Not a Wasted Word

Ack! It’s 9:17pm on Friday evening and I still haven’t posted. An NaBloPoMo almost-fail! It’s late and I’ve just finished a ton of mundane chores, and I’m itching to sit on the couch with a little drink, so let’s bang this out, shall we? I wanted to circle back on a couple things I wrote about earlier this week, because I’m posting every day this month and I have the “time.”

I did work out last night! I did two Jess Sims Flash 15’s back to back. It was fun and quick and made me out of breath and sweaty. Speaking of which, JJ took issue with my not considering our hike tomorrow a workout. I explained that I don’t consider a hike my kids might enjoy a real workout, and that I have to sweat to feel like I’ve properly exercised. I only shower when I workout, but what that really means is I only shower when I sweat. And since I sweat easily, and copiously, this has always been my metric for what to consider “working out.” I’m curious if others agree, or think I’m batty. Would you consider a five mile hike with your kids a workout? How do you determine what is a workout and what is other kids of moving your body?

I have NOT been getting more sleep this week and I’m super bummed about that. I really thought I was taking advantage of the time change to get to bed earlier, but my FitBit is not nearly as enthusiastic about my efforts. I’m still averaging about 6.5 hours a night this week, instead of 7 or the highly coveted 7.5. Alas, I guess 6.5 hours is the most I can hope for on a work night. I guess it’s good that I seem able to function at that level of sleep. Also, it’s getting dark so early now. I forgot how disorienting that is at first, especially when the temps are low enough to feel like it’s actually winter.

I got the last two reading responses scored! And I downloaded some examples of work that is Approaching, Meeting and Exceeding on the rubric so they can see examples of what I’m looking for when I say “details from the novel.” I do have some planning to do this weekend, but I have NO GRADING and I’m so thrilled about that.

As soon as I posted my “Hopes for November” post I wanted to edit it because I totally forgot to include NaBloPoMo and my hopes to build community through my own posting efforts, and everyone else’s. If I were to rewrite that post, I would put “Calendar” and “Work” stuff together into a “Stay ahead of deadlines” section, because I DON’T want to keep pushing things back to the first few days of the Thanksgiving Break when I know they won’t provide the time or space necessary to get all the stuff done. Of course, this coming Tuesday will ALSO not provide the time or space to complete all the tasks I currently have slated for that random mid-week holiday, so I need to start being more realistic about how much will get done that day.

As you probably figured out from above, we are still planning on hiking by Mt. Tam tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to a Saturday away from the dojo, and out in the sunshine (and it looks like the weather will cooperate!) My kids are already complaining about it, but I think once they get started they’ll be okay. I hope to post some photos in tomorrow’s post.

If you’ve read me for any amount of time, you know I’m not a fan of Thursdays. That is because on Thursdays I have to teach four 85-minute block periods and I don’t get a break (prep) period. I also teach all three of my classes, so I have to have a lot of different lessons planned and ready. This Thursday is especially bad because I have supervision duty this week, so I have to be out on the black top for one of my precious break times. I really, REALLY hope that one year I will have a prep period that gives me a break on Thursday, but I always get fourth period prep, so I don’t think it will ever happen. SIGH.

I have to book it out of school right after the bell this afternoon to make it to my allergy shot appointment on time. If I don’t get into my car mere minutes after the bell, the traffic will get so bad that I’ll sit in the parking lot for 15-20 minutes. It sucks. It also sucks that I still have to get allergy shots. They definitely help manage my symptoms, but I haven’t gotten to a place where I can stop taking the (I still react to the shot, which means I need to keep getting the shots). I probably will never get to stop, and I’ll have to keep coming once a month if I want my symptoms eased, which I do!

I’ve been grading like crazy this past week. I’ve scored student reflections, Day of the Dead assessments, writing assessments, speaking assessments, reading responses, and now I have the last reading responses (all for two classes each). I am going to be so glad when I don’t have to do anymore thoughtful, time consuming scoring for a little while! My brain feels like oatmeal.

