Not a Wasted Word

One of the activities the Designing Your Life book and workbook require you try is to track your energy and engagement during various activities (at home, work, and everywhere else) over a 3-4 week period. Throughout the day, you are supposed to look back on the things you did and determine your level of engagement (how interested you were in the activity and how quickly time seemed to pass while you were doing it) and your energy level, both during and after the task. I’ve been doing this, and I’m recognizing a phenomena that so far the book has not mentioned. A lot of the activities I really enjoy – they provide a lot of engagement and leave me feeling energized – are challenging enough that I don’t necessarily look forward to them.

Take martial arts for example. I am really enjoying martial arts right now. I finally got my yellow belt which means I’m learning new kicks and hand work at almost every class. I’ve also finally started sparring, which is intense aerobic exercise that requires incredible mental focus. I am constantly moving, anticipating the other person’s moves while also planning my own. It’s all-consuming, and at the end I’m both exhausted and exhilarated. My usual runner’s high can’t hold a candle to how I feel after sparring.

And yet, sparring is rigorous exercise – both mental and physical. I don’t generally look forward to it. Even though I know I’m going to feel great after the fact, I also know how intense it is in the moment. It’s not that I dread sparring or anything, but knowing I’ll be doing that instead of just lounging around at home on a Saturday at noon, is a bit of a weight. So yes, the actually activity is the epitome of engaging and energizing, but the anticipation of the event can have the opposite effect.

The same goes for assisting at the dojo. Our dojo is a non-profit that relies heavily on volunteer support. I am there every Monday while my son takes the class for 3.5-5yos and my daughter takes the other class for kids. I’ve recently committed to assisting during those classes every Monday, after providing inconsistent support in the past (some weeks I would assist and other weeks I’d sit in the hall and get work done). I really enjoy volunteering at the dojo – the kids are awesome and I am supporting a community that I value – but there are days when I’m tired after teaching for six hours at work and the last thing I want to do is manage other people’s children for another 1.5 hours before I go home to manage my own. I always feel really good during and after my volunteer time at the dojo, but sometimes I don’t look forward to having one more commitment on my time and energy, especially when I feel behind at work.

So yeah. I’m not sure how to feel about these activities. If I just look at how they engage and energize me in the moment, and after, it would make sense to spend time doing them every day. And yet I know if I did I would be overwhelmed, because they take a toll on my general well being by being so engaging and energizing.

I don’t know if this makes any sense. I hope as I continue to track my activities, and how they make me feel, I will be better able to incorporate these realizations into a coherent understanding of which activities make me feel good, and which make me feel “meh.”

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Do you know which activities engage and energize you? What are they?

Ugh! I come here and I try to write! I really do! I even have ideas of things to write about. But it feels so hard some days. I’m just so tired, so sick of… producing… you know?

But I wanted to write something. To say that I’m still here. I’m still working on stuff. I’m still trying to identify my core values. I’m reading Designing Your Life and working through its workbook. It’s been interesting, but I’m only just starting and don’t feel like I can write about it yet. I’m spending the next three weeks tracking my activities to see how engaging and energizing they are. Maybe at the end of those three weeks I’ll have some insights.

I’m not rushing this because I want it to work. I am tired of feeling unfulfilled in a life that could absolutely be fulfilling. I believe that a change in mindset, or possibly a bigger change in how I spend my time, or even earn my living, could be a game changer for me. I believe that I have the opportunities available to make a real and lasting and positive change, if I just knew what change to make. So I will take my time, and read, and talk, and write, and hopefully I will figure it out.

And if I don’t, well at least I tried.

My daughter is only 8.5-years-old but I swear she is already flirting with tween-dom. Recently her obsession is having her own phone. As far as she is concerned, ALL her friends have one, and we are depriving her by not getting her one of her own.

I’ve told her many times that it will be a while before she has a phone that can be used out in the real world. And when she does get one it will be a cheapy flip phone that makes calls and simple texts, because my daughter has inherited my penchant for misplacing things and I’ll be damned if she loses a smart phone a week after we get her one. She’ll have to practice keeping track of something much cheaper before she gets the kind of phone she really wants.

Having said that, my phone crapped out on me and my plan was to turn it in to get the $150 credit towards a new one. Except then I thought maybe I’d keep it and give it to her (to use at home with WiFi only). The reality is, she can use our iPad pretty much whenever she is allowed to have a screen, so it doesn’t really feel like that big of a deal, except I know it is a big deal for her, because it would be HER phone.

