I didn't even have a cup this week

I had this thought during toddler wake-up number 7 on Thursday night: You can't pour from an empty cup, true, but literally at that moment I didn't even feel like I had a cup. 

My allergies settled in my throat and I lost my voice this week. 

Sutton has been more "Sutton" than usual. Demanding, clingy, obviously teething.

Jett was sick over the weekend and I spent $400 at the vet on Tuesday. Took two kids with me. Had to leave work early. That was just as seamless as you'd think. Definitely no tears, throwing oneself on the floor, or screaming in my ear while I tried to speak to other adults. Now we have a follow-up next week and, who knows, we might get referred to Columbia or St. Louis for surgery (which sounds expensive right).

Parenting Wells is like negotiating with a terrorist...I said what I said. I told him he had to write his name with lowercase letters, per the paper that came home that said "Redo", and not like WELLS. He asked why. The willful disobedience made it so it took 3 tries (at 8pm, when I got around to emptying his backpack). 

At least he understands math. 

I've paid babysitters this week just so I don't have to haul them everywhere with me. I had two things where kids were welcomed but I would prefer not to take them.

Scott has been away.

The light bulb in the refrigerator burnt out, which is the most inconvenient thing of all. It can't be replaced until Scott gets out a special tool (a "nut" "driver") to remove the case, pull out the bulb, look at the bulb, and order a new one. 

Sutton had her 18 month appointment Thursday, which was just as much fun as it sounds. My children do not do well at doctors' offices. I was slightly surprised they didn't have a team of people on hand, after the last go-around with Wells getting his 5 year shots (There was hiding behind a chair...I had to hold him down, I think. I've honestly blocked a lot of this experience out.)

This time, he didn't want to hear Sutton cry so he....hid behind a chair again. The way a dog might at a vet, you know? Sutton, meanwhile, got one shot and flipped her lid (pre-shot) in such a way that the doctor said "I have no idea what her heart sounds like and that's going to have to be okay right now". Indeed, she would not let this doctor near her. 

We ran out of milk Thursday morning and I can't fathom the idea of taking these two into a grocery store post-4pm. So Walmart pick-up order it was. I have been apprehensive to use pick-up in the last few weeks because a couple of weeks ago, they forgot 3 of my items and I spent my weekend trying to get a refund for them, only to also have to go back to the store and buy them. They don't do refunds on the app anymore. You have to call "customer" "service". Luckily, we live in the sticks, so the actual Walmart helped me out. But I still had to go back to the store. 

Unfortunately, my order was delayed for the 4th time in two months and I was already in town and I was. not. waiting. around only to, likely, have them mess it up again. Because that's what happens when I do pick-ups during busy times. 

I canceled the order from the parking lot at the doctor's office and then went to Dollar General for milk and called it a night. 

In addition to the $$$ at the vet, Scott thought now might be the time to buy dog beds again. Each and every one we've tried in the last 10 years has been systematically shredded and destroyed. Scott bought indestructible ones (again, sounds expensive. just a guess though). 

The best part of the week was undoubtedly Thursday into Friday, in which Sutton was awake all night for the second night in a row. I managed to power through that first day (Thursday), but I also took some cold medicine on Thursday night for my sinuses and I think it hit me wrong. I was a mess on Friday morning. I took the kids to school, asked for a sub, and then went home. I even left my computer at school and didn't return to my classroom when I picked the kids up at the end of the day. I purposely had Wells meet me at the daycare so I didn't have to go into the physical school building. 

I believe this, honestly, was my body just starting to shut down after an awful week. It's the age-old "If you don't make time to rest, your body will do it for you". It's not that I don't take time to r-e-s-t. It's that 14 hours of my day, if I'm lucky, are spent surrounded by children. That leaves 10 hours for non-children + sleeping. I could've dealt with another day of not having a great projecting voice, or a day of sinus pressure, or a day of slight nausea from being tired+sinuses. However, I noticed some actual waves of anxiety rippling through my body and that was kind of it for me. White flag waved. Anxiety is a tricky subject to talk about and to deal with, but I spend my morning trying home remedies, attempting a nap, went back to get them at the school (we get out early on Fridays for PD), and then was able to nap again when Sutton napped in her crib. 

