Things

Things I'm really thankful for tonight:

That my place is warm. Delightfully, luxuriously warm. The past few days of cold temps meant that even going full blast, the place was chilly,  even by my standards. I came home on Thursday night and ended up going to sleep dressed almost as heavily as I had gone to work that morning, hat and all. The poor heating system just couldn't keep up. I woke up this morning and my front steps were encased in ice, but by noon the sun was out and everyrhing had melted, and in face the temperature will continue to rise throughout the night.  So very thankful.

Also thankful that there was no damage to my pipes when they froze earlier this week, nor to my hot water heater. I would have dealt, but I'm really thankful I didn't have to.

There's a huge stack of (newly wrapped!) presents taking up much of my couch now, and I am so, so thankful for everything it represents - the wonderful people in my life to whom all these presents are headed, and the fact that I'm in a place in my life right now where I'm able to give gifts.

I am healthy right now and I'm so, so, so thankful. I feel like I've been sick or recovering for most of the past three months - recurring infections, two rounds of antibiotics, trying to recover from the antibiotics as much as from the infections, and dealing with a bunch of issues after each sickness because my body is apparently just out of whack. I thought for sure I'd end up doing a third round earlier this week when I woke to my ear filled with fluid again, but I was able to head it off early and seem to have escaped.

Thankful for some time off - a day now, and several coming up in a couple of weeks - and a perceptible shift in pace. Wrapping up school with M and the triplets for the year, marking off the last few swim classes, finishing up the tasks that have to be done. Getting a chance to sleep for a few hours today,  in the middle of the day, because I was tired and there was nothing left that absolutely had to be done that minute.

Let It Be Over

I just realized that this is the last night in November.

Good. Let it be over.

It's a bitter, vengeful sort of gladness.

Lately I feel - almost constantly - like I'm just failing as a human being. I'm always doing a thousand things and I don't have the time (or, truthfully, the physical/mental/emotional energy) to do any of them well. I can think of literally hundreds of ways I'm failing every. single. day. And some of these are deeply important ways.
I should remember to actually text my friend who's going through a health crisis, and tell her how often she's on my heart, how often I pray for her. I've been virtually radio silent. I should spend ten minutes a day with each triplet working on letter and number recognition (why is this so impossibly hard to make happen?!). I should set up a station for Mason so he can be self - directed in the mornings; I know exactly how it should be organized but the act of actually creating it seems overwhelming. I should do more arts and crafts and science and geography projects with the kids.  (I'm really, really failing here. Almost laughably.)

I should mail the baby gift to Matt and Jess before the baby turns a year old. 

I haven't written a thank-you note to anyone all year, and I've only barely kept up with birthdays. (I just had a small panic attack typing that because I was suddenly convinced that somebody had a birthday on December first and I was screwed.  But no. The first of the December birthdays - all seven of them! - is not until next week, thank God.)

I should write better lesson plans and keep better track of which drills and ideas we're using.  I should watch the videos Casey sent me - like eight hours worth, of which I have watched about forty minutes. I should figure out some weak spots I could put some attention towards but for the love of God I can't even keep up with everything I have going right now.

As busy as it is,  December might be my salvation. There's a break in there somewhere, and I so desperately need my feet under me again. I just need a pause,  a break, a time to regroup. I'm grasping at straws here but I need a spark of energy - a new year, another semester, a fresh go.

Holiday Bucket List

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Holiday Bucket List

*1. Make a holiday craft with the kids
*2. Drink something festive
*3. Listen to Christmas music
*4. Buy wrapping paper
*5. Search for positivity
*6. Donate to a good cause
*7. Mail Christmas cheer
*8. Gather with friends
*9. Buy pine oil for the diffuser
*10. Go to a special service
*11. Give thanks
*12. Decorate
*13. Add a new Christmas CD
*14. Leave a message
*15. Buy new pjs
*16. Write thank-you notes for the team
*17. Bake for loved ones
*18. Go see A White Christmas on stage
*19. Listen to A Christmas Carol
*20. Watch "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" with the triplets and Mason
*21. Pick out Christmas cards
*22. Take a nap and stay up late wrapping presents
*23. Spent time with siblings who are home for the holidays
*24. Go see Christmas lights
*25. Read the Christmas story
*26. Take Abby on a lunch date
*27. Random act of kindness
*28. Clean and purge
*29. Stay up late
*30. Make a resolution

Five Quick Takes

1) At the start of the season,  I downloaded the Meet Mobile app. So now I can sit at home and watch my kids' times pop up even when they're there and I'm at home coughing up my lungs. So very cool!