Today I introduced my free reading program, which is going to become a choice comprehensible input program this year, to the 1A classes. I’m really proud of this program, and I’m excited for the changes I hope to make this year. Some students were clearly very excited about it. They had a lot of good questions and started reading their books as soon as they checked them out. It’s fun to see how a new group responds to the program.

To work out or not to work out tonight, that is the question? When I planned my workouts for this week I did not have anything slated for this evening, because I’ll be home pretty late. (I’m going to Costco after the thirty minute wait at the allergy shot office). But I’m realizing that I might not want to work out after the hike with the family on Saturday so I’m wondering if I should do something tonight. I’m going to make a game-time decision later today, and I don’t love that uncertainty, but I also want to give myself space. Sometimes a 5pm Costco run wrecks me and sometimes it’s not that bad. I’ll keep you all updated. I’d only be doing a 30 minute strength class, which isn’t that hard to manage, even after a day as long as this one.

Our names or faces

I blog anonymously. I’m sure I’ve dropped enough hints for people who read me to figure out more specific details than I’ve intended to share. And that’s okay! Mostly I’m trying to avoid my students finding my blog. I am a fairly private person and I don’t have any social media accounts. I don’t want my students to know random things about my life that I haven’t chosen to share with them, so I try hard to hard to keep this blog out of a google search of my name or image. Only a couple IRL friends have found my blog (one was searching a specific situation we were dealing with at your kids’ elementary school and my blog came up because I was writing about it), and honestly I want to keep it that way.

Meal plans or recipes

I don’t cook. It doesn’t really interest me and I’m not good at it. My husband is the cook in our house. I do “prepare” meals for myself, my kids, and sometimes my whole family, but I do not think much about dinner and I do not meal plan. I don’t say this proudly, but I’m also done feeling bad about not participating in an aspect of mothering that is so morally coded. I do kind of love that my kids know someone else can be in charge of cooking, and even cleaning up the kitchen after cooking (my husband also generally does the clean up). It’s not our only switching of traditional gender roles. I am the driver in our family. And the fixer of things; I own, and wield, the power tools. We do fall into plenty of traditional gender roles (I do the laundry, and most of the cleaning and my husband mostly manages our finances). But in the kitchen we definitely swap roles, so I don’t write at all about meal planning.

What I’m reading and listening to

I don’t really write anything about what I’m reading or listening to, and honestly I wish I could change that. I really appreciate when other people mention what they are reading and/or listening to, and I’ve queued up many a podcast episode and checked out many a book based on other bloggers’ recommendations. I don’t know why I can’t get it together enough to at least mention what books and podcast eps I’ve been enjoying. It feels like the least I can do, so why don’t I just do it!

Finances, budgeting, planning, organizing

I am so bad with budgets. Truly, it’s my kryptonite. And there have been times in my life where the only thing that saved me was some credit card offer for 18 months of 0% APR on roll over balances. Now that we make a little more (but not much! because we’re both civil servants!), and that my spending is less… volatile… I don’t have to think too much about my spending (what a privileged life I lead! Truly!), and thus I don’t write about it. I’m also pretty bad at planning (at home at least), and keeping my house tidy and organized. I have MarieKondo’ed the house a couple times and I followed minimalism blogs for a (long) while, but if I do write about these things it’s usually to talk about how much I’m struggling with them. If I could articulate my experiences better in some of these realms, I might actually be able to add value to people’s lives, but alas I have not managed to do that. Which brings me to the fifth thing you will not find on this blog…

Anything helpful really

I’m not trying to talk shit, I swear. I’m just being honest about the fact that I do not write about ways you can make your life better, or even ways I’ve managed to make my life better! Usually I just show up and rant a little about my day to day. When I was writing on my first blog, about infertility and pregnancy loss, and then about parenting small children, I feel like I did post meaningful commentaries on my lived experience. Now that my kids are older and life doesn’t feel so hard, I struggle to show up with thoughtful things to say. My motivation wanes, my free time contracts, and I post a recap of the weekend. I’m not saying that is nothing – I enjoy plenty of blogs that recap weekends – but if helpful advice is what you’re looking for, this is probably not the spot to wait for it.