Wells enjoyed his afternoon and evening of Youtube, let me tell you. And then, miracle of miracles, Sutton slept for 12 hours. 

Anyway. 

Just thought I'd let you know what I'd been up to all week. Hopefully actual "content" will be "created" soon. 

A story about teaching

Teaching is incredibly different in 2021 than it was in 2010 when I started. Technically, I started in 2008, as a student teacher and then subbed the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years, in Pennsylvania and Alaska, respectively. 

When I got my first job in Alaska for the fall of 2010, the teacher I ended up working most closely with was a veteran teacher. She'd been teaching for over 40 years at that point and wasn't slowing down any time soon. I taught there for 3 years, and we moved away in 2013.

In February 2020, I got a phone call from another teacher friend in Alaska, saying that this teacher had passed away. I was devastated. Mostly because it was the middle of the school year and how awful and I knew how absolutely ticked she would be, knowing she'd not be going back to school. 

Secondly, I had never made it back to Alaska to see her again. 

There was a moment back in 2018 where we were thinking of going back to Anchorage for 18 months for Scott's Corps of Engineers job. I had always thought how great it would've been to take Wells up to meet her and everyone else I had worked with. We'd ended up going to Pittsburgh instead.

She and I had talked on the phone a few times a year since 2013 and shared emails.

It wasn't until I read her obituary in February of 2020 that I realized she had been born in Laramie, Wyoming. There is one hospital there. If she was born in a hospital, it was the same hospital where Wells had been born. The world isn't small enough for a coincidence that big. 

I knew her family was from southeast Alaska and they'd hopped around from Juneau to Valdez to Kenai and I knew she'd gone to college in Oregon and had hated it because it was "too hot" and got a sunburn for the very first time. I knew her first teaching job had been on the Kenai Peninsula and the giant earthquake of 1964 had literally rocked her family's world with her friends dying and her dad *almost* dying in the tsunami at Valdez. He was the only one smart enough, she said, to realize what was happening when the water went out and ran for higher ground. Everyone else on the docks was washed away. 

And, a fun fact that would be absolutely unheard of today: When she had both of her children, she took less than a week off from school. In the case of her son, she "had him on Monday and was back by Thursday". I think my jaw dropped at that. She was not a snowflake, union-protected teacher of today. She'd make Randi Weingarten cry. Our district had well over 1,000 certified staff; she was listed as the one with the most seniority. 

As February 2020 dragged into March and that slooooowly dragged into April and May, I realized that she was taken home to Jesus at exactly the right time. This was not a coincidence. Virtual school? Zoom classes? Forcing your students to wear masks all day and not touch each other on the playground? 

This was not her world. It's not really of my world either. 

I don't like everything we're doing. I don't agree with it. I don't see how it's "helping kids grow and learn". But I am a unique mix experienced enough to use what I already know and young enough to maybe stick it out. 

This teacher in Alaska always told me that if I stuck it out long enough, I'd see the cyclical nature of education...everything comes back around again. Open classrooms (1970s) turned into the flexible seating of 2018, for example. Math practices that were outdated in 2000 are coming back 20 years later. There is nothing new under the sun. 

She also told me not to quit (and I have multiple times!) because I was a good teacher. I swear this is why I keep trying to go back. Knowing she thought I was a good teacher means a lot but, I'm pretty sure, it took me the entire 2010-2011 school year to win her good graces and then she realized I was more like her (at my inexperienced 24 years of age) than I was not like her, when it really came down to it. 

So part of me feels like if I stick it out, I will see this all come to an end and school will return to the way it was intended to be. 

What makes me feel awful is that there are young teachers out there who have never known what teaching is actually supposed to be like. They think teaching is 100% "social-emotional"-based (because of the HORRIBLE mental health issues that have been created in the last 2 years), they have never been on a field trip, and they'll never be able to have regular old class parties or assemblies. None of this is changing any time soon.

While sometimes I feel very old in my field, if I didn't have my experiences to fall back on, I wouldn't be doing this right now. I worry about not only the kids who are the real victims here, but the brand-new teachers who won't have prior experiences to keep them going. 

