenopause.

I have been having night sweats all week. I have to admit, waking up soaked in sweat is… an unpleasant experience. I am thankful I haven’t had to deal with it too much so far, and I hope this isn’t the start of it being more common.

I’m also getting my period, which feels especially unfair. Boo perimenopause! You suck!

It’s strange because I’m the youngest person in my mom friend group (of seven women) by far. I’m 41 and everyone else is at least ten years older than me except for one woman who is 47. And yet I’m the only one going through perimenopause already. One of the women just had a baby! In her early 50s!

I love that my OBGYN says starting perimenopause anytime after 40 is “normal.” Please. That is such bullshit. I think what she means is it doesn’t require medical intervention (like hormone replacement therapy), which I’m thankful for. But it certainly isn’t “normal” to be 41 and going through perimenopause. Most of my mom friends had their daughters at 41 or later (that is why they are 10 years older than me!) 41 is young to be going through this, and it’s alienating and strange and is a reminder of my reproductive systems overall shittiness.

I’m also breaking out. And I’m feeling especially aggrieved, which isn’t a good look on a straight, white, cis gender woman of immense economic privilege so I’m keeping it to myself. I know it’s my hormones taking me for a ride, throwing me a one two perimenopause punch, but it still sucks.

All this to say, I’m very happy that I’m taking tomorrow off! I finished my sub plans at school today, and now I’m finishing some stuff for Monday, which is a prep-heavy day that I kind of forgot to get ready for. By tonight I should be able to put my work aside for 72 blissful hours. I am so glad that I took this day off. My last day off was Thursday, September 2nd*! It is clearly time.

*I obviously get lots of breaks, it’s not like I’ve been teaching every weekday since mid-August. But I don’t think of breaks as “days off” so this feels special. Taking a day off is actually a giant PITA, but tomorrow a bunch of stars aligned and I’m so happy that they did!

Health & Well Being/Work/Teaching

It seems I need a break (And I’m taking one!)

Posted on by noemikjames / 7 Comments

On Sunday night I had a dream that I tested positive for Covid and I was SO HAPPY. The thought of taking a whole week off of work, with permission to rest, was intoxicating. When I woke up and realized it was a dream I was disappointed. I even took a rapid test when I woke up just to be sure and was disappointed again when it was negative.

On the way to work Monday morning I realized that I probably need a break.

So I decided to take one!

On Friday, I’m taking a mental health day. I almost never take a day off just because, but what I have planned this Friday is easily covered by a substitute. And for the first time since my first maternity leave almost 12 years ago, I have some sick days stored up. I usually have to approach sick days with a scarcity mindset – the ten days I get off every year are burned quickly covering my kids when they are sick – but I have been able to bank a lot of sick days since the pandemic started (there are very few reasons to call in when you’re teaching from home) so I don’t have to hoard what I have. The icing on the cake is that my recently retired friend can start subbing again (you can’t work in a classroom for six months after you retire) and she is available this Friday.

So right now, as I type this, I have a substitute ready to take my classes this Friday so I can stay home. My husband might even get to take the day so we can go see a movie! But even if that doesn’t happen, I will relish a three day weekend, and a little extra time away from work.

I am proud of myself for listening when something inside me told me I needed a break. Wanting to catch the sickness you’ve been trying desperately to avoid for two years just so you can get away from work for a week is a really telling mental state. The very least I can do for myself is to take one day off.

And that is what I’m going to do.

Do you take “mental health” days? How often? Are they hard to manage? Are they worth it?

Uncategorized

The rhythm of my (alternating) weeks

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

I’ve been trying out my alternating week schedule for about two months now. Instead of always going to the dojo, or running, or driving carpool on the same days, I have two different schedules that I alternate between. This allows me to take advantage of my early release Wednesdays (which I will be losing next year) to run some weeks, and allows me to take advantage of the one day a week when my son and I can train the same time the other weeks. It also allows me to trade off carpooling with one family that helps take our boys to the dojo and two other families that help take our daughters to boxing. So far I’m really liking it, even though it can be complicated and it definitely requires more advanced planning (not to mention coordinating with other people).