You will find some nice pictures from time to time, and a little bit of snark when I can muster it. So there’s that!

Me, myself and I

I’m 45. My parents are from St. Louis, but moved to Taiwan before I was born in Singapore. I grew up in Hong Kong until 7th grade, when my family moved to the Bay Area. I went to UC Berkeley, and have lived in San Francisco for 22 years, thought I’ve worked that same amount of time in the town where I grew up, 30 minutes south of the city. I like to read, exercise, and practice martial arts (I’m a red belt). I’m not on social media, but I’ve been blogging for 17 years.

The husband

My husband and I have been married for 12 years, domestic partners for 17 years and together for 19 years (all this coming January). He has been working for the city for 12 years; before that he worked for a non-profit that wrote and supported gun regulation policy at the state and national level. He is my best friend, and he makes me crazy. I write a lot about disputes we have around our division of labor, which was an even bigger point of contention before the pandemic.

The kids

I have a daughter – “the 15yo” – and a son – “the 12yo”. The 15yo is a Sophomore at a public high school in San Francisco. She likes to swim, draw and paint, and scroll on her phone. We watch TV shows together, and listen to the same podcasts (Maintenance Phase and If Books Could Kill). We have a really close relationship and I feel endlessly grateful to have her in my life.

The 12yo is a 6th grader at a public Spanish Immersion middle school in San Francisco. He has been practicing martial arts at the same dojo as me (he started first, actually) since he was 4 years old. He is a “Teen” red belt and we love sparring and ground grappling each other on Saturdays. He started playing baseball this fall, and we hope he will start swimming on a team this winter. He loves to play video games with his friends and with his dad, and also loves playing board games and collecting trading cards.

Work

I’m a middle school Spanish teacher at a public school about 30 minutes south of San Francisco. I kind of fell into teaching both Spanish and middle school at the age of 24, and 22 years later I believe it was the happiest accident of my life. I work really hard, and have created a Spanish program that is pretty popular and very well-regarded. I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished at my school. I also spend a LOT of time thinking about work, so I end up writing a lot about work. Go figure.

This, That, and the Other

I have ADHD and struggle with executive functioning, especially staying organized. I’m already post-menopausal and just started taking MHT (Menopausal Hormone Treatment). I was diagnosed with Grave’s Disease last spring and have been taking medication to manage hyperthyrodism for several months. I hurt my knee pretty badly two years ago, but it’s finally back to normal. I recently started wearing toe spacers to prevent what I finally realized were bunions from continuing to bunion.

We live in San Francisco proper and take advantage of living in the city quite a bit. We go to museums and concerts and events. I post pictures from parks and other nice vistas. In the summer we travel a bit, and I’ll post pictures from our trips.

I mostly write about daily life. I wish I tackled deeper topics more frequently, but the reality is that I mostly just post about what I’ve been doing, the daily challenges of working full time, managing a household and raising two kids in a somewhat family-unfriendly city (that I still love).

If you’re new, thanks for stopping by. If you’ve been here a while, thanks for reading!

Oh yeah, and cats. I honestly don’t post about them enough! They take up an outsized amount of our attention, and yet I don’t talk about them much here. But every once in a while I do post pictures of them, because they are so cute.

I used to be a die-hard DST supporter. I thought we should extend DST all year (we spend eight months in DST, why not add the other four!?) I also LOATHED falling back when I had young kids, which sucked because falling back should be so much better than springing forward!

My thinking on this has done a complete 180. Now I wish we spent all year in standard time. I sleep much better when it gets darker earlier. It’s also easier to get up when it’s not dark outside, although I don’t really mind driving to work in the dark. (Evidently, science confirms that standard time syncs up with our circadian rhythms a lot better than DST does.)

Now that I have older kids, I LOVE falling back in November again. All day I look at my watch delighted that it’s actually an hour earlier than I expect it to be.

I try to milk the “your body thinks it’s later than it is” for all it’s worth in the weeks after the time change. I work really hard to get my ass into bed by 10pm and to fall asleep by 11pm at the latest.

