Just wanted to let you all know that we made it. We love our AirBnB and are enjoying our classes. The pool is exactly what we need in the afternoons. Tomorrow we’re hitting up what some say is the most beautiful beach in Mexico. I’ll post some pictures so you can see for yourself.
I think I may have neglected mentioning that my kids and I are going to Baja, Mexico this summer. We leave today!
My husband first suggested Baja when we realized a bigger international trip was way off the table. Initially we considered driving, but we quickly realized that was a bad plan because (a) we’d have to borrow or rent a car as their aren’t electric car charging stations in Mexico and (b) we didn’t feel safe driving through the northern part of the peninsula. Luckily flights to Cabo are relatively cheap, so flying didn’t make the trip impossible.
I’m not super interested in Cabo San Lucas or any of the super tourist spots in that area, so we’ll be taking a bus up to La Paz, which is about 2.5 hours north of Cabo (on the mainland side). Our bus will take about 3.5 hours to get there and our flight is about 3.5 hours so the travel tomorrow won’t be too bad (so much better than two five hour red eye flights and a five hour layover in Mexico DF!).
We’re spending the entire two weeks in one AirBnB that’s about two miles outside the city center. It has a little pool and a rooftop barbeque and eating area which is shared with the other three condos. During the first week the kids and I will be taking some intensive Spanish classes in the mornings and I’ll be giving them swimming lessons in the pool in the afternoon and later, when my husband comes, we’ll be hitting up the beaches and snorkeling a fair amount.
I deliberately planned this trip to be very low key, because after our whirlwind 2.5 weeks in Colombia I knew I wanted something that required little or no change of scenery. I’m so glad too because after the last four weeks I really need the rest.
It might not be the best idea for us to take a trip like this with all the uncertainty surrounding our tenant situation, but I do think we did a nice job of keeping it low-cost. The flights (and buses to La Paz) were just under $1800 and the AirBnb was $1000. The classes were $400 and we’ll spend very little on food there as our kids don’t like to eat out (at least the first week we’ll eat exclusively at home). I’m not sure how much all the touristy stuff will end up being, probably around $700-$1000 as their are some incredible places to snorkel and we don’t want to miss out. But summer is the low season in Baja (it’s basically a desert so it’s HOT, and the whale sharks aren’t around again until October) so hopefully nothing will cost too much, and I already got some recommendations for local snorkeling trips so we don’t have pay the bigger online tourist site prices. All in all it will probably cost about half of what Colombia cost, which makes me feel better about it, even though it is a lot.
One of the reasons I want to travel to Spanish-speaking countries in the summers with my kids is to see if we find anywhere we’d be interested in living. I must admit I knew next to nothing about the southern half of Baja but I’ve been blown away by how amazing it is. I am really excited to check out La Paz (and some of the coastal spots that are a day trip away), and to see if it’s a place we may want to live some day
I don’t know if I’ll be posting daily updates like last time, at least before my husband comes, but I’ll definitely keep you updated!
This past week I finished a two week summer intensive that was, well, intense. I had to apply for the opportunity and was very excited to participate. Every day we learned a ton of new stuff and even started applying it to our specific content and grade levels. I left wanting to try everything, and knowing that it would be too much to attempt it all.
I also left feeling disappointed in myself, for the quality of work I presented and my failure to “put myself out there” to create a network of educators who are as passionate about teaching in new ways as I am. There were a lot of reasons why I didn’t feel like I was bringing my A-game, and I don’t believe listing them here would be very effective. Instead I’m just trying to hone in the source of my disappoint so I can explore and learn from it.
I’m sure these professional (and personal) insecurities stem from the deep well of self-doubt that was tapped when I applied for all those high school positions a few years ago. And that well was always there, and was always deep, I was just able to forget about it for a while as family building and parenting babies and toddlers took over my brain space for almost a decade. Now that my children are old enough for me to put more energy into my professional life, I need to figure out where this self-doubt and disappointment comes from, so I can learn from it. If you have any suggestions for articles (or books) about these topics, please send them my way. I promise I’m not getting all down on myself, it’s more recognizing that I feel a certain way about myself wanting to be proactive about learning from that feeling so that this experience can help me change and grow.