This pic is 10 years old so the kids are unrecognizable. It's a screenshot from a movie I have saved. I just wanted to share that I used to do really fun things. This class got so into a reader's theater we did that I assigned parts and let them create a set and put it on as a play for another class and for their parents. This is would never happen today. Parents aren't even allowed in our buildings anymore.

Good riddance, Summer 2021

It's past Labor Day and we can happily say good-bye to one of the harder summers I've experienced. We started with a full DITY move that began when we bought our house right before Mother's Day and ended when we returned from Pennsylvania and did a full clean-out of our Kansas rental the last weekend in June. 

There was nothing easy about it. I speak for myself, but Scott carried an even heavier burden. But for real: some of it has been ugly. 

We did some DIY in the new house and we never, I swear, even had a chance at getting actually unpacked. Scott started work in Missouri around June 28, after only having 9 days off after graduating his Kansas course. That 9 days was spent driving to and from Pennsylvania and cleaning out the house in Kansas so we could hand over the keys. 

Come July, we had furniture at least. 

We celebrated Wells' birthday and we did what we could around the place (we bought it with the intention of fixing it up, remember?) and Scott prepped to leave for 5 weeks away. 

Meanwhile, Scott's father was in hospice care and we were trying to navigate being responsible for that from multiple states away.  Scott now entirely owns his dad's house and property instead of just half of it as he did before, so there's been a lot more to it than *just* losing a parent to a long illness. I do feel like Scott has the weight of the world on his shoulders with this because he's just on his own. I never thought I'd want to live in PA again (i do not, btw), but I'd love to be in Pittsburgh *this* year because maybe we could get some of this sorted. It's really hard when *you* are responsible for something and have to live states away for your job and you work 15 hour days and vacation days aren't a thing and ...I could go on and on.

Come August, we were hit with heat wave after humidity wave after heat wave. Scott's father passed away and, really, here's the list of everything that went wrong just that week. 

Honestly, August wasn't much better. There's even more to the story that I'll get to eventually here. But my mom came out for 3 weeks and took over caring for Wells so I could take care of random tasks that I can't do with him by my side. Like going to work, 

Wells did start preschool and that was a success. 

i don't have a lot of hope for school pics

School is going well enough.

Scott is here now at this exact moment and not away on some sort of deployment (for now...this is not a given so I'm trying to just go with it.)

The weather is cooling off (eh, kinda). 

How about you? How was summer? I was, clearly, not a fan. 

Long live #fall. 

Sorry, guys. Last week really kind of sucked.

I don't like using that language, but it's the only way to get the point across. 

First, Scott's dad passed away last Sunday. We expected it after he'd been dealing with complications from stage 4 cancer for several months. Toward the end, it was a lot of trying to coordinate hospice and round-the-clock care and then plan a funeral in advance because we knew this would happen sooner, rather than later. 

In addition...Scott is in the field at a training exercise. That means, he will leave the exercise to fly home for the funeral and fly immediately back to the field, never stopping here in between. Maybe it'll be a 48 hour trip? (this is why everything needed to be planned out in advance) I *think* I know when he'll be home from this training but I don't really know because this is the army we're talking about. 

For this reason, I am staying here with Wells and the dogs. Driving across the country in 100 degree heat with them all is not the safest idea, nor the most uncomplicated. 

In addition...I'm really hoping to be able to set up my classroom this week. No one is allowed in the building yet and I'm really wondering how I'm supposed to do this with school starting very, very soon. I have training all next week and the week after and then school starts. 

We've been under a heat advisory, which just adds to the misery of everything. We couldn't even play outside last week. The one day I tried to walk everyone, there was a pitbull at the dog park so we couldn't play there and then, while trying to take Wells into a port-a-potty, he and I both got stung by wasps. 

In addition...now he's afraid of bugs which is just...perfect. We've had a lot of discussions about how "yes, one bug hurt you, but no other bugs have ever hurt you so you don't need to be afraid of every bug. it was one bug." He still runs around outside with both hands on his neck, for protection, soooo....he may be scarred for life. 

My mom is coming to stay for a few weeks because I can't exactly go back to work and leave Wells by himself. He doesn't start school until after I do. 