I HATE springing forward in March. It’s just the worst. So I really try hard to revel in the weeks after falling back, because I know how much it will suck to spring forward in four short months.

Do you prefer Daylight Savings Time or Standard Time? Do you wish we stayed in one, or do you think the lighter evenings of the summer are worth the horror that is springing forward in March?

October thoroughly kicked my ass. The only thing standing between me and the holidays is the month of November. I want to make sure I don’t feel quite so run over at the end of November. Here are some of my goals for this month.

Calendar

I usually do the calendar the week of Thanksgiving, and that is the plan this year. But last year I was good about curating the photos I hoped to use throughout the year. This year I did NOT do that. We also went on way fewer trips this year, so there aren’t obvious weeks or weekends to go back to to find photos. I want to spend some time on Veterans Day going through the thousands of photos on my phone to find some good ones for the calendar, so that I can get it done the week of Thanksgiving. The calendar gets harder as my kids get older, and I think this year it’s going to be really hard.

Reconnect with the husband

The husband and I have not really reconnected since his mid-October trip. It’s honestly been kind of lonely. I hope we can spend some time together this month. I’m going to ask my parents to take the kids after Thanksgiving so we can spend a night or two together. I hope we can plan one other thing before that too.

Make some family memories

We don’t have any trips planned as a family this school year, and it’s hard not to have anything to look forward to. It’s also hard to look back on the weeks and feel like nothing really happened. Next weekend I don’t have to teach Teens at the dojo, so I’m planning on missing all my Saturday classes so we can do something as a family. My current plan is a hike in the Marin Headlands, since early November usually provides nice weather. I hope to plan one other memorable event in November, maybe the week of Thanksgiving, when the kids and are I off.

Christmas Decorations

When Thanksgiving is as late as it is this year, I like to start putting up the Christmas decorations right before turkey day. The 15yo and I really love Christmas decorations, and it’s nice to have them up so long that we’re not that sad to take them down before New Years. It’s also nice to have all that time to get them up, with the kids home and the husband at work. It’s a great way to fill those lazy days.

Wrap up the first trimester

Our first trimester ends on November 14, and grades are due the Friday before the Thanksgiving Break. All four 7th and 8th grade classes are turning in Reading Responses this week and the 1A classes are taking an assessment. I’m good about keeping my grade books up to date, so I just need to score a bunch of stuff and add comments to close out the first grading period. I can’t believe we’re almost one third done with the school year.

Coming in super late with the first post of NaBloPoMo, which will be a surprise to NO ONE.

I really love Halloween, but this year felt a little meh. I can’t quite figure out why, but I guess not every Halloween can be amazing. Here are some highlights from this year.

Costumes

The 15yo was the Headless Horseman. She wore slacks and a nice shirt and a Wednesday Adams-ish jacket and a pumpkin head thing we got at Daiso. It was cute. The 12yo was Michael Myers. He wore a $60 Michael Myers costume that we bought at Spirit Halloween several weeks ago. I didn’t love that he dressed up as that character, but it wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight. There were Michael Myers costume for ages 5-6, so I’m clearly not the worst parent in the world. Our staff did 6-7 meme costumes, and I had a colleague make me a shirt with a double three and a three four domino. It ended up looking pretty cute. Many staff got shirts that were subject-specific and most of them were very clever. I have to admit, it ended up being more fun that I was expecting.

Halloween evening

Both kids went directly with friends after school and for the first time ever we did not accompany either one on their trick-or-treating adventures. Instead the husband and I went out to dinner. It was really nice! We don’t get any trick-ot-treaters in our neighborhood, so we just went to a nearby restaurant and marveled at how old our kids are getting. Later I stopped by a house party at my friends’ place. It was a pretty chill Halloween.

Spirit Week

Spirit Week was a kind of a dud. Not very many kids participated. I was a little bummed out about it, but the staff showed up and I had a lot of fun dressing up, so I’m letting it go. The 12yo also had spirit week leading up to Halloween and he was adamantly opposed to participating on any day except pajama day. I feel like Spirit Week used to be a big deal, but maybe kids these days aren’t into it? I really don’t know…

Simpsons Halloween Countdown Calendar

Costco sold a Halloween Countdown Calendar and of course I bought it. Every day the 12yo opened a little door and found a Tree House of Horror character. He LOVES The Simpsons and REALLY LOVES the Tree House of Horror episodes, so it was pretty fun.

