Good
people of the interwebs, I know...it's been a while. All I can offer
is all I'm going to tell you about here in a moment. But first let us
begin with the fact that my fingernails have NOT been painted a
delightful shade (mixture) of glitter/pink. I had high hopes of
achieving this first before starting out, venturing forth, and carrying
on with any blogging or posting. But the mentality that I've been
abiding by of late is that when I say YES to one thing, that means that I
say NO to another. And right now, I'm saying YES to writing and NO to
working on the Younger's Harry Potter puzzle which her mother graciously
got her for her birthday, knowing full well that she would get to do a
decent part of it because 500 pieces, people.
And I'm also saying NO to glitter/pink fingernails. For right now. I have high hopes for tonight, though.
I'm
also 3 days behind on reading the newspaper, which is both the story of
my life and crushing my soul. I only get the paper from
Thursday-Sunday, and I can never keep up. Because I'm saying YES to
other things. I think I need to cut the cord and say NO to the
newspaper. I tried that once, but those newspaper sales people are very
persuasive.
Back
to the "It's been a while..." beginning. It has. School took a couple
of sharp turns for the mountain of grading and for the scary. That
basically consumed 4 of the best weeks of the year for me, which is
standard fare, but still, always a bit sad. And then we spend the month
of June digging our way out and uncovering the furniture and corners of
the house that magically sprouted piles of everything that was cast
aside for those 4 weeks. I also have 5 rooms to paint and a new course
to plan for on top of 2 course that I'm teaching this summer. I needed a
mental break and didn't allot for one, knowing full well what I was
doing. Someday, I'm going to grow a backbone and say NO because I'm not
saying enough YES to me. And in other news, by the time we reach the
end of the fall semester (the next time I"ll have a break in grading),
I'll have gone 18 months with exactly 2 weeks off that had no grading.
OY.
So school stuff was scary there at the end of May. There was a
school shooting 5 minutes away from me, 5 minutes away from our girls,
in the middle school in our school district where our girls will go when
they're each a bit older. And now I know what it feels like to be
involved in that situation. I was there at the triage sight, helping to
reconnect 1300 middle schoolers with their scared parents. My students
were on lockdown for 4 hours with other teachers throughout the
school. I was on my prep time and didn't have a class at the moment, so
I was fortunate to be able to help the parents. And I saw my face in
their faces. I saw my daughters' administrator and guidance counselor
and speech therapist. I saw teachers from my school working steadily
and without break. I fielded texts from my husband who felt helpless 45
minutes away. And our school system made it through like champs, but
my word people, the mental scars are fresh for many. This will carry on
and continue to be part of the national debate. We'll continue to
drill and have meetings about safety, as we should. And my heart just
hurts. We have no intention of removing our children from the public
school system; we're thrilled with the environment that they have been a
part of here. Despite the way it ended, four days before the end of
school. Despite whatever bitterness and frustration that kid must have
been feeling. There are good people who do good, good
things for my children every day that we cannot match. And this is our
new reality no matter where we are. So instead of wringing our hands
and fretting "Please no, please no, please not us..." we step up and
work harder. I could write more, but I'm not going to. Because it's
been a while, and this isn't what I want to say YES to right now.
I
want to say YES to talking about how the Elder and the Younger each had
birthdays. And how my oven managed to make decent cakes for each (oy
oy oy, I loathe my oven). And how our air conditioner putzed out for
most of May and half of June when there was no spring but only mid-July
heat. And how we read The Doughnut Fix together with the girls,
which is a brilliant read for kids. AND, how my boys are leading their
division for the first time in years (though we still get beat up by the
weakest teams...go figure).
We
also said YES to an late addition, 4-day hiking & cabining trip the
very first day that we could following the end of school. We hiked all
of the trails, which turned out to be dramatically harder than our
girls were used to. The Elder grumbled at the beginning of each one (it
turns out, she did all of the miles in shoes that were 2 sizes too
small because end of school and parents who are teachers and why-can't-she-let-me-know-prior-to-leaving-on-the-trip-that-things-didn't-fit-anymore?. But
then as soon as we got going, each and every time, she was all
"Ahh...nature" and 'I'm going to sit on that log over there and stare at
the waterfall for at least 20 minutes because nature" and "This
is my favorite trip that I've ever been on because NATURE." It was soul
soothing. We're strongly considering springing for some tree houses
come Fall Break to go back for a different hit of NATURE in a
different season. Plus, who doesn't love a good tree house (with a hot
tub)? The Elder took it as her personal mission to be the mountain goat
guide for each trail, and fearlessly, she led us well (though she
didn't knock down nearly enough spider webs, what with her height
disadvantage and all) until the last trail when together, she and I
managed to lead the group astray. There was a lot of mud, a logs to
navigate, and one moment of dropping the Elder face down in a
particularly slippery, touchy situation. But it makes for a fun story
that I'm sure the Elder will repeat frequently.
So
all of this has brought us here, a couple of weeks in but not enough
weeks left. The Younger is making puzzle-sounds in the next room, so
with the lickety-split summer feeling fresh in my mind, I'm going to say
YES to wrapping this up and go crouch beside her while we figure out
just which pieces comprise Ron's and Hermione's faces. YES all day to
that.
