Not a Wasted Word

I don’t usually write these year-end recaps but I feel like I should this year. Maybe if I did I’d be more cognizant of my accomplishments, and what I’ve overcome. I kind of wish I could go back and read these from past years, but there isn’t much. Oh well. Something to commit to moving forward!

{I got these questions randomly from here, because they seemed like what I was looking for.}

1. The most important goal that I achieved this year was: revamping my teaching style to include more technology. I’m really pleased with how my program is going so far.

2. My biggest fitness accomplishment was: passing my green belt test and breaking both my boards!

3. My biggest career accomplishment was: presenting an hour of very well-received professional development to my colleagues. People had really positive things to say about it and a few have already implemented ideas I shared (it was over a month ago so that is a VERY short turn around).

4. My biggest relationship accomplishment was: recognizing the awesomeness of my group of mom friends and being appreciative of their amazing presence in my life.

5. These are the skills I acquired this year: I mastered the yellow belt techniques at my dojo; I learned to effectively implement a lot of new teaching strategies; I greatly perfected a comprehensible-input technique that I have struggled with; I am better at controlling outbursts of anger.

6. A big mistake that I made this year—and the lesson that I learned as a result—was: So I didn’t make this mistake this year, but I was forced to reckon with it this year. My biggest mistake was moving too quickly to find a new tenant five years ago when we originally signed with the man who we bought out this year. We felt so financially squeezed that we went with the first friend-of-a-friend that came by, and we also charged way too little for rent, in an attempt to not participate in the incredibly messed up system that is SF rents. But what I learned is that if you have to participate in the system, you can’t try to rise above it, especially when later it will turn around and kick you in the ass. I so regret the choices we made with our unit back then, but I’m proud that we’re moving forward with a decision that makes us feel better even though it puts us in a financially difficult situation. (Also, our tenant leaves in two weeks!)

7. An obstacle or a challenge that I overcame this year: I managed this incredibly shitty tenant situation without regrets (the regrets are all about earlier choices), and that was hard for me.

8. This year, I learned the following about myself: I handle regret very poorly and I have a very hard time moving past my mistakes.

9. Here’s something I learned about other people: we’re all doing the best we can, even if it’s hard for us to see that about ourselves or each other.

10. This made me laugh the hardest this year: my husband. He handles everything with humor and I learn so much about different ways to weather challenges from him every day.

11. The most fun I had all year was: swimming with sea lions in La Paz, Mexico.

12. My best memory of the year was: the day trip to Espíritu Santo in La Paz with my husband and kids.

13. My biggest regret of the year was: not giving more. Giving more is a big goal of mine in 2020.

14. My biggest disappointment of the year was: how much money we had to pay our tenant to leave.

15. The books I read this year were: Ohhh. I am so not good at keeping track of this… The best book I read this year was definitely Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, which I highly recommend and hope to write more about later.

16. My favorite movie of the year was: I really liked Captain Marvel. Did that come out this year?

17. A TV show I really enjoyed watching this year was: I absolutely adored Fleabag Season 2 (on Amazon Prime). It was so, so good. I was so bummed out when it ended (because I wanted to watch more.)

18. I really enjoyed this live performance (concert, play, musical, or dance performance): I just saw Cracker with my dad at the Great American Music Hall. I love the concerts I see with him (they are his gifts for Christmas from me) and this one was especially fun. Really brought me back to my high school years. I also saw Hamilton with two friends in September and loved it.

19. Here’s a song I listened to over and over again this year: True Love Will Find You In the End (Beck cover of a Daniel Johnston classic).

20, This is something I wish I hadn’t bought this year: Hmmm. There isn’t a specific purchase that I regret but I regret getting so much on Amazon. This is something I still struggle with because sometimes I can’t find what I’m looking for anywhere else. But I need to stop giving my money to that company, even if it means I just don’t get to have some things that I can’t find elsewhere. That is another goal in 2020.

21. This is the best thing I bought all year: My iPad Pro, which replaced my home computer and which I use all the time at home and school. It has been a major player in my curriculum revamp and I spent the summer agonizing over the purchase, but in the end was so glad that I made the leap.

22. Someone I really enjoyed spending time with this year was: my friend J. She’s the best.

23. I adopted this new positive habit: I brush my teeth early and don’t snack after 7:30pm (except for tea). This has made me feel a lot better physically.