2) I switched practice groups this week (I'll be working more with the middle group of swimmers) and loved it. Tons of new stuff going on that I'd never seem before, and I walked away with lots of ideas I wanted to steal or modify for my kids. I told the coach I was working under to "teach me everything" and she took me seriously and let me ask a thousand questions without ever getting annoyed. ;) But none of that made me as happy as the fact that the next day I got mobbed by younger kids wanting to know why I'd crossed the deck, and was I coming back? I've had some serious doubts about my role here in general, and it was reassuring to feel missed.

3) Also - I found out this week (to my great surprise!) that getting pulled to work with me is considered a plus. Who knew?!

4) Lastly, I've been thinking lately how I've shed so many labels in the last few years. Baptist. Republican. "Biblical patriarchy." I've come to think that labels on peoppe are mostly about giving you the ability to define "us" versus "them". When you give them up, suddenly you're forced to evaluate people as the complex,  nuanced creatures they are. It's made me a better person,  and I'm grateful.

More life, lately

Projects I've been working on: finally got my bed curtain hung on a real curtain rod. Liked it so much that I went ahead and bought enough material to finish putting up curtains on all the windows (and good thing I did, because I really love that print and it was the last bolt they had, with exactly as much as I needed, AND it was discontinued). I bought a magnetic strip to hang my kitchen knives on (can't wait to get it up and installed!). Started tiling the vanity backsplash (need to buy trim pieces and finish it off).

Projects I need to be working on: coach roster for new session. Getting everything winterized before it gets cold enough to be a miserable chore.

Projects I want to be working on: pulling out my dinette and sofa and putting down new flooring. I have a vision now, I'm pretty excited. Just need to figure out where I can stash the removed pieces...

Enjoying: the cooler weather. Mason sounding out words ALL BY HIMSELF. Getting to spend some one on one time with one of my special needs swimmers,  and just getting to enjoy her since none of her classmates showed up. Impromptu team dinner last night (no one showed up for the final class, so we knocked off early (with permission!) and went out for sushi). Kombucha and coffee.

Listening to: lots of classical music (even the kids are near, usually a Beethoven's Wig album). The Girl On The Train via Audible (ack! So amazing!). The pool filter at work, which is unusually loud lately.

Laughing at: one of my coaches who had a kid last night who refused to stop crying because she was cold. The coach told her the pool was cold because Elsa had been swimming in it, and the tears stopped. (Although the kid did ask at the end of class if we could PLEASE ask Elsa to STOP swimming in our pool.) ;)

Thinking about: the weekend. I think we're going to sell the boat. :( How badly I just want to skate through today without hearing/seeing any election news. Someone being very gracious to me during an awkward conversation, and how deeply I appreciated it. How less stressed I am after the awkward conversation!

Happiness

I remember once being restless, looking for something to make my life better.

Now I can't imagine what material object could possibly make my life better (or how I ever thought it possible).

Here is a truth: depression means a loss of scale. Little chores become insurmountable tasks, huge problems become so abstract as to become almosy meaningless; sometimes the decisions involved in the act of, say, feeding yourself, feel totally overwhelming. Losing your sense of scale means that all problems become equally crushing.

Here is another: happiness works much the same way. Today there is coffee in my cup and beautiful, beautiful children, and water against my skin and sunshine on my face and today they are all equal cause for joy. They are inseparable, and it would be impossible to discern which contributes the most happiness to this wonderful, amazing, wild and precious life.

Ears

Last week, out of the blue, my wonky ear started killing me. The next day it was bad enough that Amy called in a prescription,  and confirmed that yes - I not only had swimmer's ear but an inner ear infection as well. :(

Things I've learned this week: apparently, I have tilted ear canals (perfect, right?); wearing ear plugs sucks (they're much more uncomfortable than I ever imagined); there are more treatments for swimmer's ear than I ever wanted to know, and they all suck, also (hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, alcohol mixed with vinegar,  drying your ear out with a hairdryer,  a garlic clove placed at the entrance to the ear canal (ick!), Eucalyptus oil rubbed behind the ear for pain (this is actually awesome)... but mostly staying out of the water. Three days and counting. I'm gonna die.

Also, my equilibrium is well and truly shot. I put some hydrogen peroxide drops in my ear earlier today and a minute later as I was walking through the kitchen I almost couldn't stand.  I spent a few minutes holding onto a wall trying to act nonchalant and as though clutching a wall while trying not to fall over was completely normal, (I think the kids bought it) while also trying not to throw up (because the wave of nausea was right behind the dizziness).

Bah. I hate it.