What do you do when you feel disappointed in, or doubt yourself? Do you have a reliable method for turning (real or perceived) failure into an effective learning experience?
Thanks for attending my pity party yesterday. I was in a pretty bummed out place when I wrote that: my husband had decided to pick a fight with me the night before about how I am over-committing and he is doing too much. This is a discussion we’ve had a lot, and I’m really not sure how to move forward with him on this topic. As I’ve mentioned before, the more I request the space and time to pursue my own interests, the more push back I get from my husband. It just sucked that he chose the night before my birthday, when I KNEW I wasn’t going to be acknowledged in the ways I hoped for, to tell me he feels like he is doing too much. It sucked.
So yeah, I woke up feeling pretty down on my birthday. Luckily my husband apologized and then asked what I wanted that day. Since it was a Wednesday, and we had an appointment at 3pm, I just asked for a card with a handwritten note. (His birthday is Sunday and my parents are taking the kids that night so we’ll have dinner then.) Still, I was feeling like my husband doesn’t recognize or appreciate my contribution and I am so tired of feeling that way. It wasn’t how I wanted to feel on my birthday.
Later in the day my friend told me she was planning a dinner with friends at her house for my birthday that Saturday. That was so sweet and made me feel very loved. I’ve literally never had a friend plan something like that for my birthday. So on Saturday I’ll be seeing some friends and on Sunday I’ll be having dinner with my husband. I’m feeling a LOT better about my birthday. (And maybe by Sunday my husband will have the card with the note – he bought the card but hasn’t written anything in it yet.)
Honestly, I think part of my problem yesterday was I’m just mentally exhausted. I’m in the final leg of an intense two-week professional development. It’s farther south than my work, and since my kids are in two different camps that aren’t very close to each other in the city, it’s taking me 1.5 to 2 hours to get home every day. I’m also getting ready for a belt test on Saturday, which is not great timing but they only have belt tests every two months so it’s now or wait a while. I’ve been a yellow belt for a while now and am ready to move up, so I’m going for it, but it’s definitely adding stress to an already mentally exhausting two weeks.
So yeah. Thanks for indulging me yesterday. I’ve found that I generally feel pretty down on my actual birthday, but I don’t dread it much before hand and quickly get over my pity party afterward so I guess that’s not so bad (all things considered). Next year I turn 40 and because 2020 is a leap year my birthday will fall on a Friday. I definitely want to plan something with my friends. I do believe that ultimately it’s up to me to create a celebration for my birthday, and I’m definitely planning on doing that next year.
Such a weird (and very much appreciated!) coincidence that Captain Awkward posted this yesterday. Definitely helping me deal with today.
So I went to St. Louis for over two weeks and wrote ZERO posts and then got back and continued writing ZERO posts and now it’s Wednesday and I’m feeling bad about it.
But not that bad because PRIORITIES and a lot of the time (increasingly, I’ve noticed) this space is just not one of them.
St. Louis was really fun. My kids are older every year (so weird how that happens!) and also more fun do to things with (not so weird how that happens!) and so ALL THE THINGS are MORE FUN!
{I hope to write more about it but I have a shit track record with follow through when I write things like that.}
We got back late Sunday and had to go grocery shopping and get ready for camps for the kids and my professional development for me and a full work day for my husband and it was absolutely the shit show you are guessing it might have been. It was rough.
Monday was ever rougher. It was just an absolute cluster f***. A truly epic re-entry fail. I planned on writing all about it, bullet pointing every shitty moment but now that 36 hours have passed I’m feeling… meh… about rehashing it here. Please just take my word for it – Monday was a shitty day and re-entry is a bitch.
Tuesday was better, but just as busy. Today is the first day this week where I’m not scheduled until the moment I fall asleep. There is a lot to get caught up on at home.
How has your summer been so far!?
There is a beautiful park near my parents’ house. I used to hike it as a kid, and I still run there when I’m on the peninsula and have some time to spare between work and a later event. I’ve always walked, or ran, the same almost 2-mile loop that my mom first introduced me to when I was 12. Once my friend and I tried a different path and got lost and my parents had to come find us in the park after dark. I’ve never ventured off that one loop since then.