24. I dropped this negative habit: taking on responsibilities I don’t want, or can’t actually perform.

25. One time I stood up for myself this year was: in my participation on the PTA. I’ve stepped WAY back, and while the people who were supposed to step up didn’t, it’s still been okay.

26. The scariest thing I went through this year was: Hmm. I don’t think “scary” is the right word, but it was really hard to let go of my grandmother, and her home, this year. So much harder than I expected (and it was a little scary because it forced me to realize that my parents, and aunts and uncles, are getting so much older and the dynamics of my extended family are going to be changing a lot in the next ten years.)

27. A really cool thing I created this year was: my “Profe Pulpo” persona at school. When I ask my students to be very engaged in a story or other comprehensible input I wear an octopus hat and they can earn stickers with my bitmoji wearing the octopus hat for their bingo boards. It has been a huge boon to participation in my room this year. And it’s a lot of fun.

28. My most common mental state this year was: Contented? Is that possible? It wasn’t depressed or anxious, I know that! Win!

29. Here’s how I grew emotionally this year: The massive change in our financial situation has forced me to do a lot of reckoning with my intense feelings of failure around money and finances. It’s been REALLY REALLY hard, and I’m sorry I haven’t written about it much hear but I honestly couldn’t bring myself to put down in writing that I’ve failed to grown much at all in this area despite coming here so many times and proclaiming I was going to try. This coming year we NEED to change the way we spend money, so I guess I’m going to learn if necessity can finally turn me around.

30. Here’s how I grew spiritually this year: I feel more balanced and centered, more aware of my priorities and values (though I’m still working on this).

31. The best gift I received this year was: a small inheritance from my grandmother’s estate, which definitely helped with the buy out.

32. The nicest thing someone did for me this year was: My friend J planned a birthday party for me! It was so thoughtful and I felt very appreciated.

33. The nicest thing I did for someone else this year was: I help my friends out with their kids a lot. I have a lot of help from family so I try hard to take their kids when they need it, or just for fun. I’m used to having a lot of kids around so it doesn’t faze me as much as it does others.

34. I showed real gumption this year when I: fixed the popcorn popper with a random extra piece from some old IKEA set. Saved me $40 and made me feel very resourceful.

35. If I could change one thing about this year it would be: more acceptance of my past mistakes. Looking forward instead of looking back.

36. A new food/dish I tried this year was: My husband has been shopping a lot more at the Asian mega-market near us and we’re having all sorts of interesting dishes with furikake and miso paste. They aren’t necessarily new to me, but they are definitely new additions to our regular dinner menu.

37. This year my physical health was: really good actually. I’m the strongest I’ve maybe ever been. Yay martial arts!

38. Here’s a new friend I made this year: I didn’t make any new friends this year but I’ve solidified my friendships with the moms I’ve been kind of hanging out with for a couple of years. I definitely feel like those friendships leveled up this year. 😉

39. This year I traveled to: La Paz Mexico! It was awesome!

40. Here’s one adventure I had this year: The first week in La Paz, when it was just the kids and me, was definitely an adventure.

41. One contribution I made to my community was: I put on the carnival at my daughter’s school last spring, which was a huge endeavor. I’m glad I did it, and I’m also glad I’m never doing it again.

42. This year I spent a lot of time here: at my dojo! I’m trying hard to build community there and it’s starting to pay off!

43. This year I broke out of my comfort zone by: presenting to my colleagues! That professional development I took in the summer has pushed me to try so many new things that I never would have attempted before, but that was definitely the most rewarding.

44. A hobby I loved spending time on this year was: martial arts. It’s both mentally and physically challenging.

45. This year I practiced self-care by: saying “no” to my previous PTA obligations, even if that meant nobody took them on.

46. My biggest time waster this year was: probably the AppleNews app before I deleted it. Scrolling their got BAD for a while – so many BuzzFeed listcicles! I just bought the NYTimes for $1 a week for the year and I’m so enjoying having that. It’s a great addition to TPM, which is my regular source for news and current events (and BBC Mundo for world news).

47. Here’s a great time-saving hack I learned this year: letting my husband take on more responsibilities! It’s crazy how much time you save when someone else does stuff instead of you!

48. What I am most grateful for this year is: my husband. He helped me through some hard stuff with great patience. I’m also thankful for my psychiatrist who urged me to take the plunge and try a new medication, which I think has helped me tremendously.

49. Here are three words that would sum up this year: Hard but good.

50. If I could travel back to the beginning of the year, here’s some advice I would give myself: Let the regret go. Learn from it but let it go. Also, be kind to yourself. You’re growing and changing, even if you don’t realize it.

