Not a Wasted Word

The kids and I read about this on our New-o-matic app (a great place for kids to read at-their-level (there are three levels) articles about what’s going on in the world. With the push in common core toward non-fiction text (an important push, in my opinion), News-o-matic is a nice way get your kids accustomed to reading news articles. There is also a “read” to me function (great for my son!), AND most articles are available in other languages. Right now we’re reading one a day in Spanish and discussing it to start our “Hora de español.”

Anyway, back to what we read about on News-o-matic. Evidently Mo Willems is doing a Daily Doodle on the Kennedy Center site! I HEART Mo Willems so much. I love all the Piggie and Gerald books (most are also in SPANISH!) and all the Pidgeon books too. I’ve seen him do kids shows live a few times for SF Sketchfest, which just cemented my love for him. We’ve only watched one of these but the kids loved it (even my 9yo daughter). I definitely appreciate a fun, creative, break during the day. And if you can’t catch the live stream they post them later.

Yesterday I acknowledged all the things I’m grateful for during this difficult time. Now I’m going to mention the challenges.

And there are a lot of challenges.

Teaching distance learning is hard. Supervising my kids’ distance learning is hard. Shelter in place is hard. Social distancing is hard. Being isolated from the people I like and love is hard. Negotiating with my husband is hard. Keeping the house inhabitable is hard. Managing the anxiety is hard. Accepting the uncertainty is hard. Coming to terms with the fact that we’ll likely not go back this school year is… devastating.

I wanted to write more about it, but it’s midnight and I just can’t. All week I’ve been with my kids most of the day and then working until the early hours of the morning and I can’t keep it up. Something has got to give. I’m going to reassess this weekend. If we were just doing this for one more week I could get through, but if it’s for 2.5 more months I need a whole different game plan.

I hope you’re all making it work somehow. These are hard times.

This situation is horrible, but there are quite a few things I am very thankful for as we begin our likely VERY LONG stretch of quarantine and social distancing (Governor Newsom said yesterday that he thinks schools will be closed through the end of the school year. I absolutely cannot wrap my head around that possibility, but I appreciate him planting the seed so that I don’t totally lose my mind when the announcement does come).

So what am I thankful for when it’s only Day 3 of Distance Learning (both as an educator and a parent)?

Well, for one thing, I’m SO F***ING THANKFUL that we got rid of our tenant before all this hit. Our original agreement required he vacate by March 15. That date just passed. Who knows if he would have been able to leave if he were still here in early March. I was so surprised that he left in mid-January and now I’m even more thankful that he is gone.

I’m glad he’s gone because he was a hoarder who didn’t maintain adequate levels of cleanliness during the best of the times. If he had been quarantined in our unit it would have gotten very bad. Also our electricity and heating bills would have been through the rough (because it was impossible to separate those bills out by unit, we just included those costs in the rent. So stupid.) And if the bed bugs had returned? I shudder to think…

I’m also glad because now that he’s gone, we have that space for ourselves. My mom and I painted it during the February break and we’ve set up a little table and chair down there for the parent who is “working” to utilize. We’re also going to put our bed down there tonight. For at least a month one of us needs to sleep down there, with the bed in the middle of the room in interceptors so we can watch for possible bed bug activity. I’ve steam cleaned the floors and baseboards and blown Diatomaceous Earth into most of the cracks (I want to say all the cracks, but man are there a lot of cracks). I feel hopeful that, without all his furniture and belongings, the bed bugs are gone. But I certainly don’t expect that and we’re going to be very careful moving forward. (more on this in a later post).

We also have the refrigerator and I can’t tell you how awesome it is to have an entire extra refrigerator right now. Plus all the storage space in that kitchen. Oh my god the cabinet space. SO. MUCH. CABINET. SPACE.

And another bathroom. A big bathroom! It’s only 400 square down there feet but it feels like a cavern of treasures.

And of course, as we move pieces of our bedroom downstairs (we will ONLY be moving the bed for at least a month), our old room will provide more space for the family. Before that didn’t feel so important, but now that we’re confined to our house it feels like the most precious gift.

So yes, our tenant being gone is something I thank my lucky stars for each and every day (more like every hour).