In addition...I have a lot of fear that I won't be able to drop Wells off and make it to work on time? I personally don't think this because it doesn't make a lot of sense (4 miles in 45 minutes should be do-able, right?), but others have warned me about it (if you think I'm a Negative Nancy, you should talk to some of these people I've chatted with lately), so I don't even have a lot of faith in this daycare option at this point. 

We can pile on top all of the new CDC "recommendations" which aren't really anything but word salad. My friend said it makes her blood pressure go up. That's exactly how I feel. I haven't felt this depressed about the covid situation, ever. 

My windshield is broken. It's not an impediment to driving, but will need to be replaced eventually. Since I have fancy sensors in my car, we're assuming $400-500. 

Last week, our internet stopped working (again). But that was FINE because our NEW INTERNET was supposed to be hooked up the day our current internet was out of sorts. It was fate.

The shortest version of that story is that our new internet was not hooked up and I found myself, sitting in the yard, yelling (actually yelling What is wrong with you?) at the installation technician. 

Which led to Scott calling the company FROM THE FIELD and working his way up from supervisor to supervisor, which led to a 3-way call with the technician and "Anita" and "Courtney", who promised this would be taken care of, but Scott has yet to hear back. Now I have to put it on my own calendar to call twice a week every week (Scott called me relentless, I call it restorative justice) until results are reached. 

I suppose the good news is that the technician from the current internet company and I got to chat again as he was forced to come out to our house and replace a part on our satellite for the second time this month. 

In addition...while I was in the yard yelling profanities into the phone, something possessed Wells to peel apart the drywall in the living room. 

I still haven't told Scott about that. 

Scout the Dog is on a hunger strike. He gets like this when Scott is away sometimes. He'll eat a few bites and then just dances around his food and holds out for something better, and this drives Jett nuts because Jett just wants to eat all the food. Wells has started picking up the bowl to get it away from Jett and then Scout can't get to it and....this was commonplace in Colorado but hasn't happened much since. Scout always wins because then I will eventually make him scrambled eggs. 

I also witnessed Scout dragging his bed over in front of the air conditioning vent. Smart. That's also a pretty high-end sleeping bag and, for us, doubles as a dog bed it seems.

The only thing that didn't go wrong, really, was that the a/c didn't break down during the heat wave.

There's always this week, I suppose. 

Summer can be over any time now. 

Errday on Friday.

1. "I feel like we had a nice and productive weekend."

Famous last words ^^^ That was the beginning of a post I was going to publish on Monday. 

I had started writing a weekend recap and then things imploded slightly on Sunday night. We were left with a childcare emergency on Monday and, now, we're in a childcare conundrum. 

It's consumed my every thought, which leads to the crushing guilt that I've done this to myself.  So, it's been a week where all of the things have gone wrong and I don't even know what to say about this.

2. Not surprisingly, Wells has been all out of sorts this week. Sick (sick) on Wednesday night. He's never sick. I've written sub plans more than once this week, just in case he threw up or had a fever because that's where I assumed this was heading.

3. The weather has been insane with wind and our good friend the red flag warning is back. Luckily, it's not red-flag-errday, all day, like in Colorado Springs, but this is the first I've dealt with since leaving Pittsburgh.  

Some of you all (okay, most of you all) have mentioned the PTSD you feel you suffer from this time of year because of what happened last year in March 2020. PTSD is a thing for sure but, for me, this ain't it. Any and all PTSD I have is triggered by deployments and red flag warnings. "March 2020" doesn't mean much to me. Is that weird?

4. Jett turned 7 this week. 

I feel bad that we didn't get to celebrate much in the middle of our chaos. They got new antlers. Not that a dog knows the difference, but I'm sure they appreciated no party hats this year. 

5. My contact lens ripped on Thursday morning so I worked more than half a day with only one good eye. 

6. Again, back to the childcare conundrum: I am wholly commitment-focused in that I made a commitment to this school and this district and, short of my child being actually ill (see: sub plans up above), I'm going to do whatever I can to keep that commitment. I've got two-ish months to go. We'll cross next year's bridge when we come to it.