But I could always see the other paths crisscrossing the hills below where I run and have always wanted to try one out. I’m no longer afraid of getting lost in the park, but I rarely have much time to spare and I worry about trying a new trail without knowing how long or rigorous it will be. I still run the same loop twice when I go to the park.
The last time I ran my double loop, I realized there were maps at the front sign. I grabbed one and marveled at how many different trails there were. I vowed that when I came again, I would try something new.
Last week I spent the night with my kids at my parents’ house, so that morning I woke up early, put on my running gear and drove to the park. For the first time since I was a kid all those years ago, I took a different path, and ended up running the entire perimeter of the park. It was beautiful, and so fun to be running somewhere new. I can’t believe how big the park is, and now I want to take my kids up there for a longer hike than the one I’ve taken them on before.
Exploring the unknown, walking somewhere and not being sure of where you’re going or where you’ll end up, can be a thrilling experience. But I find I’m much more adventurous when I have an idea of where I’m going and how long it will take me to get there. I really do appreciate having a map.
Do you prefer exploring on your own? Or do you appreciate having a map to guide you?
On Friday morning I dropped my husband and son off at SFO for their flight to Texas. My daughter had left on Wednesday, the day after their last day of school, to fly with her grandparents. They are all in Denton visiting my husband’s sister and her family.
I did not join them.
That means that for the first time since my first child was born (exactly nine years ago this past Friday), I was alone in my own house for three days.
And can I just say, it was amazing.
It was also strange. Very strange. To suddenly have no restrictions (except my own, self-imposed) on my time, to have no real obligations, for such a long stretch… it was actually very disorienting. I struggled to identify what I wanted to do, as I was reminded that even when it’s just me and my husband, I still have to compromise on so many things (or at least take his desires into consideration). Having no one else to answer to, I was unsure of how to make even the most basic of decisions.
I dropped my son and husband off at the airport early Friday morning and ended up at work with an hour and a half before my first class started (I did not join them precisely because I still am at work). I got some stuff done, finalizing grades and organizing my classroom. The school day was both crazy (we didn’t have enough subs so those of us with 8th graders – who were not in our classes as they practiced for graduation – took the smaller classes of other teachers and combined them with our own) and low key (those of us with 8th graders in our classes are basically done teaching as we won’t see them for the rest of the year).
After school I went for a run, then met my friend from work who is leaving for a high school job and we had dinner and drinks. Then I drove home and even though it was late I watched some TV.
On Saturday morning I woke up intending to go to my regular martial arts class at 11am. But at the last minute I decided to skip it and only go to sparring at 12:15. I usually go to the earlier class because that is when my son’s class is, but that morning I didn’t have to accommodate him, so I just didn’t go. It felt so… indulgent.
Sparring was great, and I left realizing that I usually have my son with my, dying to go home after so many hours in the dojo, or waiting for me at home after his dad picked him up. Today I had nobody at home waiting for me, or with me, so I rode my bike to a nearby park and went for a hike. I lingered as long as I wanted, feeling disoriented by the realization that I could do whatever I felt like. But what did I feel like doing?
On the hike I made plans with a friend to come over to my house in the evening, so when I got home I started to get some stuff done. I moved a bunch of tubs from the garage to the shed, which has been on my list for a while, and then moved even more stuff into the shed (all our winter boots are finally out of the house! And some of my son’s more annoying toys! Woot!) Then I cleaned my living room, bathroom and kitchen because they were, quite frankly, disgusting. My friend came over at 8pm, and I was in yoga pants and a tank top (it was in the 90s in SF this weekend! So hot). It was great to stay in, drinking cocktails and eating snacks. She didn’t leave until midnight. After which, I still watched some TV!
This morning I slept in until 8am! I usually wake up around my normal 5:30am time but I guess going to bed so late I slept past that. I stayed in bed for a while reading. Then watched some TV. I also talked to my sister for 2.5 hours! She is in London and it’s hard for us to find a time when we can both chat for a while, but today all the stars aligned. It was great to catch up with her.