Well it’s Monday again, and I can’t really believe that just last Monday we felt like we were starting break. It was a good week and looking back it felt long, but in the good way. It definitely felt like something of a break, and for that I’m very grateful.

The kids are waking up later than usual which gives us more time to sleep. We have had enough planned that no one is going totally stir crazy, and the Switch is still new enough that they are excited to play that when they can. We’ve had enough beautiful days, and we’ve made sure to get outside whenever it’s sunny, and that is definitely helping.

Now we have a week left and after spending a day at work I’m definitely in oh-shit-break-is-half-over-and-I-haven’t-gotten-anything-done mode. It’s a stressful place but maybe if I’m there now I can actually accomplish something meaningful before it’s too late. Today I want to think about what I would be most grateful to finish, so that when I start school again next week there is a little less weight on my shoulders.

I’m also realizing that it’s the end of the year, and the end of a decade (it’s not actually the end of a decade but if everyone thinks it is I might as well pretend like it is as well – and I appreciate the aesthetic of ending a decade when the numbers change) and I should be doing some reflection. When I think back at where I was in 2010 it’s insane to think of how much my life has changed. The “teens” where the beginning of the rest of my life, as they say. In the summer of 2010 I became a mother and turned 30. This coming summer my daughter turns “double digits” and I hit the big 40. (I do appreciate being born in a “ten” year as it makes it very easy to look back at my life by increments of 10 because my decades match up with the calendar). This past 10 years was absolutely the hardest, and most rewarding, of my life and I feel very grateful for all that I have. I hope do more reflection on the decade, but I suppose if that doesn’t happen at least I wrote this.

I was also realizing that I’ve been blogging for around 12 years now and that is an insane thing to think. I suppose I could go back and skim late-December posts of each year of my life to remember my previous reflections, but honestly, I’m less and less interested in looking back at my life as I get older. At least not in those ways. Maybe some day that will change…

I always struggle on breaks to strike the right balance between getting caught up (maybe even ahead? Ha!) and letting myself rest and relax. It can even be hard to determine what actually ends up being restful and relaxing and what only results in a comatose state (::cough:: binge watching something mindless on Netflix ::cough::). And of course all this is set in the background of my family and children and their needs and expectations. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk.

Today I’m at work, trying to plan out the month, and especially the first week as I’m taking Friday off to chaperone my daughter’s camping trip. But I also have The Magicians on in the background, so it’s NOT the saddest way to spend a Sunday.

(It’s NOT the saddest way to spend a Sunday! – I omitted the “not” before. 😉

After all the waiting and the counting down, Christmas finally arrived! And now it’s over. I do like this time of year, but it’s always a relief when it’s finally over.

And now it feels like the break really begins.

This year we have no plans, not even a short trip to the snow (which we did last year). I’m glad, because I’d love to get some work done around the house, and having this much time might actually mean it will happen.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents’ house. I meant to spend the beginning of the day at a park with a friend and then in my classroom (where the kids would scooter around the blacktop), but the rain that was supposed to fall all day on Wednesday, actually hit Tuesday and my plans were thwarted. I did manage to get in a (very muddy) run before the sun went down, which I was very thankful for.

{I also managed to finally make and order the two calendars that were supposed to be gifts for both sets of grandparents, but that I struggled mightily to complete. I don’t know what is up with me this year but I’ve REALLY struggled doing a lot of the things that I have managed easily in past years. Maybe I really am just intensely burned out.}

Christmas morning was a success. The kids got what they wanted: a Nintendo Switch and a Chromebook. We spent much of the day playing on the Switch, and I will say, all four of us racing on MarioKart is really fun. So far my son has managed losing with the grace we were hoping (but not expecting) he could manage.

Both kids also got one day of “unlimited play” and “15 hours” of additional play each to be redeemed during the break. They both seem to think that yesterday was their one day of unlimited play, and while that was not my intent, I have not yet contradicted them. I’m going to hold that in my back pocket and see if I need it later.

Tonight we’re going to our local amusement park’s winter celebration. My husband worked on Christmas Eve but he didn’t go in today, and he doesn’t usually get to come to the park with us because we don’t get him a season pass, but we all got an extra “bring a friend pass” for renewing early (thanks mom!) and I get to use mine today to bring him in. I actually love amusement parks, especially now that my daughter likes rollercoasters, so it should be fun. It will also be good to get out of the house.