7. This goes back to the fact that I chose this and made all of this stress and worry for myself (which is what I would tell a counselor if I still cared enough to see a counselor). However, the amount I have learned and practically injected into my veins in the form of current education practices and use of technology is equivalent to at least a masters' degree, probably a doctorate.  It's not been wasted time, that's for sure.

8. Lastly, have you ever had a Go Noodle song stuck in your head? Every class I work with has their favorites on Go Noodle. Currently, my group loves the NTV channel on Go Noodle (if this is completely foreign to you, I'm sorry and good for you). We dance to this one probably every single day. I was never a huge fan, but it's adorable to watch how much the kids like it, so now I don't mind it. 

It's a heck of a way to live, with Two Princes stuck in your head as an ear worm day in and day out. 

Why wouldn't you take someone's thoughts and prayers?

I saw this on Twitter and I had to share it:

When Scott was going to the University of Wyoming, many of the students he worked with were from India. He was in a masters program but it overlapped with the PhD program so he was doing work in an engineering program that recruited primarily PhD candidates. Most ended up in WY after coming from the eastern part of Asia, not just India.

This is how we ended up at a Diwali celebration a few years ago.

Completely unbeknownst to us, I was already pregnant, but that is not the point of this story. And if you read the blog post I linked to there ^, you can t.o.t.a.l.l.y tell that I was pregnant because of the crying in Panera thing. Hindsight. 

Scott had told me about the one professor he knew who was a woman with a young toddler. She had brought him to the celebration that night and Scott had mentioned to me how she couldn't wait to meet me because she had a "cure" for our infertility. I *think* she was from Turkey, but I really can't remember. She had told Scott how she and her husband had struggled to have a baby, because she asked him once if we had kids and Scott told her our story.

She told us how there was a method in which you boiled an onion and ate the onion and then drank the water. I remember it was a specific kind of onion and Scott was ready to go out and buy that the next day so we could try it just to, I suppose, prove that we were willing to try anything and why the heck not?  LOL, right? I didn't want to eat/drink an onion.

But what I remember is this woman giving me her 17 month old baby boy to hold (he was wearing a bow tie and suspenders and had floppy dark hair) and saying how he would rub off on me and how it was good luck to hold him. And she told me she was praying for us and how I would have a baby some day and that was that. Her husband backed all of this up. They were so certain.

I had never met this woman before in my life. I don't remember her name. I don't remember what she taught at the university. I don't even know what religion she practiced. I'm assuming Hindu since it was a Diwali celebration but Diwali is like Christmas; you don't necessarily practice the religion to celebrate it as a cultural holiday.

Anyway.

The point is that me accepting her thoughts and prayers took nothing from me. It gave me hope and confidence if anything! It felt GOOD to know that someone cared! I cannot imagine that someone would be offended by the idea that someone cares about them.

CNN posted this article weeks ago, and the tweet is still up, no matter how many people begged to argue with it. All the eyerolls, right? I don't know why people are so afraid of believing in something. 

A season for plowing.

At the beginning-ish of February we went under contract on our Colorado house. On Friday, we closed on our Colorado house. There will be a bit more on this to come (like the pictures of the final product), but that day, aside from the day Wells was born, was the best day of the last 12 months. There was nothing special about it really, but just to know that the weight and shift of responsibility was off of Scott's shoulders was meaningful. To know that, symbolically, it was no longer his to work on and mine to worry about was huge. 

This is a post I wrote when we were in the thick of it. Or at least, when I was in the thick of it, mentally, back in December. This house was a mental battle for me over the last 9 months and a physical and logistical battle for Scott. As dramatic as that may seem, this was a hard-won victory. 

My mother-in-law sends us these every so often in cards. It told me something I'd never actually thought about before.

As an older millenial, I've been taught to believe that your life should always be increasing and improving in standards. We, between the ages of 30 and 35, aren't like those younger millenials.  They're happy with their $102,000 student loan debt, their parents' health insurance, their Ubers, their cheap travel, and their four roommates in order to afford city living, all while barely making enough to survive. That's the going rate as a college graduate over the last few years.