{A couple of her friends have actual smart phones with actual data plans – which seems totally insane to me! – but most of her friends that “have a phone” have a relative’s hand-me-down that works only with WiFi, so this mean a lot to her.}

It was a hard choice. The $150 off my new phone was nothing to sneeze at, and I worried that the current issues would multiply making my current phone pretty much useless, but those weren’t my main concerns. Mostly I worried that we would be capitulating to her wishes, wishes she only harbors because of her friends. Do I really want to let her believe that we will get her everything her friends have? It was hard to feel good about either choice.

We did end up giving her my old phone. She was thrilled. But before we gave it to her, we sat down and had a long conversation about when and how she would use it. We wiped the phone, created a child’s icloud account for her under our Apply family share plan, and put every parental restriction on that account that was available. We also disabled the web browser. She can’t go online at all, and she can’t download even a free app without requesting permission.

All these restrictions were really important to us. We’ve struggled with apps for a while; we are very careful to research everything before letting her use it. Many of her friends are already using apps with social functions that we do NOT feel comfortable with. GachaLife is a popular game – mostly the girls just want to design characters with different hairstyles and outfits – but there is a social component that cannot be turned off and any other person in the game can contact anyone else and say whatever they want. Even if we trusted her not to respond, who knows what horrible messages she would be exposed to. Evidently this app is notorious for creepy adults trying to gain access to young kids. NO. THANK. YOU.

{I’ve been surprised how many of my very smart, involved parent-friends have done nothing to research apps before letting their child use them. Some of my daughter’s friends have absolutely no app restrictions at all.}

The other app my daughter really wanted was MessangerKids, which has more protections (parents have to approve any new contacts), but is created by Facebook and is rife with functions that can have the effect of making kids feel addicted, or creating unnecessary feelings of social isolation. Not to mention I don’t trust Facebook with my daughter’s data AT ALL. Could my daughter use it and just have fun, without getting addicted or feeling left out? Probably. But that doesn’t mean we should capitulate and let her use it. (The more I learn about Facebook, the more relieved I am that I left over three years ago and the more committed I am to never, ever go back.)

Navigating this stuff is definitely becoming increasingly more complicated.

We ended up finding an Instagram-like app for kids with lots of parental protections called Kudos :). And since it didn’t have the photo editing capabilities she wanted in MessangerKids, we let her get photo and video editing apps that have no social media functions (she just saves her creations to her phone and then uploads them to Kudos). She can also iMessage with her friends that have access to an iphone or ipad, which doesn’t happen much because none of them are on these devises very frequently.

Finally we printed copies of the Common Sense Media K-5 media contract (I highly recommend them as a resource for navigating media of all kinds with your children) and discussed it with her before asking her to sign it. It has three sections “take care,” “think first,” and “stay safe.” We also added our family’s specific screen-time restrictions (no more than an hour a day – after homework – unless extra time is earned by reading a grade-level or above novel on the weekends). We already see her choosing not to watch TV so she can have phone time, or choosing a second episode of something knowing she won’t get her phone later. So far she hasn’t fought back against any of our boundaries, and is really enjoying connecting with her friends through her phone.

I know that navigating technology with our daughter will only get more complicated as she gets older. I hope we are laying a strong foundation now for conscientious and responsible media use when it really matters.

How do you manage media in your house?

Last week, I read an article in Remezcla about two kids who were setting up a Churros and Chocolate stand in Berkeley to raise money for kids that are still being detained at the boarder. Their efforts were in response to a boy who sold lemonade to raise money for Trump’s wall in Austin.

I wanted to support their efforts, an show my kids how other kids can make a positive impact in the world. I also wanted to do something else in Berkeley after we went.

I ended up searching for fun things to do with kids in Berkeley, because I usually take my kids there to see sports games or to roam the campus. So somehow, I didn’t know about Adventure Playground (even though I think I read an article about it not that long ago), even though it’s pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever heard about for kids.

Adventure Playground is basically a junk yard where kids can do whatever they want. It’s a space where random boards have been cobbled together to create forts, and kids can add, or subtract, in any way they see fit. Any child can take saws to the already made structures or hammer on something new. The tools, wood, and paint are all provided; kids just need to turn in pieces of wood, nails or “monsters” (wood with nails sticking out) to the tool table to trade.