I never really recapped what I learned from my time tracking in early January. I was already pretty well aware of how I use my time, so I never added up the exact number of hours I spent, say, messing around on my phone (probably the thing I am least likely to gauge accurately), but I did think a lot each night about how I felt on the days when I had a lot to do after school, as compared to the days when I didn’t have to ferry anyone around or train at the dojo. What I realized was that I didn’t feel much better on the days that I had some time to sit around at home. In fact, I only really felt good about that kind of time when I had something else going on most other days of the week. I think I really only need one afternoon a week to decompress, as long as everything else feels relatively manageable (like I don’t feel totally behind at work or at home).

And this is a good thing because I generally only get one of those kinds of days a week. And I’m learning how to maximize my use of that time to decompress, so that all the driving and carpooling and martial arts training feels manageable (carpooling) or even pleasant (training).

When you’re alternating your weeks, you quickly realize that a month only has four of them. I have staff meetings on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays, and I’ve been scheduling my allergy shot on the 2nd Tuesday (so that a carpool dropout on Monday or Thursday doesn’t require I reschedule it), which means I only get one Tuesday a month with an open afternoon. I was switching driving my son to the dojo and doing the boxing carpool on Thursdays, but a new, longer high belt class started on Fridays, so now I only have to do the boxing carpool every other Thursday and I get the other two “off” and it’s nice to have those margins (especially when a hole opens in the boxing carpool). Fridays used to be my one day to get stuff done at work, but now I only get about half an hour before I to leave to pick up my son for the high belt class at the dojo. I also committed to assisting on the mat on Fridays until mid-May, when they have their red belt test. Fridays used to be a pretty chill day for me, but now they are not. I’m still getting used to that change.

I will say that when I have something most afternoons, and then one day I don’t have anything (say on a Monday when both kids are being ferried by OTHER people to their activities), it feels pretty amazing to have 1-1.5 hours to myself. Sometimes I’m not really sure what to do with that “found” time.

And things keep changing. I actually got a text an hour ago that one of the girls is stopping boxing at the end of the month, so who knows if we can keep that up in May. My daughter is interested in wrestling at her school, so maybe she can just transition to that instead. I certainly can’t take her to boxing twice a week all by myself.

Once my son takes his red belt test we’ll feel better taking more days off at the dojo. I think by then we will both need a break. And the last four weeks of school (mid-May to mid-June) always have lots of unique events like Open House and “promotion” activities at my school. So far my alternating schedule has had the flexibility to absorb random one-offs (like the dojo being randomly closed today), but these final months of the school year will definitely stress test it.

{My in-laws are also in Texas for two weeks in May, and then flying their daughter and her kids back to SF for two weeks, so they will be out of pocket for pretty much the entire month, which changes my schedule some too.}

A final thought – right now our weekends are a little packed for my liking. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at this point in my life, I want a few solid hours at home at least one afternoon during the weekend. I certainly don’t want to stay home all day, but having a morning AND afternoon (or evening) activity both days is too much for me. I’ve talked to my husband about it, and he is also pretty exhausted after the super packed weekends, so we’re trying to scale down a bit. I think that will help us get through the next two busy months.

How do you schedule your weeks? Does every week look pretty much the same? Different? Do your weeks change during different parts of the year?

Work/Teaching

A crazy end to a crazy week

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

There was a lot going on this week. I had a lot of carpool duties, my allergy shot, a professional development meeting at the same time as my kids’ dentist appointments (scheduling six months out never works!), and our regular martial arts training.

But Friday afternoon is when things got really crazy.

At the end of 5th period some of my students said they thought they heard shots. And then sirens. I had heard neither of these things, but when they looked across the hall and saw that all the classrooms in the upper elementary school were closed they started freaking out. I told them that the other school would not get info that we didn’t get, and those doors were probably closed for some other reason. But they were clearly upset, so I started closing my blinds and shutting and locking my doors to assuage their fears.

Then the secretary came on and told us not to change classes yet, to keep our 5th period in our classrooms.

At that point the students really started freaking out.

I shut the remaining blinds and covered the small window slits in the doors with paper. Mine is one of the only classrooms that faces the parking lot – almost every other classroom is behind gates on the main campus but our wing sticks out. This was a source of great stress for my students.

Finally our principal came on and said we were in shelter in place. “Shelter in place” means that students need to stay inside, but not even that doors need to be locked. “Shelter in place” is used for bad air quality and when a mountain lion is spotted. It is not the same as a “lock down,” which requires that doors be locked and barricaded and students huddle in spaces away from the windows.