I was taught to believe that I would pay off my debt from college, I'd get a job right away, I'd settle down, build a house, and live the American dream. We say the American dream looks different today than it did 30 years ago or 50 years ago but, when I graduated from college in 2008, it was still a thing.

In the Army it works this way too: you get promoted on a schedule, you get pay raises on a schedule, you move up the ladder on. a. schedule. But as you grow up, things are supposed to sort themselves out and always get better, not slide backward or stall out or make you wait for what's next. That's what I always thought.

Then the last year hit me. Actually the last year and a half. It started in the summer of 2017 and has slowly been snowballing downhill ever since. I probably mentioned it in a blog post I never published, but there have been many days when the fact that I was pregnant with a healthy baby or the fact that we then had a healthy baby was the only. thing. that. was. going. right.

I've struggled (past and present tense) with how things are, how I want them to be, how they theoretically "should" be, etc. But sometimes you just need to go through things. And I never thought about it before, but sometimes it's just not our season for increase. Sometimes we need to plow. I knew I had been plowing, metaphorically, but sometimes when you're in a season for so long, you forget your focus. This season of plowing, to be honest, has probably been happening since we moved to Colorado and then it's intensified over the last 18 months.

It never occurred to me that that was just where I was, where we were, until I saw this devotional story. Everyone will go through a season of plowing. It's not a setback. It's not an increase. It's a season.

I'm aware...

...that we generally do not have good luck. It really started the minute Scott and I met. His car broke down a week later and his motorcycle not soon after that. He bought a truck and nearly totaled it by hitting a deer a week later. Since then, it's been up and down and up and down and the last year or so has been particularly rough.

I will say that the best stroke of luck we've had is a healthy pregnancy, a so-far healthy baby, and no complications on that end of things, medically. (Though, Scott has been in Colorado a lot while I'm in Wyoming and he did ask me if I thought I'd be able to drive myself to the hospital if need be...so there's that.)

Everything else has completely fallen apart multiple times in the last 14 months or so. (August, April, etc.)

While in Wyoming the other day, in the middle of a Colorado House Crisis of some sort (I'm going to start just referring to this debacle as "CHC" from here on out because we get hit with something else every day), tornado sirens went off, which was a little unsettling. We have no basement, so the crawl space it was and the dogs weren't having that easily. When we saw that it was predicted to hit town in 30 minutes, we just got in the truck and left, driving in an adjacent direction toward the mountains. The dogs got a walk by a lake and we didn't even see a raindrop.

All this to say that with all the upheaval and the (stupid) Blogger commenting issue, I've definitely been a bit MIA, despite having time on my hands.

Things I did this week:

1. Got a $14 Great Clips haircut.
2. Went to a 34 week doctor's appointment.
3. Finished as much of the baby's room as I could without Scott here to help me hang things up.
4. Organized the kitchen. It's too small but whatever.
5. Read a book that I was, sadly, not that impressed with.
6. Watched season 4 of Younger while I attempted to organize our clothes and closets.
7. Fought with Jett over bed/pillow space in the middle of the night**.

So really, I'm just doing what I normally do and I plan to have this house organized by Sunday*. Wish me luck.

*It's worth saying that half of our furniture is in Colorado and will probably stay there for the time being, so I really am trying to reorganize our daily life and it's slightly stressful.
**This is also why Jett and I fight over bed space: We're making due with a queen bed for now.

Monday....

This is how I felt most of last week:

It was a rough week, physically and mentally. I didn't even throw in the whole almost-7-months-pregnant thing because that seemed overkill, and why wouldn't I be at this stage of pregnancy when all of this is occurring? Because that's the kind of weird luck I have. 

(Something I was thankful for included that all the baby gifts we've received so far were already at the Wyoming house.)

Not that there was any kind of physical lifting/hauling/putting out fires that I had to do or wasn't physically able to do...I just hauled a few boxes and bags to and from the car a few times. But I definitely felt that I was off my routine. Plus, I was on my own. This was the week I felt the distance between here and Scott and the dogs the most. 

And when you throw in the fact that I teach all day, I can't exactly tell 9 year olds the worries and fears that I'm carrying around. Which was why it was in everyone's best interest that I just took a day off. 