Right now I’m working out because I needed desperately to shower (wearing long johns for 24 hours straight will make you feel… gross) so I thought I might as well get sweaty first. Later I’ll take the kids to the park behind the library for a couple hours to take advantage of the sun that is finally out, and then we’ll head down to the amusement park. Tomorrow I have a couple of play dates set up, and I plan to work on the house while my son is at his friend’s house and my daughter has someone over to hang out.

So far the break has felt doable but next week is when we have the opportunity to feel cabin fever. I have a few day trips planned (only mentally – I still need to commit and buy tickets), one being Muir Woods, which I tried to visit last Thanksgiving (2018) but couldn’t because of the fires (the park was closed due to poor air quality). I am also considering the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but that is a much bigger commitment, especially financially.

Let the break begin!

Yesterday my kids were great. They played happily together, being kind and considerate to each other and to me. It was like a fairy tale where they reacted to every situation in the way I would have wanted.

They even took a bath together, which is something they haven’t attempted in years!

It was a really, really nice day. The perfect way to start our two week break. I decided early on that I would consider it their early (and let’s be honest, only) Christmas present.

It was definitely the best present I could ever get.

Happy Holidays! I hope you all get something as magical as I got yesterday.

Last weekend we needed to get out of the house so we drove to Twin Peaks and hiked to the top of both. Some how I had never been before!

It’s been raining a lot but it was clear that afternoon. The views were amazing. I’m definitely going to hike up there more often.

Downtown. You can even see the Ferry Building at the Port of San Francisco at the end of Market Street.

My closest college friend came to town last night to spend the holidays with her family. She also hoped to say goodbye to her cousin who had been battling liver failure. But last night, only hours after my friend touched down, her cousin died, leaving two young children without their mother. Now my friends’ family will be navigating this horrible grief during the holidays. I suppose they will also be planning her service.

I want to be their for my friend in a meaningful way. I have nothing to do for the next ten days and my parents are around to support me so I can support my friend and her family, but I’m not sure what to do. Obviously I will bring a meal, but surely there is more I could do. I already offered to take my friend’s two young kids so she could have some time, and now she might actually need that to attend services, but I’m worried she won’t ask for what she needs and I’m not sure how to offer my support.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can support my friend and her family during this horrible nightmare? I feel so powerless to help them, but I really want to be there for my friend. Should I just lay low and be ready to help if she asks me? Should I offer once and not again, or keep offering? I don’t know what to do.

I follow a few people online who seem to always have their shit together, and for a couple of them they seem to genuinely feel really great about life most of the time. And while it’s true that these people make A LOT more than me (or, better said, they married people who make A LOT more than my husband – or both!), and are able to employ the services of other people in a way that greatly reduces the stress in their own lives*, they still do A LOT and objectively have more on their plates, so I think that maybe the extra help just puts them at about where I am at, and yet they NEVER post anything like I did last night. How can that be? How can they never feel just … meh. Super, super meh?

Maybe some people are just biologically wired to be more enthusiastic and hopeful, in the same way that I am wired to be anxious and depressed? Truly, that might be the answer and all my wondering about why is useless because it’s just a function of who we are, at a genetic level. Still, I wonder.

Recently, a woman who has her shit very much together but also writes more honestly (in my opinion) than most who write under their real names, admitted to having a rough month emotionally, and I so appreciated knowing that I’m not alone. She wasn’t sure what caused the funk or why it eventually lifted, but she wrote about it. Amen to that I wanted to say (and I did at one point, in a comment). Maybe other people who have those months just don’t write them down? But I know I’ve written here before (in posts probably identical to this one), that I would struggle greatly to show up here with a smile on my face when shit gets ugly in my head. Which is why I take long breaks instead.

So yeah, just thinking that same thought I always thing again, maybe this time with less judgement (toward myself! and others!) and more curiosity. I really do wonder about it. I wonder about the people who seem unfazed and I wonder why I am always so very, very, fazed. I wonder about it a lot.

*I can’t fathom being able to provide someone else’s livelihood but that is a whole other post.

What do you think is going on with the perfect people? Is their attitude genuine, or do they put up a facade for their fans? Or is it harder to explain than either of those?

Or better said, where my head is at.

Actually, I’m not really sure of that.