We’re also lucky that we had no travel plans for spring break. We didn’t even buy our tickets for St. Louis yet and those are our only summer travel plans. We expect that our week at Camp Mather will be cancelled, and the kids will be devastated by that, but it could be so much worse. (I personally, will not be that sad to miss out on Camp Mather, but I feel for my family.)I know so many people who had amazing trips cancelled because of this. My poor friend (a single mom) hasn’t been on a vacation in four years and was supposed to take her kids to Hawaii in a week. She cried for a whole day when she finally cancelled the trip. My sister was supposed to come home from London for the first time in 1.5 years and her trip was cancelled. My mom is devastated. I am also really sad, but there is so much more stressing me out right now that I haven’t had time to be upset by it. So many people missed out on much anticipated travel plans. I know that is very disappointing.

Usually at this time of year we’re doing our final push for the Spring Carnival, which usually takes place in the first week of April. Luckily for me I was so burned out that I refused to attempt any of our regular spring events, so nothing is cancelled, no hard work has been for nothing, and no money was spent on an event that can’t happen. I am so, so, SO GLAD we did not try to put on the carnival this year. Cancelling that would have been a disaster.

I am also very fortunate that I attended that professional development about utilizing EdTech this summer. Almost every tool I’m using to provide distance learning to my students I learned about this summer. I would be way more stressed out about this, as a teacher, than I am now because of that class. It’s a very happy coincidence that I learned so much more about using tech tools to teach during the one year that I HAVE to use tech tools to teach.

And of course, the biggest thing I’m thankful for is that, for the time being, my job, and my husband’s job, are safe. I feel very confident that my job will be there for me when we eventually resume classes. My husband does not feel very confident about his job in the long term (he worries that six or twelve months from now, when the recession hits, and the city is aware of just how hard its budget was hit, he will be let go). I feel more confident that they will keep him, because he is incredibly well respected and I think they would find a position for him even if his current position disappeared, but he doubts that. He believes this is an economic apocalypse and that they won’t be able to keep him even if they want to.

So yes, his job is not guaranteed, but my job is still very secure. Even if my position disappears (I do teach a middle school elective and those are not generally as secure), they have to offer me another position and I keep my Multiple Subject Credential renewed in case of that possibly eventuality (it also gives me more flexibility in my current position). I have been in my district a LONG time and I have tenure and seniority so I feel pretty good.

I know that so many people who will be financially devastated by all this. And I know that the economy is going to take a long time to recover. I think my parents’ retirement is okay and my in-laws is similarly secure (there is a pensioner in both sets), so we’re very lucky this isn’t devastating our parents financially either. So many will be hit so hard.

So yes everything is horrible, and the day to day feels downright torturous (an ADHD mom managing the distance learning of her ADHD daughter, and her emotionally volatile son is NOT pretty, let me tell you), but every hour I am reminded of how lucky we have it right now. And I thought I’d put that out there, in case it brightened someone else’s day.

As of 12:01am this morning, the Bay Area is officially instructed to “shelter in place.” We are only allowed to leave are home to buy food or medicine, or to care for others. I guess if we’re caught not doing this, there could be legal consequences.

I am going to work tomorrow to grab some materials I need to provide distance learning to my students. Evidently schools are considered critical service providers and teachers are critical personnel (phrasing?) so I’m supposed to say that if I get pulled over on my way there. (?!) So I don’t get arrested?! This is absolute insanity.

Today was the first day I was expected to provide distance learning for my students while guiding my own children through theirs. It… did not go well. I do think it will get better as we have fewer zoom meetings as a staff, and I don’t have to write so many “this is how distance learning in my classes is going to go” letters to students and their families.

It’s a lot. It’s so, so much.

I suppose with shelter in place we’re not supposed to go outside for any reason, but I will be taking my children out at least once a day. We’ll hit up big open spaces where we won’t cross paths with people. Truly, if we get arrested, so be it. I just can’t stay locked in my house without seeing friends or extended family for three weeks and keep my sanity.

{My husband, who works for the city, just assured me that recreation is an essential activity and that we are allowed to spend time outside as long as we practice social distancing. Yay!}

I feel like I should have more to say, but right now I have to write plans for my students for tomorrow. It’s going to be a really long three weeks, after which we may learn that we’re not going back for the rest of the school year.

