Social Distancing Week 2

Church, this second week at home, was more normal, if that's a thing anymore.  Nate was able to administer the Sacrament to us, and that brought peace to my heart. We also had a little more structure in our meeting and I think the kids responded well to that.  Our Sunday School lesson was on Jacob 5.  After summarizing the Allegory of the Olive Tree, Nate took out family outside to see his two peach trees.  One was ready to burst into blooms, the other had no blossom buds.  We could see how the one tree was not doing well and wouldn't produce any fruit.  Then Nate took us over to his apple trees where he had recently grafted in some different types of apples.  Seeing the process really helped me understand the allegory and all the work that is necessary to bring forth good fruit.  It won't happen by itself.  So, what am I doing to help the work of the Lord?  What more can I do?

Week 2 of teaching online found me at my computer from 6:30 am to 8 or 9 pm.  My students were turning in a ton of work (yay!), but being at the computer all day made me feel like I was being horrible mom.  The kids ran around wild and watched hours of TV.    We had a schedule that I printed off each day, but this was survival mode and so the schedule was mostly ignored.  Hopefully, once the oldest start new content next week, some form of normalcy will appear.

To help engage our students in our daily video chats, our team of teachers hosted our own video Spirit Week.  Each day the teachers of Team Fox, and some of the students, dressed up for a daily Zoom meetings.  This silliness made smiles happen as we connected digitally if we couldn't connect in person.

	Crazy Hat day with my Graduation Cap.  Hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that I defended my paper on the Math of Solar Eclipses.	For Character Day, I was a MathNet detective from the 80s PBS show Square One TV.
Crazy Sock means I wore my Math Socks.  Could have gone crazier with all the Fox socks that I have.	Bring your Pet to School day means that Mittens got to see my students. This was probably my favorite day of the week because I had over 20 students in the online meeting introducing their peers to their pets.	Aloha!  We ended up not hosting a video meeting this day, but sharing pictures of our Hawaiian get-up helped us all get through the dreary isolation.

I had hoped to have many more books read, and the house deep-cleaned, and my quilt finished, and my children perfectly dressed, and the laundry done, and... and... and...  But I feel like the one thing that I have had to accept (again) is that good enough really is good enough.  And what is good enough during social distancing is much less than before.  We might not have a bulk supply of toilet paper, but we have enough for our needs.  We might not be able to pick up more than 2 loaves of bread at the store, but we have a wheat grinder and I have a husband he enjoys experimenting with baking bread.  We might not be engaging in home-schooling, but we are home, and safe, and the kids are learning to cope with this strange situation we find ourselves in.  It's far from perfect, it's far from ideal.  But it's good enough.  And that is good enough.

Being Kind to Myself. It's Harder Than I Think It Should Be

 After the Fall General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I felt like one of the messages for me was to be kinder to myself.  I know that what I think I should do and what I actually can do are not always the same...so why do I make myself feel guilty when the two don't match?

My "craft room" after I cleaned up.  Yikes!

For example, knowing that I was behind on my Quilt Along, I came home ON TIME rather than 2 hours late from school and decided to sit down and work on the wall hanging section of the quilt.  I knew that I should be able to complete the whole thing in 2 hours before I needed to pick up the kiddos from daycare. But then reality hit.  I needed to move the laundry from my craft room (notice I
didn't say fold), find my sewing machine in the storage room, and then locate my scissors, and don't forget to look for the pins that were for some reason up on a book shelf in the living room.  Then I needed to vacuum up that spider, and search for my seam ripper.  And once I got everything together, it was time to pick up the kids.  I just couldn't do what I wanted.  It's wasn't can versus should, it was can't versus should--and it left me feeling awful.

I wish I had a magical story to tell here and how a fairy godmother came and made everything alright and I finished the quilt wall hanging on time, and cooked a gourmet dinner, and had a spotless house, and folded that laundry, and created the perfect lesson plan for the next day.  But that's a lie.

I know that I have a hard time balancing all of the good and better things in my life, and that it's difficult to choose what's best.  Some days I can do it all, some days I feel like I should do it all, and some days I fall apart and cry because none of it happened at all. 

The point of this ramble is that I accomplished something.  And that may not be much to you, but it makes me happy.  It makes me proud.  And I did it just for me.

So, this is me celebrating what I can do.







I can make flying geese using a no waste method.










I can create perfect half-square triangles.










I can learn a new quilt block called the "switch and flip".









I can find time to finish the wall hanging section of my quilt.

I can acknowledge that my family comes first, and my job come shortly after that--but I am important!

I can understand that while I may not be able to grade tests coherently after 10 pm, I apparently have no problem quilting after 10 pm.

I can apologize because I am NOT a social person while quilting.  (Sorry, Nate.)

I can enjoy hot cocoa and quilting at the same time.

I can finish what I started out to do without feeling guilty about the time it took.

I can do hard things.

Today is about ME.