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As a “free range” parent who wishes my kids could have the kind of freedom I remember as a child, I think this place is the absolute greatest. I can imagine many parents are horrified by all the possible scenarios in which kids could get hurt, but there are clearly many parents, like me, who are thrilled to let their kids loose in this creative wonderland. Honestly, seeing how popular it was, and realizing I’m not the only parent who wants this for my kids, made me feel pretty great. I guess I’m not totally crazy!

We got there late and it was closing early (winter hours), so I promised my kids we would be back next weekend with some friends. I have a feeling we are going to spend a lot of weekends at Adventure Playground.

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(Also, we spent an hour at the marina, right next to the playground, which was also beautiful and fun, and full of crazy squirrels who didn’t give a f***, as squirrels in Berkeley rarely do.)

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My week off is over. So how did I do?

Pretty good.

I did accomplish the following, which I’m happy about….

• Determined (at the genius bar) that my old phone really was busted, backed it up, got a new phone, got the old phone ready to give to my daughter (just the audio jacks were busted so she can still use it, just not with headphones or to make calls).
• Got teeth cleaned (and unexpected dental work done, blerg).
• Dropped off bags of clothes at a few different places.
• Returned both my kids Kindles to get fixed under their warranties (this was an entrenched item on my to-do list so very happy to get it done).
• Stamped 650 envelopes with 8 stamps each! It was a lot of stamping, and my arm, hand and fingers are still recovering, but I also got to watch 10 episodes of season 3 of The Magicians over two days so it was actually pretty pleasant. And it saved us $200+.
• Tore half of the 650 strips of raffle tickets. I’ll tear the other half this week.
• Copied the 650 raffle ticket info slips and cut half of them.
• Organized my classroom (a little, it could use a lot more).
• Made some copies for this week (which I had to staple and hole punch because our big copier that does those things is busted).
• Created an assignment for this week.
• Got two of my classes’ online grades up to date (for one of them I hadn’t inputted even one score for this trimester, which ends in three weeks – for shame!)
• Grade papers for two more of my classes (though I didn’t get those scores online).
• Worked out 4 times. Woot!
• Kept the house relatively organized.
• Put up the March calendar in the kitchen. (And realized I haven’t booked my kids spring break camp yet! Welp! (Our spring breaks never match up.)
• Went to my professional development on Saturday (it was really hard to motivate myself to go).
• Wen to two doctor’s appointments with my daughter (we ordered her new reading glasses, which she borderline needs – we’ll see if they help her with longer novel reading stamina.)
• Got both kids to school on time on Friday morning without my husband (my son had to brush his teeth in the car but otherwise we did great!)
• Volunteered for four hours at an event at my daughter’s school on Friday evening (even though she didn’t go because of a cough – my parents’ had her)

Things I didn’t do…

• Volunteer at either of my kids’ schools (the additional dental work required so much time on Wednesday that I didn’t actually make it to my classroom, so I had to drive back to work on Friday to get the stamping done).
• Input the scores online for the grading I did this week.
• Grade some make-up work and tests that need to get graded. Ugh.
• Write the Spanish 2 recommendation letter (I kinda, sorta started it, but not really. Blerg.)
• Write as many blog posts as I intended to. (Par for the course these days, I’m afraid.)

All in all, I’m happy with what I got done. I’m not surprised I didn’t get the Spanish 2 recommendation letter written, because I have no idea how to go about that. I did try to write it. I sat with the cursor flashing on the white page, but I was flummoxed. I need to ask the other 8th grade teachers if they have any kind of recommendation letter for Math or English that goes out so I can at least use it as a reference. If they don’t I’m in trouble; I need to send them out in about three weeks, which is also when a whole bunch of other shit needs to be done by. The next three weeks are going to be brutal, but it’s good I know that now so I can be proactive in tackling my to-do list. There will many late nights but I’ll get it all done. I always do.

It actually ended up being a nice break, even though I had to fit so much stuff in. Just being away from my regular work schedule is so refreshing, even if I spent two of the four days in my actual classroom. I’m not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but I’m also not dreading it. That’s something.

How was your week?

This week I don’t have school but my kids do. I always look forward these weeks (I get two a year) as a time to get caught up. But I also always end up leaving things for the precious days away from work, and then don’t have enough time to actually get everything done.

This week I only have four days because my kids were off yesterday too. Of course they still have school so the mornings and afternoons will spent just as they always are. I have about 6-7 hours on Tuesday through Friday to get shit done.