I suppose we’ll see. Everything now is uncertainty.

When I got the comment asking how the COVID-19 outbreak was affecting life in these parts, there wasn’t much to say. It was Thursday morning and the only changes to my day-to-day life were increased hand washing, our dojo being closed, and an extremely light commute. By Thursday afternoon there were rumblings that things might change in the next day or so, and by Friday morning SFUSD, where my kids go to school, officially announced it was moving to distance learning for the two weeks before spring break. My own district followed suit on Friday, but we’d been told to be ready to send home materials the day before.

So Thursday night I taped the spines of 30 new graphic novels so my 7th graders could read and work with them at home for the next two weeks, and decided what to plan for my 8th graders. I knew I had time to figure out my lower level elective classes later. I also started thinking about how I would structure my days with my own kids at home, while I was supposed to be providing distance learning to my students.

This morning I went to Costco and experienced first hand the insanity that is the world right now. It was crazy there, but there was also plenty of everything (Costco is implementing a one-per-membership on toilet paper, paper towels, and water). I found everything I needed, and while it was hard to maneuver in the over-crowded line, I got out of there relatively unscathed.

And now I guess we wait, at home. My son has a stuffy nose and slight cough (both appeared last night before bed) and my daughter suddenly has a sore throat, so we’ll definitely be staying home exclusively for at least a week.

I will say, since schools have closed I feel very differently about “social distancing.” Before it felt like things were pretty much business as usual, since I was going to work where I had contact with hundreds of kids throughout the day. Canceling face-to-face instruction is a significant step, and now I feel very differently about being out in public. Mostly we’ll avoid it unless absolutely necessary. We definitely won’t be seeing either pair of grandparents any time soon.

My husband works for the city supporting night life industries and he’s spent the last two weeks fielding calls from the owners of music venues and other entertainment industries that are having to lay off their workers and are worried about losing their spaces, or their businesses entirely. We’re going to be seeing the repercussions of this in the economy for months, and years, to come.

Thank you for listening to me wax philosophical about what I want and need. I’m sorry if those posts are super obnoxious. I probably read more about that specific topic than most people (::cough:: minimalism blogs ::cough::, so I’m always asking those questions, and I’m frequently struck by how few answers I can find. I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve read that follow the same basic structure of: (1) Had too much clutter (stuff and schedule) (2) cleared clutter (3) determined what mattered most to me (4) made all future decisions based on this newfound clarity about what I actually value.

My story has not been so linear or tidy (ha!). I’ve been pursuing minimalism in some form (if even just the mindset) for years and I’m still stuck somewhere between 1 and 2. I never seem to determine what really matters and I certainly can’t use that clarity to make better decisions moving forward.

Maybe my ADHD brain can’t focus long enough to figure any of this out.

I guess there is a reason that I’m not, nor will I ever be, selling my brand. My brand is clearly “fumbling through life,” and I suppose that is most people’s brands, which is why we all flock to the Instagram accounts and blogs of those who have it more together.

I tell myself it’s still valuable to ask, even if I’m never quite sure of the answers. Who knows, maybe if I keep asking, I stumble across them one day, seemingly by mistake!

Do you ask questions you can’t answer? Why do you keep asking them?

Space is something everyone in San Francisco is looking for more of. It costs so much here that we don’t generally have much of it to live in (let alone for storing our stuff). You might be surprised what a person can do with a room here.

I read a post recently about how a real estate agent advised home buyers to choose a house in which they’d use every room every day. I laughed so hard when I read that, that I choked on a gulp of water. Space is at such a premium here that there isn’t a square foot I haven’t agonized over. We sleep in what is supposed to be our living room, and eat in a water damaged room behind our kitchen so that our proper “dining room” can be the living room. We use every single square inch of space in our house every day. The idea that an entire room might not be taken advantage of on a daily basis is kind of baffling.