I had a panic attack last night.  I won't bore you with the details, but the panic attack (and my husband) forced me to take today off of school.  And while there is SO much that I could be doing (grad school projects, grad school homework, grading tests, creating tests, creating lesson plans, writing new quizzes, reading educational books for book club, reading fun books, reading books for grad school, reading that book my husband wants to discuss, reading social media, laundry, cleaning my house, laundry, dishes, did I mention--laundry, answering emails, scrapbooking, quilting, watching the new episode of Poldark, watching old episodes of Friends, finishing watching Pride & Prejudice, drywalling, laundry, painting, vacuuming, and--oh yeah--laundry)...

Today is about ME.

So, unlike Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Eat, Pray, Love who had a year to figure things out--I have 24 hours to myself (or really 10 hours until everyone gets home and I have to be mom again) .  I decide that this day isn't going to work if I try to jam pack EVERYTHING into that I want.  I have ten hours and they are precious, so everything I do needs to be deliberate.  Here we go.

6-7 AM  Woke up and went back to sleep.  Yay!  Rushed the kids out of the house and to day care.   Oldest child still says her neck hurts, but I need her to go to school today.   My shoulders and back hurt (from stress?), not doing much for myself yet.  But didn't scream at kids as we got into the car.  That's a plus.

7-8 AM  Got home from dropping kids off and decided it was time to eat.  But today needs to be deliberately about taking care of Jen, so why not try cooking something new.  I like cooking.  And I'm not too worried about messing up something if it's just for me.  I tried Eggs Benedict for the first time a couple of years ago (thanks to Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride), and I liked it well enough.  But I've never poached an egg before.  So, I look up recipe in a couple of cookbooks and decide to go with America Test Kitchen's recipe.  Try poaching 3 eggs--it's all we had.  Big mess.  Didn't taste very good.  Maybe it's the hollandaise sauce and English muffin that I liked better from Eggs Benedict.  Oh it could just be the cook.  She needs more practice!  Oh well, the toast and raspberry jam are good.

8-9 AM  Substitute calls.  Same one from my last two maternity leaves.  He can handle my classes so I'm not too worried.  Time to blog and keep MYSELF accountable to ME about MY day.  Don't even know if I'll publish this for the world to see.  Decide that social media is not where I want to spend my time today.  But some laundry will definitely need to be done...no clean pants.  Hmmm...clean laundry doesn't do much good if it isn't put away.  I find 5 baskets of so-called clean laundry and fold them while the washing machine starts its work on my jeans.  I'M not multi-tasking.  The washing machine is just being accommodating by working at the same time.  I probably should have taken mom up on her offer to help with laundry more while our basement was under construction last week.

9-10 AM  Five baskets is A LOT of laundry to fold.  And I'm ashamed to admit that some of it was from our vacation to Rexburg.  That was TWO months ago.  No wonder I've been feeling like I have no clothes to wear.  Sure, I could offer over a dozen excuses as to why it didn't get done.  But excuses won't fix it the problem.  Folding it today did.  And figuring out how to balance my life--and ask for and accept help--will.  It's funny how my ipod seems to detect my mood and play exactly what I need to hear.  "Something That I Want" from Tangled, "Happy" from Despicable Me 2, "When We Were Kings" from The Count of Monte Cristo musical, to name a few.  Being alone with my thoughts and the laundry made me realize that I don't really have a clean spot to my name.  I remember that in college, as long as I had a spot to center myself (my bedroom if my roommates were social, or the front room if they weren't) I was fine.  But I don't have that spot right now in my own home.  Sure, I've got by messy bedroom, or the messy kitchen, or the messy family room, or the messy living room (get the picture) when Nate and the kids are asleep.  But what if I don't want to wait until 8 pm to have a quiet moment.  I think it's time to go design my craft room (a.k.a. MY space.)

10-11 AM  Got distracted by a healthy snack (apple and caramel) and Game Theory.  I have a project due 25 days for grad school.  The purpose: introduce my classmates to game theory.  So, I picked up a couple of books from the library on Wednesday and they have been sitting waiting for me to read them.  Snack time seems like a good time (and a way to avoid the all-to-easy-to-get-to social media).  This book is titled Gladiators, Pirates and Games of Trust by Haim Shapira. (Yes, I picked it just for the title.)  First two chapters were fun to read.  Did another load of laundry (Hurray for clean jeans!)  And took measurements of the current craft room.

11 AM - 12 PM  It's fun to design and measure (and use 7th grade math for scale factoring).  What's hard is keeping this room about ME.  Sure it would be easy to store all the holiday decorations in there and all the food storage and, and, and...  That defeats the purpose.  Right now, I am designing this room for me; not my children, or my husband, or our stuff.  That's not to say that it won't end up holding some of these other items in the future.  But that's not what I'm doing right now.

12-1 PM  Lunch time: PB & J and more designing.  Would be easier if it wasn't on my scrapbook software, but Microsoft "Paint" won't do what I want and I haven't loaded Photoshop onto my laptop.  Oh well.