Trick or Kick

Last week my daughter had to go to swimming on Friday – not her favorite thing – but she came back happy because they played a fun game where swimmers randomly picked sets and activities instead of doing a regular practice. I thought it would be fun to do something like that during my Teen class at the dojo the morning after Halloween. It was kicking day, which worked out because it’s easy to come up with a bunch of quick kicking activities. A few were, rapid fire round kicks, flying side kicks, and fake-up front kids. That was the Kicks part of the game. The Tricks part was really fun to put together. We did things like Basic Form with eyes closed, sparring with one hand behind the back, bear crawl while balancing cones on their backs. I was worried no one would come, but there were ten kids there today. They really liked the game and we all had a lot of fun. They left begging to do it again soon. It was probably my favorite part of Halloween this year.

I’m keeping posts short for NaBloPoMo this year, and honestly there isn’t much else to say about Halloween this year. It was fine. And now it’s over and it’s basically Christmas already, if the stores have anything to say about it.

I know I mentioned here that the 15yo applied for an (unpaid) internship and made it through the application and (Zoom) interview phases. This weekend is the in person “group interview” and she is supposed to have her shift preferences ranked, so the husband and I sat down this week night to talk about it. There are shifts every day of the week – the weeknight shifts are from 6-10pm, the weekend day shifts are 7am-4pm and the weekend night shifts are 6pm-midnight. It’s totally bonkerballs. Since we need to drive her to and from this place, which is on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, our shift preferences are as important as the 15yo.

Initially we thought the weekends should be our first choice, but quickly I realized that I actually hated the idea of either waking up super early on Saturday or Sunday (earlier than for work!) or picking up super late on Friday or Saturday. If I have to pick a kid up at midnight on a weekend, I can’t drink on that evening. And if I have to wake up at, or slightly before, 6am on a weekend, I shouldn’t drink the night before. It’s not like I get wasted every weekend night, but I enjoy a cocktail or two most weekend nights, and the thought of giving one of those nights up, every weekend from December to June, really bummed me out.

Like I was really upset at the prospect of it. It felt like I was offering for someone to take half of my weekends away. It made me really sad.

Is that crazy? Am I relying too much on a couple of cocktails on the weekend nights? Should I take this deep sense of sadness as an indicator of something else?

I honestly don’t know. I’m feeling a lot of feelings about the prospect of drastically altering our weekends, and then I’m just as many feelings about the original feelings, wondering what it says about me that just considering this possibility makes me so very sad.

And that’s all I have on this right now, because this post is already late and it’s Thursday so I have no prep and I have a ton of assessments to score so I have to sign off.

How do you feel about the weekends? Would you be really sad to have to drastically alter your weekends?

It feels like, all of the sudden, the year is hurdling to a close. The end of the trimester is three weeks away. There are four weeks until Thanksgiving Break! How did that happen?

October thoroughly kicked my ass.

But! There have been little pockets of wonderful.

Unicorn Girl last week was wonderful. I listened to all nine episodes in three days. So did my daughter. We walked around all weekend marveling at how bat shit crazy the whole story was. We couldn’t get over it.

I was genuinely sad when it was over.

The $8 extra-long clipper guards I ordered that came today were wonderful. It was a shady little set, the seller name on Amazon was a long string of numbers and letters. I had little-to-no faith that they would fit securely to the clippers, let alone actually cut my son’s hair. But I figured they were only $8 so I might as well try them, since the thought of trying to cut his hair with scissors again was paralyzing me with fear.

They came today and I tried them out and they worked GREAT. His hair looks awesome. And it’s not too short! It’s just the length he wants. I used a 2″ guard on the top and front of his hair, a 1.5″ guard around the middle and a 1.25″ guard along his neck and ears. It took me a minute to figure them out (there is a reason regular guards stop at 1″) but once I did they worked very well. I’m SO THRILLED that there is a quick and easy way for me to cut my son’s hair again, and that they chances of me making a horrific mistake are back to a minimum.

