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A Collection of Feel Goods / Day 319

This week was pretty uneventful, with a few feel good moments imbedded throughout

• I went back to my own schedule this week, which now has me getting off work at 2, rather than 4:30. I'm enjoying getting home before the boys again, having time to think about dinner and work on a few projects. 
• Brian started archery practice this week, which did have me at school after hours on two nights. The perk of practice being where I work is that I get to get some work done rather than having to sit out in the car during this dictated time when parents aren't allowed in.  On one of those nights, the phone was ringing. Typically, I won't answer it if I'm there after hours, but I had a hunch I knew what it was about, even without caller ID.  
  Me: Good evening, Three Fires Elementary, this is Sharyn. 
  Person on the other side: Um. Wow. I wasn't actually expecting anyone to answer. Thank you. 
  It made me smile. 
• I bought a new living room rug. It's not 'quite' the color I want, and it could be a little larger, but it will do for now. The boys keep walking on it exclaiming on its softness. I was in the mood for some warmth and softness.  AND, it's was $1300 cheaper than the one I fell in love with at Tanner's Vintage Trove (and yes, that was the half off price) 
• Greg and I took a five mile hike in the woods today in the freshly fallen snow. The trails are still icy. Greg only slipped a few more times in his new hiking/hunting boots than I did in my Yaktrax.  Oh, and I got mocked by a squirrel as I was making my way down the big icy hill as slowly and steadily as possible. He stayed by my side on his fence, and would begin chattering everytime I made like I was slipping.  It made me laugh. 
• I hit my 100th mile of the year while on our hike. I'm on track to beat my January 2019 miles. I'll have to really push to match my January 2020 miles. (Remember me? I love data) 
• I didn't bring my big camera on today's hike. Too slippery out makes it hard to balance. 
• In a note from Mark's speech teacher this evening:
  I don't think in the 16 years that I have been doing this that I have ever had anyone make this much progress!
  We have been beyond blessed with his transitions of speech teachers from the very beginning. His apraxia of speech has improved tremendously. He never even found a need to use his shield rather than a mask at school. 
• Mark turned 14 yesterday. 
  Mark: You could surprise me by filling my room with balloons. 
  Me: Your birthday is on a Saturday. We're all home. 
  Mark: Well, if I go for a walk to grandma's, you could do it then. 
• He's chomping at the bit now to get a job, as he knows several places hire 14 year olds. He is thinking he should probably wait until swim season is over. 
• The Bernie memes this week are hilarious. I've enjoyed the creativity.  I also laughed at the one that has our president saying "I have mittens too" 
• My boss: You need to stop being so efficient. (On me taking the more fun tasks)
  It made me think I need to seriously think about taking a vacation. 
• Then today I sent an exclusion letter to the wrong family. So much for efficiency.  Right initials, right class, wrong kid. 
  I might still need to consider a vacation - maybe more so. 
• Fresh snow makes me feel good. I'm still holding out hope for Tuesday, even with the numbers declining. I'm hoping for some snowshoeing. 
• I went to snuggle my newest niece. 
  My baby turned 14 this week, and all three of my brothers have had/are very soon having babies. Talk about different stages of life. I'm thankful for the snuggle opportunities. 
• A note from another friend that filled my heart. 
• A trip down memory lane with yet another friend. 
• A correspondence with a colleague that wrote in regards to some getting the vaccination and The rest of us are still playing Hunger Games trying to secure an appointment!
  I don't know that I'm getting in line yet for the vaccine, but I appreciated the visual reference. It made me chuckle. 
  
• An order of Trenary Toast arriving before the weekend. 
• I appreciate those select few that keep me from vocalizing my more political thoughts publically. For them, I'm thankful. 
• Clean cupboards. With none of my usual activities, I've been feeling good about digging through one cupboard at a time, purging as I go. I did a few more over the weekend. The garage sale pile is getting taller. 
• A charging camera. I have hopes of capturing some action shots this week. I have my fingers crossed that Brian manages to stay out of quarantine through his first archery tournament of the season coming up this Saturday.  Just thinking about the possibility of having something to photograph makes me feel good. 

Here's to our final week of January and only 84 more days of school! 

 

Sprouts / Day 314

I'm feeling all sorts of grown up and adulty tonight, all because I made Brussels sprouts to go with our dinner. 

When I was a kid, we were allowed to choose one food that we didn't have to eat if it was put on the table. There was a rule in play about switching that kept us from flip flopping our food choice. One sibling (smarter than myself) chose broccoli, another chose beans & hamburger and I chose Brussels sprouts. (I moved out before the other two were old enough to pick a food, but I also remember one of my brothers living on hotdogs - so I think the rule/meal planning changed mid-family) I'm 99% certain that my mom only served sprouts once, and they were boiled, seasonless, stinky and all too memorable. 