Then I thought about moving downstairs and making it our “master suite.” If the kitchen downstairs didn’t have the stairs we going to build into it, we wouldn’t use that room. It will basically be a stairway when we’re living in the entire house (but we want to keep some kitchen functionality so that it could once again serve as a separate unit if our kids, or parents, want to live down there some day). And will we really use the all of that “master suite” every day? Is sleeping in a room every night enough to say we “use it”?

My son had his first friend over to spend the night this weekend and at 6:30am on Sunday (so really, 5:30am as far as my body was concerned) he and his friend tiptoed loudly into the living room to turn on the Switch. At that point the idea of sleeping downstairs was amazing, but those mornings are random and rare. Does that experience mean we need it?

I’ve been trying to think a lot about what I love about my house and what I don’t (the parts I have control over, not the over all quality or aesthetic of the actual house). When we move the rooms around I want the layout to be well thought out and purposeful. I spend a lot of time considering different options, and not just because it’s an easy escape from the day to day – I want to be aware of how much power I really have in crafting a space I love, and to exercise that control whenever possible.

That purposeful eye has been trained on my days as well. What in my schedule serves me? What could, or should, be cast aside? This weekend we got an email explaining that our dojo is closing for two weeks in accordance with the city’s recommendation that all non-essential gatherings of more than 50 people be cancelled. Since there is even more person-to-person contact at the dojo than at most “gatherings,” they really felt they should comply and so now we have two weeks without martial arts practice. I have to admit, my first reaction was relief. That is 4-6 classes (between me and my son) I won’t have to maneuver into my schedule this week or next week. I was mostly glad to get a break.

Those moments make me think a lot about what I really value in my life. The thing is, martial arts brings a level of meaning that I don’t have in a lot of other areas of my life. I am learning so much and it feels great to stretch my brain and body to the brink a couple of times a week. It’s also stressful to arrange pick up and childcare on those days – to negotiate the time away from family. I really do feel that my martial arts practice enriches my life and increases my overall well being, so why am I relieved when it’s non-voluntarily taken away from me?

I wonder about these things a lot. I read enough about minimalism that I’m constantly nudged to look at my life more purposefully, but I still struggle for clarity when I think about what is worth my energy and commitment and what I should jettison (both with things and commitments). I’m thinking about it at work a lot too. What do I really want to accomplish in my classroom? What do I want my students walking away with every day? Here again the end goal can feel like it conflicts with the day to day. I want them to succeed in Spanish II as freshman (if that is their choice) so they need to know how complete rote grammar activities accurately, but I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that kind of work in my classroom (and I certainly don’t want to score it). How do I meet these seemingly conflicting goals?

How do I train at the dojo in a way that feels satisfying, without feeling like my evenings are crammed too full with commitments?

How do I organize my house so that my family has adequate space to gather, and to decompress?

A friend from the east coast was recently in town and we spend the evening together. She is originally from the area and her family still lives here, so I sometimes ask her if she thinks she’ll ever be back. She used to be sure that some day she would be, but this time when I asked she said she didn’t think so. She likes how far her money stretches where she is. She doesn’t think she’ll ever move back to the Bay Area or the big city where she spent her mid-20s – she just doesn’t value the area enough for her money to stretch so thin. My friend earns 135% of what I do, and her husband surely earns at least as much more than my husband does. They live in a house that is three times bigger than ours and costs them half as much. When I think about how much more money she must have than me, just sitting in her back account, or being siphoned into 529s for her kids, I wonder why we stay here, where our mortgage devours such a massive percentage of our monthly take home pay. I can list off the reasons we live here with ease, because I repeat them to myself almost every day, but I’m not sure if any of it means anything. I’m also not sure that having all that money to put aside means anything either. That is my point – I don’t know.

I wonder sometimes if I ever will know, at least for me. I recognize that I spent my 20s and 30s sprinting through life with little thought to the choices I made and how they affected my overall well being, so I suppose asking the questions is a good place to start. Maybe some day I’ll have the answers.

Sorry I was away this week. (And last week?) I couldn’t seem to pull out of a spiral of distraction and was really struggling just to get through the days. By the time evening rolled around I just wanted to curl up and read my book or play Blockscapes.

Part of why the week was busy was because I was getting ready to go to Seattle! Without my kids! And with my husband! My flight leaves in an hour!