Of course, since the students were sure they had heard shots, they were in a different head space. Some of them were very upset, others were fine. I put on a Nailed It! Mexico and let them take out their computers to play games – anything for them to manage their anxiety. As time wore on, the upset kids calmed down and eventually the goal became to pass the time. Some students, who had their phones, were announcing what they thought had happened, because their (insert-family-or-friend-here) was at (insert-area-near-us) right then and had the info.

Finally, right before our school day ends, they lifted the shelter in place order. We stayed with our 5th period students for the remainder of the school day, trying to keep them inside as helicopters circled the area.

Evidently there had been a shooting – or at least, shots were fired – right across the street from us, next to the high school. But no one was injured and they never found the person who had fired the shots.

The whole ordeal was stressful and exhausting – at least it happened on a Friday afternoon! I’m still processing my thoughts and feelings about it. I volunteered to assist on Fridays at the dojo so I was on the mat for 90 minutes that afternoon and by the time I got home I was totally done.

It feels weird to end this post here, but I’m going back to the dojo today to train, and I have to get ready. I’m sure I’ll be back here with some follow up thoughts. At this point all I got in me is a recap of what happened.

Life/Parenting & Family/Photography

Highlights of the weekend

Posted on by noemikjames / 2 Comments

I’ve been really tired this week, and after what felt like weeks of not adjusting to the Daylight Savings Tine, I want to honor my bodies desire to sleep at 10:30 or 11pm, so I’ve been doing that.

But I also wanted to post some highlights from the weekend, which was full and fun.

I made it on a run Saturday morning and it felt great. I’m so glad I got out.

We got some warm weather last week and it feels like every flower is in bloom right now. I love California Poppies and they are everywhere.

I took my son and his friend to see Sonic 2. I didn’t love that my first trip back in a theater was to see that movie, but I loved how happy it made my son. We went to the nice theater, with fewer seats, where they serve you food and drinks during the showing. There weren’t many people, which helped me feel more comfortable. I hope to see something else in the theater soon! It was more fun to be back than I expected.

After we walked to a playground, where my son talked some smack about my tire swing pushing skills, to which I had to respond. His friend was (obviously) very impressed. Nobody pushes a tire swing better than me.

Saturday night we saw a Lucha Libre show at nearby high school. We went once before the pandemic, and the kids loved it, but they went really crazy for it this time. They were super into it, and it was really fun.

It was over pretty late, but the kids made it to the end. It was our first big, crowded event, and there were a fair amount of people without masks, but we wore our kn95s the whole time. I guess we’ll see if we caught anything there.

Sunday my husband took our son and his friend to a Cal baseball game and I took our daughter to her first swim lesson in two years. She was nervous but ended up loving it. I’m so happy, because she loved swimming before the pandemic and I was worried that love would be lost in the two years away from the lane lines. I hope they are still doing their pre-swim team program, which is what she was attempting to qualify for in March of 2020 when everything stopped.

My daughter and I also worked in the backyard, felling the high grasses that have flourished during the (not very wet) winter.

Before the weed whacker.
After the weed whacker.

It was really windy, which made the task a lot harder, but we persevered.

The news cycle is so grim right now, and I feel bad for putting up a bunch of photos of my immense privilege weekend, but I’m not sure what else to do in this space. I know I appreciate reading other people’s blogs right now, so I guess I’ll keep writing this one, even though it doesn’t solve any problems (or even mentions them most of the time).

I hope you’re all hanging in there.

Health & Well Being/Photography

I’m going to miss this

Posted on by noemikjames / 3 Comments

Driving to the coast to run really did the trick. It was cooler there and the views were beautiful. Taking the time to drive somewhere new and different really broke up the week in a positive way.

Next year we’ll have meetings every Wednesday, which is our early release day, and runs like this will become impossible. I’m so bummed out to lose these kinds of opportunities. I’ll definitely be taking advantage of the Wednesdays without meetings this spring.

It can be hard not to take it personally when people take away one of the few things you love about your job, you know? We have so little flexibility as teachers, but twice a week we got an extra two hours to do with as we pleased. I work SO MANY hours that are not part of our contract – every Friday I stay on campus until 5pm getting work done, so I don’t feel bad leaving early a couple times a month to get in a run. But not next year. I can’t believe they are taking it away.

I’m really going to miss this.