I recall carefully weighing the risk, trying to figure out if it was worth the gamble to change over to broccoli. We had broccoli five days out of seven, and while that was a nightly gagging, choking, eye watering experience - I still couldn't risk switching my non-edible over to Brussels sprouts. They were that bad. 

Forty-eight plus some odd years later, and I cooked them in my own home, using this well seasoned recipe. And I liked them, while I sat back, amused, at my own three gagging, choking, eye watering boys in a home with no one food exempt rule. 

Look at me all grown up. Kind of.  

A Creative Space / Day 311

For Christmas, I bought Greg a new desk. 

Since working from home last March, he's been working off one of those molded plastic folding tables set up in our bedroom. It does the job, and he's not one to complain, but I thought it was time to amp it up a bit. I did have an ulterior motive (I often do) in that I wanted that folding table back in time for January. January is when we build puzzles and create, and that was the table we've always used. I also had the thought that if I got real ambitious, I could move our whole living room around, purge, and make room to set up that table up as a permanent creative space. 

If you've followed me since the beginning days of blogging, you may remember that I used to have a whole room dedicated to creating. As the kids came, I was downsized from the bedroom, to a closet, then to a counter in the kitchen, and eventually just whatever I could create from the comfort of my recliner. It's time to start going in the other direction again. 

Anyway.  Back to the table. I have to give a shout out to Branch Furniture.  The desk arrived promptly and it landed on our porch at the same time as Greg headed out for an errand day. Mark and I made it a mission to completely build the desk, remove the old one, put in some new carpet tiles and be prepared for him to be surprised when he came upon it just a week prior to Christmas.

But. 

The desk came damaged. One corner had been completely crushed in transport. I was so bummed. Branch Furniture was quick to respond, apologize, and sent out a new desk top (which came in perfect condition). When I asked what I should do with the old one, they told me to keep it and repurpose it or get rid of it. 

Greg made some pin legs in his forge, and now I have a sturdy desk too rather than that molded plastic folding table. Hooray for me! 

He has since welded on a few cross bars to sturdy it up a bit more so I don't have to worry about my sewing machine rattling it too much. 

It fits perfect in the corner, and I love that I found a home for a few of my favorite inherited embroidery pieces. My grandma and great aunt both did a lot of handwork. 

I broke in the desk today by pulling out the hot glue gun and making a coffee coaster for a project happening in the other corner of the room. 

This was my grandma's favorite prayer, and a piece I stitched and gifted her with years ago. It seems like a good month/year to finally get it up onto the wall. 

On the other side of the room, the display shelf I ordered came in and fits perfectly in that spot between the couch and the wall. I'm now inspired to get working on a few more Shutterfly albums. 

Today I started my day by watching an episode of Hoarders and then diving into some more purging and moving things around.  The walls aren't closing in on me as much as they usually do this time of  year.  I'm restless, but I'm getting things done. 

That's all I've got. 

be good

PowerSchool Quirks and Perks / Day 306

My job each day revolves around PowerSchool. 

It's the base for everything I do. It's used for attendance, scheduling, reports, addresses, grades, finding a student's homeroom and the list goes on. It doesn't crash often, but when it does, well - there's not much left for me to do but look pretty while answering the phone and door. 

The disadvantage of being both a parent and working with PowerSchool as part of my job, is that I lose the ability to see things the way that parents see them. If I try to log out of my admin log in and log back in as a parent, it automatically bumps me right back into my admin view.  The first time it happened, I thought it was me. But no - it's a PowerSchool quirk. It recognizes me to the point that I can only be an admin, not a parent. It's happened both on my computer at work and my laptop here at home because I do a fair amount of work from my recliner.  

It's a weird quirk, but workable - as I just cheat then and look at what I need to for my own kids from the back door.  Like today, when I wanted to see their 1st semester report card grades. 

BUT. It makes it challenging to try and troubleshoot issues that parents are having if I can't go in the parent door and try to figure out what it is that's happening and work out what's causing it.  Case in point today. I wanted to figure out a certain toggle in school forms. I wanted to know if it's something that parents can change, or how and where it comes into play. 

I wanted to figure it out badly enough, that I went into my own kid's PowerSchool and reset my parent password - having long forgotten it. 

I then came home and logged into the parent portal from my kid's computer - the only way that I've been able to successfully log into the parent portal; from a computer that I don't use regularly.

Logged in, the alert message came up that an admin had changed my password, and I would now need to update my password.   !!!

What?!  Why had an admin changed my password when I had just, this very day, gone in and done it myself.

Then. 