Pretending, for them, is tiring. 

I also stayed off of social media most of last week because it's really hard to stomach social media when you're going through something tough or out of your control. 

ANYWAY. Onto a new week. It's a week that will present its own challenges and snafus, but at least last week's over. Normally, I cope with this type of PCS stress with unhealthy amounts of moscato and caffeine. Since that's not an option currently, I'm doing a lot of yoga and a lot of reading. 

This is a tried and true military-wife strategy.

For Mondays in the classroom.

Weekend Favorite: My house didn't burn down this week

#5 on the list almost burned my house down. Woo-hoo, right?

There was a fire in southern Colorado on Tuesday and, since it was a windy day, I checked the alerts on my phone often. I saw that people were being evacuated about 20 miles from my house around 1:00pm so I just kept an eye on it. I mean, the dogs weren't there (THANK GOD) and while I'd wish I'd had some of my things with me, things are just things and there was nothing I could do. At 3:20, I was told the neighbors were leaving and I would post some pictures of what it looked like for their drive out of the development, but it's pretty terrifying so I'll just not.

This is what Tuesday evening looked like in our "fair" state:

I left school (a 30 minute drive from home) 10 minutes later when the bell rang and made it to the intersection about 4 miles from my house. Everyone from our area was gathered and the police weren't letting anyone through. Again, while I wished I'd had some of my stuff with me, stuff was just stuff. Meanwhile, many were just trying to get home to get their horses or their pets and I couldn't even handle that (The dogs were with Scott THANK GOD.)

This is when I finally got to talk to Scott, on the phone, and we had to have that very real conversation about what we would do if our house burned down (We would salvage what we could this weekend. I would quit school early and just go to Wyoming. He'd stay here off and on to deal with insurance claims. And that would be the end of our time in Colorado.)

The neighbor gave me updates during this time, telling me the house at the edge of her property was on fire and fields were burning around our houses. Meanwhile, her husband and two other neighbors were stuck with police at a closer intersection, because they'd gone back to get their dogs (and luckily their houses didn't burn, anyway), but the police wouldn't let them leave the only presumably safe area they could see.

At this point, after about 20 minutes, I had to make some decisions. I went back to school to write up my sub plans. Our grade level was putting on a music program that evening and, while everyone told me NOT to come back, I quite literally had nowhere else to go,  had just the clothes on my back, etc. So I just made some piles of busywork, got the classroom ready for the next day, and put in for a sub. When the kids showed up, I sent them to the auditorium with another teacher and told them I wouldn't be there in the morning.

Then, I went to Walmart and bought pajamas and toiletries (I'm apparently shockingly high-maintenance...that's what this taught me) and went to my friend's house. I've known her for almost 4 years now and she always offers up her guest room when this happens (because it's happened before). Around 7:30pm, Scott called and said the neighbor called him and said they were letting people back in (to where we lived, not to all areas), so I thought I'd at least go back and get anything I wanted to make sure I saved. I didn't want to miss my window of opportunity.

I got home 30 minutes later and it all still looked like a warzone and I couldn't really get a good look because it was dark. When I got to the main intersection, where I'd been stopped around 4:00pm, the police officer there asked me where I was going. He wasn't familiar with my address, and just told me that if I "run into flames", turn around. I could definitely see flames in the distance, but distance is hard to judge on the prairie.

I saw my neighbor standing guard, watching for embers, along the dirt road, and he told me the power was out because the telephone poles had burned down and gave me an update on what had happened. I told him I was just grabbing some things and heading back into town.

So, I shuffled through the house with a flashlight in my mouth, making sure windows were secured shut and gathering clothes, toiletries, computer, chargers, our "go" box of important papers, etc.

I noticed that all my neighbors were home and had generators running but I wasn't staying in a cold, smokey house by myself and the view outside was still apocalyptic. Plus, the warning is always that "if the winds shift..." you can be in trouble again.

When I was driving back out, I saw a few glowing embers along the dirt road, so I got out and dumped my water bottle on them and that's how I lost the straw to my Hydro Flask bottle.

(missing straw and all the dishes I had to rewash because they'd been sitting out and were all dusty)

I went back to my friend's house (another 30 minutes away, right near my school) and settled in.