Health & Well Being/Perimenopause/Work/Teaching

Sad Sack

Posted on by noemikjames / 2 Comments

I’m in crap mood. This week has not been what I had hoped it would be.

I’m tired and I still don’t feel great. I’m having a hard time getting to sleep at night and I’m tired.

My husband came home sick and is not only not helping much, but it also creating more messes that he is not cleaning up. At least his PCR test came back negative!

My son probably won’t get to test for his red belt this Saturday, which means he has to wait until mid-May. We’ve been practicing SO MUCH and the idea of keeping it up to be ready in several weeks (or starting over again in a few weeks) it totally defeating.

My allergies are awful and my eyes itch like crazy.

It’s supposed to be 85* where I work today and my classroom doesn’t have air conditioning.

My school’s calendar doesn’t match my kids’ schools’ calendars much at all next year; even our Christmas breaks are different! We are changing up our staff meeting schedule and we’ll have an hour more of meetings a month, which is such an incredible bummer because we already waste so many hours in so many unnecessary meetings. I hate pretty much everything about our new contract. It is such a disappointment.

The news is nothing but awful and more awful every day.

But the biggest thing is I just had my period and my mood sucks. I am a sad sack. I even dusted off my “Sad Sack” mix last night so I could feel shitty to the dulcet chords of Tori Amos’s 10,000 Oceans.

I am in full pity party mode. And I know it’s hormonal because the shift was so swift. I felt fine on Sunday night and by Tuesday morning I was deep in a hole I can’t see my way out of. It’s only gotten worse.

I’m driving to the coast to run today (I’m hoping it will be slightly cooler over there) and hopefully I”ll feel better after that. If not I guess I just have to push through until my hormones stabilize again. (And yes, I know some people have really positive experiences on some kind of birth control pill or hormone replacement therapy during perimenopause but I have had very bad experiences on pretty much every kind of BCP so I’m not super interested in trying them again. They make me feel like a crazy person, which makes me very uninterested in any kind of hormonal replacement therapy at this point. Maybe if things become consistently awful I will look into them.)

Sorry to be a giant bummer, but it’s where my head is at right now. I’m sure my next post will be more positive,.

What do you do when you feel super down and you can’t seem to pull yourself out of it?

Life/Marriage/Parenting & Family/Work/Teaching

Ping Pong Thoughts on a Sunday (to be posted on a Monday)

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

{Frequently I will write a post in the evening, but since I know it will post the next morning, I change the “todays/yesterdays/tomorrows” to match the day it posts, not the day I’m writing it. Sometimes I mess up and a couple don’t get changed and I imagine that causes some confusion. Apologies. I’m mentioning it today because I’m writing this early Sunday evening, but I’m going to schedule it to post tomorrow, and I’m NOT going to change the temporal markers, so just be warned.}

Well, it’s Sunday and we got through our Spring Break. There are no more breaks before summer. We’re winding the bend to the final stretch of the school year.

And what a long, grueling stretch it is.

The thing I hate the most about the end of the school year is how it never feels like enough time to cover the curriculum, so you’re always lamenting how few weeks you have. But the actual teaching itself is hard and tiring and you just want to get it over with. It’s a shitty place to be, where you don’t have enough time in theory, but in practice you have way, WAY too much time.

I guess a lot of life is like that. The end of the school year is like that on steroids.

And of course, we have to see how “BA.2 meets relaxed masking in schools” goes over the next ten weeks. That is sure to through a wrench or two into everyone’s plans.

My husband has been gone for five days and I miss him. The kids miss him even more. My kids and I have spent A LOT of time together, and I’m actually looking forward to resuming our schedules tomorrow. I have an interesting week planned in the classroom, where each period will invent a story and then film a skit of the story. We did this for the first time in March, and I think I (and the students!) learned enough from that experience to make this one go a lot smoother. It’s definitely fun to realize that I’m not really sure what we will have created at the end of the day. So much more engaging than repeating a grammar lesson three or four times.