Oh. 
Wait. 

The admin was me. 
I'm actually a little disappointed in myself that I didn't catch on quicker.

A new new password created, and in I am. As a parent. 

I proceed to the update school forms option, and....... 

ugh. A notice that I need to create another new log in and username in order to do that. 

I gave up. 

Another day or another way. 

 

 

This and That / Day 305

Just a little this and that: 

• This coming week should go further to bring my living room project together. My desk is on track to be completed (more on that later), my new bookshelf should arrive and I should have purged to the point of everything having a place.  
• We're having a big garage sale sometime this spring. 
• Brian starts Segment 2 of driver's ed tomorrow.  Via Zoom. So weird. I'm glad he got Segment 1 done in person. 
• The weather has been fairly mild which means I've been able to get out and walk every evening. Trouble is, even though we live in town - not everyone maintains their sidewalk. That Noxgear visibility vest I bought last year is paying off as I'm walking in the dark on the streets to prevent wrenching an ankle and/or slipping on unkept sidewalks. 
• We had dinner company after church today. I was craving people. We ate pizza, and visited the people. 
• After Greg and others left for the annual meeting, my Goddaughter and I did some long overdue catching up. My favorite day of the year so far.  
• I don't do crowds/large groups, but I am not opposed to company. People need people. They enjoyed the banana cake Mark made yesterday. 
• I've not got in any hiking yet this year. I need to get another pair of Yaktrax so someone can come with me. In case I fall.  The trails are slippy this year. 
• This coming week is my last week of a full time schedule as I cover the librarian hours. I'm hoping it's not a quarantine heavy week. 
• We tried a new recipe this weekend: Healthy Carrot Cake Cookies. I'd make them again. 
• Winter sports start soon, winter sports start soon, winter sports start soon......

That's all I've got. 

be good

First Semester - Second Semester / Day 298

Today is the last day of our holiday break. 

Tomorrow it's back to school, and the first day of the second semester. 

The Governor has deemed that the high school kids shall be allowed to return to in-person instruction at this time. 

I pray every night that they shall be able to remain in person. I did not enjoy leaving my high school student home alone while I went off to elementary, his brother went off to middle school and his older brother and dad went off to work. I did not enjoy that my always on top of things straight A kid was suddenly slipping, and the PowerSchool alerts were suddenly causing me anxiety.  He was struggling to find a purpose and reason, and I'm not the most patient and eloquent of motivators within my own home. 

As a mom, it was hard to pinpoint where the struggles were coming from. Being remote? The actual class? The teacher(s)? Frustration and being, in his mind - wrongly quarantined right before they went remote? Covid depression? Normal teenage boy at 15? His brother moving back into his room? All of the above? How to tell? 

One night I woke up having dreamed that he grew a scraggly mustache, had multiple piercings, had rings threaded into his mustache and was a bum living on the streets. Allan drew my dream for me. 

Mom anxiety is not fun.
He did pull it all together in the end.  

On the positive side, elementary and middle school made it a full semester of in person schooling, and it went well.  Does my whole job now revolve around Covid?  Yes. It takes up the majority of my days now, and when we get notified that we have to quarantine a class - it takes more than my full day, no matter how much we try and prepare. 

But in that there are rewards, for it's when making those phone calls home and meeting the parents at pick up that we hear so many words of gratitude and appreciation, from parents all over the spectrum of agreement in the current system. We hear how much our parents are glad to have the option for in person schooling, how thankful they are that we've made it this far, how they know that we are just doing our jobs, how proud they are of our district, and how they don't mind the bumps in the road if it means we get to keep in person schooling. The gratefulness fills my heart and makes the longer days worthwhile. 

More positives: I did not get quarantined, I kept up on all exclusion letters: emailed, printed and filed, only once did my inbox grow to over 50 emails, and I kept 98% of my thoughts to myself. 

These next two weeks I'll still be covering the librarian's hours (full day) until our new librarian starts, then I go back to my 5.75 hours a day. 

That will be timed well with when my new living room pieces should arrive and when archery and winter sports begin.

Meanwhile, I had fun over our two week break. I filled the dumpster, moved all the furniture around, started filling a storage unit, purged many boxes of stuff, got some things out of the crawl space, and ordered some more workable pieces.  While I had originally hoped to paint this week as well, we agreed to wait until spring. Maybe by then I'll be ready to paint the kitchen too. 

As for making my annual hopes, dreams, and goals list for 2021 - yeah, I'm going to pass on putting that in writing this year. Right now, I'm just going to choose to appreciate each day as it comes, focus on the positive, keep on purging and hope to get through the second semester with no mom anxiety or in home quarantines. 

I don't think that's too much to ask. 

Be good.