Not a Wasted Word

My husband is about to go away with friends to a music festival in Memphis from Tuesday to Sunday. It also happens to be book fair week at my daughter’s school. It’s going to be nuts to be sure.

My husband is actually going away for a week each month between now and November. While one is work-related he doesn’t have to go for work, he was just invited in his work capacity and wants to go because it looks good on his CV. Oh, and it’s in Australia. The other two are strictly fun trips with friends.

I am going no where.

But he “feels bad” and we “talked” and I told him that I was going to be asking for the time to train for my green belt test, which will be a challenging test and will require some extra time at the dojo. It was important for me to ask for that specifically because I got a lot of push back from him about the two weeks I needed to get ready for my high yellow belt test, which coincided with my summer professional development. I hope now that I explicitly tied that time to his time away he will handle my requests better.

I’m also taking some me time this weekend. Yesterday afternoon was spent at my old work colleague’s Oktoberfest party (the one who left last year), after which I spent the night at my parents house (my old colleague lives very close to them) and this morning I’m staying at my parents’ house getting shit done since it sure as hell isn’t going to happen next week. My husband always offers me time to get caught up on work during the weekends but if I’m home it’s hard. I’m excited to have uninterrupted time today

My husband is never thrilled when I ask for what I need, but even he can’t sulk when he’s about to go away for a week. I’m getting better at asking for what I need, regardless. Yay for a me weekend!

As I mentioned last year, we found someone willing to be president of our PTA. This year I am vice-president, in hopes of helping the new president through her first year. At the end of this year, I do plan to step down as vice-president (which is not a position that needs to be filled for the board to continue).

The problem is I’m evidently horrible at delegating, and even worse at passing along responsibilities entirely. So far I’ve done an absolute shit job of handing over the reins to someone else.

I guess it’s not surprising, since at my job I’m basically a lone wolf who is free to decide what I want to do and then executes those ideas all on my own. I’ve only rarely had someone to collaborate with and even when I did, I’m realizing looking back that I did a shit job of it there too. I like to do things by myself, and when I’m motivated I can get shit done like gangbusters.

I did basically no prep work this summer to hand over the “presidency” of the PTA to my predecessor, who is an incredibly smart and capable woman. I’m sure she could handle the ins and outs of this role herself, if I’d just give her the information and tools to do it.

Instead I spent much of August and the beginning of September doing everything I used to, while only peripherally involving the new president. I realized pretty quickly that I was failing miserably at stepping down from old role, but as I recognized how much work I’d need to do to effectively step down, the idea of doing so felt more daunting.

I finally met with the new president this weekend and officially handed over two major responsibilities. When I articulated her role in an effective way she immediately took concrete steps to assume those responsibilities. It’s clear that she DOES know how to create systems that will allow the passing of the torch to be much simpler moving forward.

The good news is, I have way less motivation to do anything PTA related than I thought I would. I’m pretty much burnt out. So I’m having less trouble not taking on the stuff I used to do. And the reality is I can’t copy fliers anymore (my work gave us “copy codes” at the end of last year and can now track how much we are copying so making 500 copies for the PTA every week or so just isn’t going to fly anymore – even if I’m buying my own paper which I’ve always done). Since fliers going home in folders is our school’s primary way of communicating, we need to figure out something else. The fliers have never really been effective at producing the parent participation we wanted anyway, so it’s easy to let that fall by the wayside as we explore more effective options for communicating with parents. Anyway, it’s been nice to say, I can’t design/print/copy/sort the fliers anymore and also be okay when that means it just doesn’t happen. I feel the tendrils of this position loosening their hold on me. Now if I can just hand over the reins, I can really step into the background.

The book fair is at the end of this month and then October is pretty light. That is when I hope to fully let go of grasp on the position of PTA president. I am so grateful that my predecessor is capable and that I feel confident in her ability to take on the role. I just wish I had done more in the last two years to delegate responsibilities, so I didn’t have so much to hand over.

The beginning of the school year is always busy and stressful for me, as both a teacher and parent. This year was especially so. This last week I had three Back to School Nights in a row and today I am done. Just done.