{I’m trying to take this little spark of “not loathing the idea of returning to work tomorrow” and just letting it burn, without dousing it in gasoline or smothering it out of existence. It’s nice to feel some positive emotions associated with a return to work, and it’s definitely nice to not feel super gloomy about it, but it’s surprisingly hard to just be there for those feelings without trying to make it into something else. I’m also really grateful my throat doesn’t hurt and I’m pretty sure I can make it through tomorrow, which will require a lot of talking through mask.}

Today my daughter’s elementary school friends got together at a park to enjoy some pizza. The girls were trying to make something happen and I stepped in to help, so I did the final organizing, and got the pizza and brought some sodas. They had a really good time, despite some awkward moments between friends who are navigating relationships that are changing because of different middle schools, and different journeys through adolescence. I will admit, it can be hard to watch. But I’m glad it worked out for them to all get together today, and I’m glad I was able to facilitate their efforts.

My in-laws were kind enough to take my son for a couple hours during the meet up, when I couldn’t find a friend of his who was able to come. It was so nice to be able to chat with my friend instead of managing my son – I REALLY appreciated it. My in-laws are always so willing to help us out when we need (or just want, as the case was today) their support. I am VERY lucky to have them in my life. I just want to acknowledge that, because we absolutely could not afford the amount of child care that our kids’ grandparents provide for us. It is one of the reasons we have stayed in this incredibly expensive area, despite how little we make; here BOTH sets of grandparents are willing and able to help us! It’s definitely important to me that I say that out loud every once in a while. I should honestly say it more often.

My sister’s dog has been very sick with parvo, the virus that puppies need to be inoculated against before they can be walked on the street. It’s evidently a deadly virus to young puppies who have not received their vaccination. It’s rare for adult dogs who have been vaccinated to get sick with it, but evidently quite a few adult dogs in London have come down with it recently, which suggests there is a vaccine resist strain going around. The first few days we weren’t sure if she was going to make it, but now she’s doing a lot better. She’s been at the vet since Thursday, getting IV fluids and antibiotics to ward off sepsis (evidently dogs don’t usually die of parvo, but of some secondary infection caused by the virus attacking immune system). Today she ate most of her food and was able to keep it down. They think she’ll be able to go home on Wednesday. My poor sister has been sick with worry. I’m so glad her beloved pooch will be home soon. The whole thing has been very stressful.

My husband called from the airport and I talked to him for while, which means I got less written than I intended. But that’s okay! I’m trying to be happy with what I can manage these days, instead of focusing on what I don’t manage (like the giant purge I was ramping up for – I did get rid of a lot of clothes from all of our closets, but I didn’t do much more than that).

Let’s get this final stretch of the school year started! The only way out is through!

Health & Well Being/Parenting & Family

Thankful for the spring break margins

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

My son and I ended up getting what my daughter has. I am very thankful that we’re on spring break, so we had to space to fall like dominoes into this cold’s firey sore throat.

We’re still at my parents’ house. They insisted we come. If they don’t get this it will be a miracle (in my opinion), but by the time that happens we’ll be back home. I’ve asked multiple times if they’d like us to just go back home now but they say no.

I’m very glad we got PCR tests earlier in the week. My son’s and my tests came back on Wednesday evening (about 36 hours after we took them), but my daughter’s test did not come back for almost 72 hours. We were already at my parents’ house by then (again, they insisted we not wait for the results), and I went through countless rapid antigen tests trying to assure myself it was okay. I know my parents continue to put themselves in situations as risky as we do (they both sub, and they both take their masks off frequently in the classroom), so I figured if they insisted I would oblige them. Still, I was VERY RELIEVED to receive my daughter’s negative result as I lay next to my son who tossed and turned, crying about how much his throat hurt.

We’re obviously not doing much today. And we’re not attempting Great America tomorrow. I think I’ll pack us up, and take them to a park (wish masks on) in the morning before we head home. I’m honestly ready to be back in our own space, but the kids want to stay and my mom has been amazing – setting up everything they needed to dye eggs, and roll out and then decorate Easter cookies. It’s nice to have other people cooking for us too. Still, it’s not awesome to feel sick in someone else’s space, even if it is someone as close as parents/grandparents.

My husband managed to get out of town without bringing this virus with him, and for that I’m very grateful. I’m also grateful we have a couple more days to mend before returning to school on Monday. This is only our second “post-“pandemic virus and it’s clear our bodies are out of practice fighting off, well, really anything. (I’m still shocked that we all managed to avoid whatever horrible bug my husband got during the winter break – that was just awful).

My kids are reading right now, so I think I’ll follow suit. I’m about a third of the way through Crying in H Mart and I’d like to keep reading it.