{I offered to take him to a proper barber, but he didn’t want to go. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, so he just wanted me to cut it, like I’ve always done, but he wanted it much longer than it’s ever been. The last time I cut his hair (the first time with scissors instead of clippers) was agonizing and the end result was… less than stellar. I’ve been dreading cutting it again, so I’m really excited about these longer guards that put me squarely back in my comfort zone.}

I also got my new glasses! And they are wonderful! They are taking me a minute to get used to (my first pair of progressives), but I can tell that once I do I will really like them. They are so light and comfortable. And they look good on my face. I have not loved my last TWO pairs of glasses, so I’m really looking forward to having a pair that I actually want to wear.

In non-thing’s-that-delight-me news, I missed another post on the 25th. Oh well! This weekend was very full, and now my house is very clean! The 12yo has been celebrated by everyone who loves him, and has received all the gifts he’ll get until Christmas.

The husband and I have been dealing with some friction since he came back, and I actually started a post about that, but I knew it wouldn’t go up tonight so I wrote this one instead. I have another post that touches on a deeper-level topic sitting half written in my drafts folder. Maybe I’ll get them both up during NaBloPoMo?

A girl can dream.

With these new occupational progressive lenses, anything feels possible!

It’s late Wednesday night and I’m starting tomorrow’s post because Thursday’s always suck and tomorrow is going to be a DOOZY, so I’m trying to get ahead of it.

Unfortunately I have no idea what to write about. Next month is going to be soooo fun!

I’m not sure about my “new” meds. I put new in quotes because I took it for a long time, a long time ago, so it’s not really new to me. I don’t really remember why I switched from it (Strattera) to Ritalin, but a month into taking Strattera again and I think I might have an idea. I definitely feel more… scattered right now. But I’m also getting a lot done. So I don’t know if it’s that I really am more scattered, or if it’s just a feeling. It’s hard to explain. I’m going to keep taking it for a couple more months before I decide if I’ll give it a full year or go back to Ritalin (or another stimulant). The recent week-long 15yo’s prescription refill drama is definitely factoring into my decision-making. I so wish ADHD meds weren’t always so hard to fill. Drives me crazy.

I am going to ask to go down to the .5mg Estrogen patch because my breasts are still really tender. I guess I wasn’t totally crazy in worrying about MHT side-effects! My body is really sensitive to hormones! I’m glad the only major issue is sore breasts. It could be a lot worse.

The husband’s snoring has been SO BAD since he got back. I’m actually looking for ear plugs. Anyone have an ear plug that actually muffles really bad snoring? Seems like an impossible feat.

It’s now late Thursday night and I haven’t added anything to this post. Boo!

Elizabeth casually mentioned Unicorn Girl in her post yesterday, and my ears perked WAY up because I’ve been struggling with my audiobook selection and a well-produced soap opera-y podcast about batshit crazy is just what I need right now. I started it on the way to work this morning and listened to the first four episodes today. It’s EXACTLY what I needed to make today better, and I’m so thankful that I “found” it. Thank you Elizabeth! (Yes, I also thanked her on her own post.)

This post is all over the place and saying nothing so maybe I should just put it out of its misery? I’m working on a Self Reflection assignment I gave my students (I always feel like I should complete new assignments myself) and it’s been pretty interesting so far. I’ll probably share my findings (or maybe the whole project) with you all later.

I guess I’ll end with this thought… Today my 1A classes did a set of stations that has always been super stressful, but this year it went pretty well. I guess I finally made enough tweaks, and they have compounded over the years of learning what DIDN’T work, so that now it finally does work! I appreciate that very much, because the final product of the day is pretty great, and now I know it’s possible without running myself totally ragged.

I’m also creating a new reading and speaking assessment based on a novel my 1B students just finished and I’m excited about that as well. I think I will be impressed with what they can produce, and it always feels good to be impressed by your students, especially when you taught them pretty much everything they know in the subject. 😉