I want so badly to come back here and to write, but I struggle to get inspired. There are topics I think it would be interesting to tackle, or posts that I think people might want to read, but ultimately I don’t seem to care enough about writing them. It’s so much easier to consume than to create.

I did take the news app off my phone which has helped me to take back some of the time I’d lost to mindless scrolling. BuzzFeed listscicles definitely were my Instagram or Facebook-equivalent black hole, and they are no longer a part of my life. I haven’t actually missed them at all, which I find surprising. Instead I’ve played more Wordscapes and read more or my book. I also replayed the first The Room, which is a great game.

We gave our tenant ten days to respond to our buy out offer. He was supposed to let us know by today if he was interested. He hasn’t made contact yet, so we’re determining our steps forward. I’m frustrated that he’s just freezing us out, and will likely push us to legally evict him, which will be a protracted and incredibly expensive course of action. At this point I just want it to be over, but it won’t be for a long time and it makes me so frustrated and infuriated. It causes me an incredible amount of stress.

Not much else to write about right now, at least nothing to tack on to this post. I just wanted to say that I’m still here, and I’m still alive, and I’m really thankful that it’s a three day weekend because I’m already exhausted and burnt out and the school year hasn’t even really started.

I have mugs with pictures of both my kids: One of my daughter with various pictures I took in her first year and one with my son’s newborn photo shoot shots. I love using those two mugs, and I look at the pictures every time I drink out of them.

I love them so much, that when I got back from Colombia last year I decided to make a mug with pictures from that trip. Last year I drank out of that mug a ton; every time I remembered a moment from our trip.

I already made a new mug with pictures from La Paz. I dream of one day having a dozen mugs in my cabinet, each one of them with memories of an amazing adventure.

Right now I feel so, so lucky to have these two.

(I have a La Paz post mostly written so I do think I’ll get up one of these days – hopefully soon!)

Today is my kids’ first day of school. My daughter is now a 4th grader and my son is in Kindergarten. And for the first time ever, they are AT THE SAME SCHOOL.

Just one drop off. Just one pick up. I am SO EXCITED.

I only get this for two years, if that, so I’m going to try to really appreciate it. (I also plan to let my daughter get herself to and from school starting in 6th grade so hopefully my days of dropping off and picking up in two spots is really and truly over. We shall see.)

Of course, I’ll be doing all the dropping off and all the picking up again, despite SO MANY conversations with my husband about how unfair that is, and how it makes me resentful and angry. We may be able to swing it so that once a week he does pick up, but right now that is the most I can hope for. I really hope that eventually he takes over one drop off too, but I’m not holding my breath.

{For all the people who just need to tell their spouse that they need to take on more and they do it, YAY FOR YOU! But please remember that some of us aren’t married to people like that, and I promise you, we ARE trying to change things. I am trying so, so hard but the progress is so, so slow.}

I will say that I am SO READY for the school year to start. I’ve had a LOT of quality time with my kids this summer, especially my son, and it hasn’t necessarily been pleasant, so I’m ready for us to get some time apart. I also think that a lot of my son’s “attitude issues” this past month are an expression of his unconscious anxiety about starting at a new school, and I’m REALLY hoping that a week in the classroom will help him process some of that, because I’m am SO TIRED of being yelled at and hit and kicked and having stuff thrown at me. I AM SO, SO DONE.

Students are back at my district on Wednesday so I have a couple more work days to get prepared. I’m no longer commuting between the two middle schools in my district, which is AMAZING news. Now I just have to teach one 4th grade class at the upper elementary school that shares a campus with us, so it’s just a walk away. The students will actually be coming back with me to my classroom, so I’m teaching all day in my own space. Woot! (I really do think sometimes that employers make life miserable for their employees so that returning to the status quo feels like a luxury.)

I really am happy with my schedule this year. Things aren’t necessarily in the order I would have preferred, but I like everything I am teaching and I got first period prep so I don’t have to worry about being late to work after drop off four days a week so yeah, I’ll take it happily.

Good luck to everyone that is facing the first day of a new academic year, be it on the parent-of-student(s) side or the educator side, or both! I hope you and yours have a fantastic year!