1-2 PM  I caved.  I checked social media--but only for 15 minutes.  And took a much needed nap.

2-3 PM  Shower, finally.  And then the last two loads of laundry (from our room).  These have been sitting there for weeks.  Why?  A pen exploded and I hadn't the heart to throw the stuff away.  I also didn't have the time to do anything about it.  Until today.  A little Spray & Wash and the deep cleaning setting on my washing machine and the darks have come out pen-free.  Now for the real challenge--the lighter colored stuff.  Fingers crossed.

3-4 PM  The last hour was spent centering myself by reading my scriptures, looking through home improvement pictures, and playing the piano. 

Today's experiment and recovery time is over and I'm okay with that.  I've enjoyed being by myself and doing only want I want.  But I'm not just ME anymore.  I'm also WIFE, and MOM, and DAUGHTER, and NEIGHBOR, and FRIEND, and TEACHER, and STUDENT.  And that's the way it should be.  Each role I play makes my life better, happier, more enriching.  I just need to remember that all of these roles balance on ME.  If I don't take care of myself, then I can't perform my other roles without resentment or exhaustion.  Now, if I can just hold on to that idea.

Tired and Cold

I don't like how the temperature has decided to change.  I think I might have to adjust our thermostat.  I love the colors from Autumn, the cooler temperatures, and the start of school.  But I'm not a fan of the snow that can come, the shorter days, or the fact that I don't have enough sweaters.

Luckily, I can fix that last one.  :)

If You Knew What I Was Thinking...

Yay!  Day 2, I'm on a roll.  Or at least a chair.

I often have wished that I had a way to upload all of the random thoughts that I have in a day.  I'm sure that they'd be interesting to other people.  Sometimes my inner monologue even gets me to laugh out loud.  And apparently, I'm not alone in interesting inner monologues.  The following conversation really did happen last night.  (Well, not quite word-for-word.)

Jen:  (Driving home)  What are you thinking about?
Nate:  I don't think the police would like it if I had a installed a giant with a sword on top of the car.  But it would make it easier to move cars out of the way.
Jen: (opens mouth and tries to think of something to say)
Nate:  What?  You asked.

Silly, I know.  But it's not far from what I often think.  I love my husband.

Well, it's UEA and I don't have school.  Hurray!  I created my list of things that I want to do during this break, things that are important to do during the break, and things that should get done just because it's the weekend.  We'll see how much actually occurs.

Blogging

I recently watched the movie Julie/Julia for the umpteenth time, and thought "I should blog more."  Then today I wasted time looking at what other math teachers around the country blog about, and again I thought "I should blog more."  I already spend a lot of time thinking about math, and teaching, and my students, and the teachers at my school, and education, and the changes occurring in the district, and politics about education, and the common core, and ....

So why don't I blog more?  Well, the easy excuse is that I'm too busy doing all the above plus being a mom, and wife, and primary teacher, and piano teacher, and choir pianist, and....  And then I want to sew Halloween costumes, and finish painting the living room, and clean the refrigerator, and organize the craft room, and finish scrap-booking, and...

But in the end, those are just excuses--good ones--but excuses no the less.  I recently listened to a podcast on time management (while trying to multi-task...go figure), and the speaker mentioned that he always reserved the last 5-15 minutes of his work day to reflect on the day and organize things for the next day.  That way he could go home and say "this is what I did today" rather than "I was busy all day, but I don't know that I accomplished anything."  I already do something similar at work, but what if I used blogging to help decompress what I do at home?  I often wonder what I do once I get home from work.  I mean, I cook dinner, play with the kids, try to pick up the house, and spend time with my husband.  But one day often melts into another and I can't really say what made this day unique, special, or fulfilling.

I like this.  Even writing the couple of paragraphs that I have makes me realize how much I miss LiveJournal and how lacking Facebook is.  (Though it is cool that 1 BILLION people now have a Facebook account.  My husband has two.)  I miss being able to just write and think and vent and ramble.  Lots of rambling going on--and not very grammatically correct.  Oh well.  I guess this is what people once used journals and diaries for.  But I've never been good at that.  Writing in pen/pencil is too slow and I think always felt permanent.  Where as I can edit my typing quickly and delete what I don't link.  (This, of course, is ignoring the fact that nothing published online is ever private again.)

So, rather than just rambling, although rambling is fun, HERE'S my action plan.

*A*C*T*I*O*N* *P*L*A*N*  (The stars make it look cooler, right?)
After the kids have gone to bed, and Nate is working on school work, I will decompress on Blogger each night.  My goal is to accomplish this for ONE WEEK!  After a week, I'll reevaluate and decide if it's worth the effort.  I'll probably need some reinforcement, so comments, texts, phone calls, or even live interaction would all be appreciated.

Here we go!

Edited to Add:  After spending 30 minutes writing this post, I accidentally deleted it.  The action plan was almost already stumped before it began.  Luckily, brilliant people have posted strategies on recovering post.  Thank you much, random internet genius!