Update: The Job

I’m actually typing this in an email to myself while eating cucumbers, cheese & hummus at my desk.  That’s my kinda mid-day break.

There might be crackers happening soon.

There will probably be coffee.  Actually…I’m going to make some.  BRB (as the kids say)

So I’ve had something of a revelation: the electric kettle + pour over coffee maker combination.  My new full-time gig is at a place that is so big that it necessitates 7-minute passing periods.  That gives me more than enough time to brew a cup of coffee the slow way.  And because I’m an equal opportuni-tea beverage drinker, it makes it that much easier to have my daily cup of green (New Year’s resolution 2017 for the win!) as well.  But right now, I’m going dark.

It’s an in-class writing kind of day from start to finish, so I’m at my desk for a considerable chunk of time.  Which is good, ‘cause I’m getting a big hunk of work done.  Which is bad, said no one ever.

And here’s my Update: NEW JOB

It’s OK.  It feels normal to be back in the daily grind.  It feels good to have some consistency to hold onto.  It feels GREAT not to have to coordinate 3-5 weeknights where I have class and the boy has meets or practice.  

The 2 biggest changes happen at the bookend parts of each day.  It’s a logistical dance getting everyone ready and out the door by 6:45 in the morning. Our girls are big breakfast eaters, which can drag onnnn interminably if we let it.  There’s still too much of the “C’mon, we gotta go!”  So I’m working on that.  But all told, they’re doing g-r-e-a-t, beyond my expectations of what it was going to be like.  I’m still shuddering in anticipation of the LONG and DARKER than DARK winter months when sluggish attitudes prevail and tempers are snappy.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to flex schedule the three darkest months of the year so that I teach virtually from, say, Bali.  I’m working on it.

The boy is doing the drive right now back to his one & only teaching job.  The truest shame in this is not that I’m solely in charge of before/after school shuttling, or that I’m the one who is rushing around every morning making sure that 2 littles are set & ready, or even that we’re putting miles upon miles on our car (again).  NO M’AAM/SIR.  The boy drives MY car now everyday because it’s considerably cheaper at the pump for that daily mileage.  

The thing is, we upgraded when buying this car because I was driving so much and because we went cheaper on a previous car that we bought for me.  That car is absolutely fine, but it turns out, we really believe that paying a little more to have some of the perks is definitely worth it given how much we drive.  And now, I’m back with that base model purchase, and I miss my whip dearly.   

 

BUT.  So it goes.  That's just the cost of doing business, so to speak.  It's like how my running is down to about 1/3 of what it used to be - just enough to help not gain back any pounds, I hope.  I don't have a normal treadmill-TV combo anymore (which, frankly, IS what I prefer), so I've been pounding the neighborhood pavement.  And it's s-o-o-o boring, just me and the sound of my feet with the occasional whiff of a neighbor's grill.  I don't know how you other 99% do it.  I've tried the earphone thing a few times before on early morning runs when the only thing on TV includes infomercials and the morning news (which is more aptly the morning weather-update-commercial-commerical-commercial-more-weather-update-small-puffy-news-piece).  So I do miss the ability to just take off for 30 or 45 minutes and veg out with some mindless home makeover shmarm.  

 

And it's Friday, which means that anything else I really have to say is skewed by the wierdness that is the end of a workweek (even a short one).  Cheers to the weekend and some grading.  May there be a big cup of coffee and a brownie in it somewhere.