Knowing that I would probably try to get more done than was possible, I took some time last week and weekend to schedule my days in my teacher planner. Already it’s clear the hours won’t stretch in the ways I want them too, but it’s better to know that now so I can prioritize what is most important, or what needs longer stretches of daytime hours.

So where does all the beautiful, no-kid, no-work time go?

TUESDAY

• QT with son before/during drop off
• Work out (work on spring carnival + write this post on elliptical)
• Lunch with mom and friends (for one friend’s birthday)
• Call Amazon about both my kids’ Kindles being repaired/replaced
• Pick up kids a little earlier than usual for park + library

WEDNESDAY

• Drive to work area to do the next three bullets (which means I also have to drive home)
• Get new phone (ugh, can’t put if off any longer)
• Teeth cleaning
• Stamp envelopes for spring carnival at work (where I have more desk space)
• Martial arts for me and kids in afternoon/evening

THURSDAY

• Drive to work area again!
• Grade papers / organize room
• Make copies for carnival
• Stamp more envelopes (so many envelopes!)
• Eye appointment and well visit with daughter

FRIDAY

• Do both drop offs because my husband is leaving early Friday morning for a trip
• Volunteer 1-2 hours at son’s school
• Volunteer 1-2 hours at daughter’s school
• Enjoy an hour or two of down time??
• Pack kids for overnight with my parents
• Return to daughter’s school to help with African American Heritage Night

I originally planned to create my Spanish 2 recommendation form this week, but I realized I could work on that during my 8-hour professional development on Saturday (that is why my kids are going to my parents’ house Friday evening). It is easy to do work on the sly on my computer at those things and it will give me something to do to pass the time. I also hope to plan for the coming week at that point.

I’m glad I took the time to plan out my week, because I had to drastically reduce my expectations for what would actually get done. I know wrenches could still be thrown into this whole thing, but here’s hoping I get to check these things off my list.

I used to talk quite a bit about what I couldn’t afford. When someone mentioned an amazing, two-week trip to a tropical beach, I’d respond with, Well that must be nice, but we can’t afford it, (mostly just in my head, but sometimes out loud). It has taken me a long time, and an increase in earning power, to recognize that “we can’t afford that” really means, “we don’t prioritize that.”

It’s a subtle shift, but an important one. The first time I really understood the difference was when a friend was talking excitedly about her upcoming vacation and I mentioned something about not being able to afford a trip like that and she said that she couldn’t either, and that was what credit cards were for. I wasn’t taught much in the ways of financial responsibility, but two lessons I did learn were to never bounce a check and to never charge more to my card than I could immediately pay off. The idea of charging a vacation I couldn’t pay for on my credit card would never occur to me. I’ve only ever charged more on my credit card than I could afford during times of financial distress.

That small conversation really changed the way I looked at the world. I always assumed that my uncomplicated ideas about finances were shared by most people, and that most people were making their financial choices in the same ways I would. So if they were going on big vacations it was because they had the money in the bank to pay for them. Once that assumption was upended, I realized that people prioritized their spending in all sorts of different ways.

I still had the “we can’t afford that” mentality for a long time, probably because there were a lot of things we truly could not afford. We couldn’t afford most houses in our area – a bank would simply refuse to finance mortgages that big for us. We couldn’t afford private schools for our children, at least not at the tuition rates we were seeing. Certainly there are still many houses, and private schools, in San Francisco that we legitimately can’t afford, but I’m recognizing that when I think to myself that I can’t afford something, what I really mean is that I don’t prioritize it.

So then I started to think more about what I was prioritizing, and trying to identify where those priorities were coming from. A little bit of reading later and it became clear that I need identify my core values if I want to make thoughtful choices about how I prioritize my life.

What I didn’t realize when I wrote that post about wealth and privilege and the worth of my words, was that a part of me recognized that with our new financial security, I could no longer blame the parts of my life I wasn’t happy with on outside circumstances. After a decade of feeling like we didn’t have many choices, that life was happening to us instead of us living our lives, that narrative didn’t really make any sense any more. It was easy to believe our choices were drastically limited, but the reality is that we limit them ourselves, with our assumptions, our preconceptions, and our values.

It’s been a weird year for me. I feel adrift, not really unhappy, but definitely not content. Recognizing that I won’t be looking for a new job has forced me to find ways of being happy without a major shift. This is my life, and I need to figure out how to live it in a way that feels both meaningful and sustainable.

I’m going to be doing some work to identify, and then clarify, my core values. I’ll be looking at my goals and trying to figure out what really matters to me, so I can start really living my life, instead of feeling like it’s just happening to me.