I can’t remember the last time my husband and I got away like this. It’s been at least five years. Maybe longer. We travel with the kids, and sometime alone to see friends (he also has conferences, which is what this is – I’m tagging along for the first time because flying to Seattle is so cheap), but we haven’t spent a weekend together in ages. And we haven’t stayed at a hotel alone in even longer (maybe a decade?!)

I am so excited to get away. And equally excited to spend time with my husband. We’re on separate flights (I didn’t get mine in time) and he has some conference obligations here and there, but we’ll get to spend lots of time together. And honestly I’m very excited to have some alone time as well.

I hope to use some of my alone time to write, but I can’t make any promises. I hope you all have a great weekend!

When we bought our house I wanted very much to incorporate the lower unit into the bigger whole. I wanted a real bedroom and a second bathroom. I wanted a living room and a dining room, and a wall between where I slept and where the family hung out. When I think of how different mornings would have been with a baby and toddler with that downstairs space it makes me kind of crazy (they would have been very much improved).

But now, 7.5 years later, I’m not sure sure we need those extra square feet. Yes I still want a real bedroom with four walls, and yes I still very much want a second bathroom (even a half bath would be so great), but I don’t want that space as much as I used to. I wonder if the space we have is enough.

It’s hard to get a grasp on what “enough” looks like in America, where our perception of it has been distorted by the “bigger is better” mentality that has dominated our cultural narrative since, well, the founding of our country.

I find what enough feels like for me changes with the company I keep. Most of my friends are in a similar economic situation to me, but one bought her house with her MIL’s help (her MIL lives in a unit below) and it’s much bigger and nicer than mine. I find that when I leave her place, I am much more inclined to believe that we need the “master suite” our downstairs unit will provide. I was recently at an old’s friend’s house which is probably twice the size of mine, and has been totally renovated in a very chic, modern style, and I went home hating pretty much everything about the house I live in.

But I read enough minimalist blogs and articles to recognize that I don’t need the space and stuff that most messages would lead me to believe. I also know that I’ll never be content if I let what others have affect my appreciation for my own life. The sheer amount of space, and stuff stored in that space, that our house already provides for four people (two of whom are children) is totally insane. There is no way four people need what we already have, and we’re going to borrow a ton of money to utilize more?

But otherwise that space will just sit there. Which certainly informs our decision. We would rather rent it, but we’ve been burned so badly that we’ll never feel comfortable doing so again. Does that make it okay to take more than we need?

This idea of enough has been permeated a lot of different lines of thinking. How many nights a week of down time are enough? How many hours at the dojo are enough? How many months of swimming lessons are enough? How many field trips chaperoned are enough? How much money raised for the PTA is enough? Enough means something different to everyone, but it feels like right now I have no idea how to answer the question for myself.

I’m trying to be more aware of these questions, so that even if I can’t answer them, I’ll get closer to a resolution. I may never know how much of something is enough, but maybe I can narrow the field so that the different possibilities feel manageable.

How do you define and determine enough?

So I’m on week two of a total news fast. I’m not looking at anything, not even reading headlines. I have no idea what is going on in the world. And since I’m not on social media, I don’t even know about the cultural touchstones that bring people together. This past weekend my husband I watched Parasite (SOOOO GOOD! DEFINITELY SEE IT!) and I mentioned that it was a big deal that it had been nominated for Best Picture and that if it won it would be first non-English movie to win Best Picture and he informed me that the Oscars were actually last weekend and that it had won. I had no idea that I even missed it, or who had won anything! (So happy Parasite won – that is awesome.)

And I have to say, after I grappled with the fact that I’m so isolated at my job that I don’t even happen to participate in conversations about the Academy Awards in the week after they happen, I realized I don’t really care that I’m missing even the fun stuff, and I am even more intent on staying away from the news, at least for a while longer.

I don’t know what it is about me that I can’t handle social media, or I guess any media, while others thrive participating in it, but I guess it’s who I am, and I believe if I accept and honor who I am, I will be happier for it.

So I’m not planning on returning to the news anytime soon. Right now I’m content being ignorant. Maybe after a more time away I’ll be strong enough to read a little something here or there, but right now I need to take a break. And I’m honoring that.