I also dropped the camping gear I borrowed off at my friend’s house (and stayed to visit for over an hour), and picked up some toys from a guy on Craigslist (and ran some other errands nearby). When I got home I did laundry and watched some more TV. It’s been a really low key day.
Now it’s 9pm and I’m finally working out (it was way too hot earlier). I’m really getting thrown by the super long days and have trouble understanding that it’s actually 8pm when the amount of light outside is trying to convince it’s much earlier. It really must be summer!
My only other plans tonight are to fold laundry while I watch the premiere of season 2 of Big Little Lies.
This week is busy, but in good ways. Tomorrow I’m taking my other work friend out for dinner (she was pink slipped despite 20 years of service because they no longer have a position open that she can fill with her credential) and then martial arts, Tuesday is our 8th grade promotion, and my family comes home, Wednesday is our last day of classes, and staff party, Thursday is a clean-up my classroom day, and my daughter’s family birthday dinner, and Friday I’m taking my daughter and six friends to the amusement park for her birthday!
It was so nice to have this weekend to remember what I like to do when I’m all alone. I hope my husband and his family make a tradition out of this. ;
Yesterday I missed my son’s TK graduation. It was my first big miss as a mom. When I say “big miss” I’m referring to my kid’s perception of the situation. I don’t think a TK graduation is really a thing (TK isn’t even really a grade!) but my son was definitely disappointed that I couldn’t be there and didn’t really understand why I wasn’t.
His school has had a lot of little presentations and events that have required I miss my last class of the day. To do that I have to ask a colleague to give up their own prep period to teach my class. We don’t have enough subs in the district right now so we’re always being asked to cover other teacher’s classes when a substitute should be taking the whole day. That makes it harder to ask a teacher to cover just one class when you have to leave early.
It was the intersection of a lot of things that made it impossible for me to miss my class yesterday. I do believe I made the right decision professionally. But it’s hard to disappoint my kid. And it’s hard to miss this.
I did communicate to his teacher that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it because I’d already had to miss so much work to come to the myriad other events they’d asked us to attend in the past month. Maybe they will take that into consideration when they plan next year’s festivities.
Being a WOTH mom can be really hard sometimes.
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself with that title.
No. We’re not trying to get pregnant again. Yes we are done having kids. I only get happier as a parent the older my kids get and I can’t imagine going back to the newborn baby (or toddler!) days.
But I did go in yesterday to get CD3 blood work done.
I made an appointment to see my OB in a few weeks to talk about peri menopause. My cycle has been a mess for about a year now, and this Saturday I got my period only 12 days after the last one started. I’m used to short cycles – mine are usually 20 days – but less than two weeks is ridiculous.
I’ll be 39 in July, but my RE did warn me that with my AMH level as low as it was when I was trying to have a second child at the age of 33, I’d probably go into into menopause in my early 40s. Which means peri menopause probably isn’t off the table at 38.
Mostly I’m worried about estrogen and osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is one of my irrationally overblown fears, so I’m going to make sure I shouldn’t be taking something to keep it at bay.
Most of my friends are a good decade older than me, and as far as I can tell (I’ve brought it up a few times), I’m the only one staring menopause in the face. Lucky me!
It was a trip getting my blood drawn today, thinking of how far I’ve come since I was getting these same tests done for very different reasons. I’m so glad that those days are behind me, and I’m so thankful I was able to TTC when I was young and it was still something my body could manage. So many of my college friends are trying to get pregnant now, at almost 40. If I’d had to wait that long it probably wouldn’t have been possible.
{I also thought a lot about the many, many days I spent waiting to get my blood drawn after my ectopic, my eyes red and puffy from crying. I go to a different lab, at a new campus, so the waiting room isn’t the same, and yet it still is the first thing I think of every time I get blood drawn.}
I don’t think that much about my TTC, loss, and secondary infertility days much anymore, but this very tangible reminder of my diminished ovarian reserve and its side-effects brought it all back.
I’ll keep you updated on what my doctor says about peri menopause in my thirties.