Do you know what your core values are? Are they a driving factor in the decisions you make?

My morning commute is beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me, and I’ve been driving it for 15 years.

One of my favorite things about this area is the fog. I just really, really love the white mist sitting silently between the trees.

This year, the morning fog has upped its game considerably. It’s been incredible. I wish I could get better pictures of it, but there is never a good vantage point to truly capture its beauty. I suppose these crappy shots will have to do.

On Monday night I broke my work computer. I was walking up the stairs in fuzzy socks and I slipped and it hit the floor from maybe a foot up, right on the corner. The screen (which was open because it takes a while for the log-in screen to appear so I generally open it while I’m walking to wherever I’m going to use it), dissolved into a mess of pixels before going black. It wouldn’t turn back on again.

My work computer is MY computer these days. It has been for a long time. My actual personal computer is a white MacBook. I mention the color because the white ones haven’t been made in many years. Technically it works, but it can’t really support its operating system so everything moves VERY SLOWLY. Like painstakingly slowly. It also has no available storage. I stopped using it about three years ago when I started needing to take my work computer home (because I had to take it between the two schools). I even back up my phone, and download my photos, onto my work computer these days. So when I broke it, I was pretty distraught.

Tuesday the entire tech department of our district was taking a sick day in protest of proposed cuts, so I had to drop it off knowing it wasn’t going to be looked at. I got a loaner laptop from the secretary at my first school and then another from my second school.

You forget how well your computer knows you until you are using some other random laptop. None of my regular websites auto-filled after the first few letters were typed, none of my usernames and passwords auto-populated. None of my Word files were accessible (I didn’t have the time to access my Dropbox). If I create a new Word file I couldn’t print it and had to email it to myself to have a copy. It was just a mess, especially since I use my computer during every single class.

On Tuesday I also broke my rolling briefcase bag that serves as my portable office as I travel between campuses. I actually bought a protection plan on it, but couldn’t find the receipt for long enough that I got pretty upset. I eventually did find an adequate form of proof of purchase but of course the process for actually registering my “replacement plan” and accessing it is long and grueling. The whole thing has just required a ton of time and stress and on top of the broken computer, it felt like adding insult to injury.

I also had a super long staff meeting that ended up being an even bigger waste of time than usual. I am always trying to fit so many things into the afternoons of my weekdays, it’s incredibly frustrating to have to waste two hours on something that feels totally unproductive. I absolutely loathe staff meetings. And we had a professional development on Wednesday afternoon! Why two days in a row?! So unnecessary!

Did I mention that my daughter came to school with me on Tuesday? Because it was Lunar New Year so she had off and I didn’t and I thought it would be good to get her annual “take your daughter to work day” checked off early. She loves coming to my school and was so excited to be there, but it was a long day and we were both very frayed by the end of it (especially after the staff meeting)!

I also need to get a new phone, because at this point I need to restart mine about 3×4 times a day and it’s a constant source of frustration. I’ve had it for almost four years so I feel satisfied enough with how long it’s lasted. But I have no desire to get anything new or fancier, so it sucks that my old one is crapping out of me.

Anyway. Tuesday sucked, and I was really exhausted by the time I got home.

Luckily Wednesday was better. First of all, I started my period, which might sound shitty, and certainly isn’t fun, but definitely improves my mood. I’m not a happy camper the 2-4 days before my period starts, but I generally even out once it gets going. Yesterday I definitely understood better why Tuesday was so upsetting.

I got the ball rolling on getting my bag replaced, and while it’s been tedious and frustrating, I’m thankful the bag is being replaced and I don’t have to pay for it. It was an expensive bag and I rely on it to transport my considerable supplies from one school to another and then home again every day. I’m kind of panicked about finding a way to accomplish this without my bag for the time it will take to get it replaced.

But the best news was that the tech guy got all my information off the hard drive of my computer, even though that was ultimately the issue and it had to be replaced. So now I have my old machine back, with a new hard drive that has all my stuff. When I turned it on Chrome was altering me to the fact that it had not been shut down correctly and asking if I wanted it to restore my windows. I have never been so thrilled to read that error message.

So now my computer is back, and I’ll have a bag to transport it in soon. Oh, and I’ll have a new phone at some point too. Too bad a replacement plan won’t be paying for that.

It’s shaping up to be one of those weeks so I’m trying to remember that when there is rain, look for the rainbows.

(Anyone else’s kids have off today for Lunar New Year?!)