I’m in a weird place right now. It’s not my normal feelings of hopeless that mark my usual bouts of depression. It’s something else. Everything feels frenetic and overwhelming, even though it’s objectively not. I have managed to extricate myself from the PTA enough to not being doing a lot of that these days. And while I did just test for my green belt – which was a significant time commitment, I was prepared enough that the weeks before were not awful.

We are keeping things really simple this holiday season. Each of our kids is getting a BIG thing they really want and that is about it. For my daughter it is a Chromebook and for my son a Nintendo Switch. We will almost assuredly regret the Switch, but since my daughter was getting her first BIG thing, we thought maybe we could pivot from lots of presents to just the one BIG present with our son, who is definitely they more present-obsessed of the two. He’s been begging us for a Switch for over a year, so he really, really wants one, and hasn’t asked for one other thing (having his birthday a couple of months ago definitely helps), so we’ll see how it goes. Not getting them much has definitely helped with the holiday stress – and having Thanksgiving be so late, and us traveling that week, also forced us to get less this year.

I still haven’t made the calendars yet – but since my grandmother is no longer with us I only have to make two. The good news is my inlaws aren’t in town so I can push that one back a bit anyway. I feel like as long as I get them printed by the New Year I’ll be okay.

My winter vacations start on Friday, which means I can go to my kids’ parties tomorrow. Part of me is sad I don’t get the day to hang out at home alone, but I know it means a lot to them for me to be there. My staff holiday party is this this afternoon, and it’s early which I appreciate because I’m fighting off something that is not fun. (So much horrible stuff has been going around at work, I’ll count myself lucky if this is all I get.)

I have spent the past three weeks being thankful that we’re not traveling anywhere or doing anything over the break, but now I’m staring 16 days straight with my kids and I know it’s going to be intense. My husband isn’t taking any extra days off because he had to take so many to go to my grandmother’s memorial. And my inlaws aren’t in town so I won’t get much help. But a couple of my daughter’s friends are around so if I can find friends for my son I’ll be set (if my daughter has friends over and my son doesn’t, things break very, very badly for everyone).

So yeah. That is where I’m at. It’s not great, and honestly I’m not sure why. I’m hoping once I’m officially off for break I’ll start to feel better.

We made it home again after our trip to St. Louis. It was a good visit – better than I was expecting. It was healing to be at the memorial, to see so many family and friends come together to remember our grandmother. It was sad, and I definitely shed some tears, but I didn’t ugly cry until I said goodbye to her house the night before I left.

I spent every summer in that house growing up. It’s been in my life far longer than any other house and it meant something very special to me. It was a house where only good things happened – where aunts and uncles and cousins I only saw once a year ate around a table, laughing and talking and sharing stories. It’s where my cousins and I invented and played elaborate games in the basement for hours on end, where we held so hard onto the underside of the player piano our finger tips turned white, where we each stood on a pedal of the stationary bike and bobbed up and down, up and down. It’s where we dressed up in our mothers’ old wedding gowns and built forts out of the cardboard bricks and carefully spelled out business letters on the typewriter. It’s where we positioned all my grandmother’s old perfume bottles so that someone might want to buy one, and where we wrote up the receipts when they did.

Saying goodbye to that house was really hard. Harder than I expected. My grandmother lived there for over 60 years. My father grew up there. I spent my summers there. It changed very little over those six decades, and it was a very special place for me indeed.

My grandmother evidently kept every letter or card anyone had ever given to her as an adult, and when we went through them the stack from me was by far the biggest. I wrote her letters and cards, typed and on fancy stationary. Seeing those letters was jarring – I wouldn’t have remembered that I wrote her so often. I have yet to read through them, but I did bring them home. My mom couldn’t understand why I would want to keep those old letters when I was so eager to throw away my journals and diaries, but it’s different when you write for someone else. I will definitely read through them some day, but not until I’m ready to work through some more grief, for both the loss of my grandmother and the loss of whoever I was all those years ago.

Coming home was hard and it’s been a tough week. I had a lot of things that needed to be done by Tuesday and Wednesday and now all of that is past and a weight has lifted and I’m finally ready to face the holidays. We put up our tree on Monday, did the lights Tuesday and finally put up the ornaments last night. My grandmother loved this time of year (for the past three years she kept a Christmas tree up year round!), and I’m trying to celebrate her as I celebrate the season.

Being with my grandmother always meant being with my aunts and uncles and cousins, and spending Thanksgiving with them this year was a remind of how amazing they are and how much I cherish them in my life. I was definitely thankful to spend the week with them, and now I’m so glad to be home.

How was your Thanksgiving?