In the morning, I went to the hospital to do my glucose test (since I had the day off), and then I went back out to our house to see the scope of the damage.

Everything inside had a fine layer of dust and there was a slightly smokey smell. I aired the place out and washed all the bedding, blankets, clothes, etc that had been sitting out. Unfortunately, I'd had ALL the blankets and ALL the dishes sitting out to be packed for Wyoming so that was quite the project. If the power wouldn't have been back on, I wouldn't have been able to stay and/or do anything but go back into town. Luckily the electric and phone lines were working again so I didn't have to hole up in a Starbucks all day or on my friend's couch with her dog.

Hank is such a good boy but has a thing for destroying doorframes.

The next day, I was able to go to work, but packed my bags and took them with me just in case. I have no faith or trust in anything at this point.
As the sheriff said in the many news briefs I watched about this fire, it spread 35 miles in less than 2 hours because there were 60 mile per hour winds. If that can happen, anything can, so I'm just in a place of survival mode at this point.

The aftermath: Anything you see that's black is burned.

Standing next to my car in the driveway, this is what I saw:

(I don't care how calm things appear in this picture...if a person moves to Colorado for the "beauty", they'll be seriously disappointed and poor)

Luckily, it rained yesterday and today.

So for anyone and everyone out there complaining about too much snow or not having warm, dry springtime weather yet, I have no comment. I can perhaps dig up some empathy for you (from way deep inside) but no sympathy is currently available. I'm not quite sorry about that either.

I am mentally exhausted.

There are very few things keeping me from saying screw it and driving to Wyoming and staying there. Mostly the fact that I have a supportive group of coworkers and neighbors who genuinely care about me/us. I wouldn't make it out here on my own. A lot of people love living out where we live because they have animals and everyone who has been interviewed by the news plans to rebuild. I get it. They have a real stake in the place and that's fine. I just don't, after living in a few different states at this point.

To anyone who just talks about how beautiful Colorado is, I've likely already unfollowed you on social media and please just know that your experience is not my experience. Truthfully, I always thought Alaska would be the hardest season for me, with deployments and loneliness and all that...it turns out Colorado, with deployments, remodeling, natural disasters, infertility, etc have made this duty station the toughest (yet).

2017 in Review

I think that I needed to post the whole "we're having a baby" thing before I could properly post a year-in-review post from 2017. It was like the final pin in the year and now I can close the book on 2017.

2017 was a weird year. It was almost, like, the worst, but I really can't hate it. It was just a huge lesson in how we don't KNOW what's coming next, even if we assume we do.

So, I'm doing my review of 2017 quite late, but I figured I'd go with this theme that Rachel used because it's more compelling that just a list of things.

Things that were new to me in 2017, in chronological order.


1. Interviewed for 4 jobs in 6 weeks and I got none of them.


2. Went through a cycle of IVF that didn't work and the doctors couldn't tell us why.


3. Boarded the dogs at a kennel. Jett, who was vaccinated, got kennel cough.


4. Drove through Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, and New Mexico. The only state I'd been to previously, of those, was California.

5. Spent a week in San Diego.

6. Bought a house in Wyoming.

7. Decided that my teaching career can be halted for awhile and that's okay. I actually decided this months before I posted it on here. Had to be sure.

8. Flew out of Denver to go to Pennsylvania. In the 4 years we've been here, I've never flown out of Denver.

9.  Got a positive pregnancy test.

10. Drove from Colorado to Pennsylvania and back again.


What new thing, good or bad, did you do in 2017? Have you already done something new to you in 2018?

Happy Valentine's Day to Us: My car broke down

Sometimes, I feel like we're in a replay of the awfulness of August. 

I tried to drive to work on Valentine's Day and the coolant exploded in my RAV4. I was only a couple of miles from home and I didn't know what had happened, only that lights were coming on all over the place, so I drove slowly home just because I didn't want to leave the car sit on the side of the road and then have to have Scott tow it this weekend. Plus, how would I get home? Nothing was smoking or burning so I kept going. My neighbor saw me as she was driving back from dropping her kid off at school and followed me home (so that should make my parents feel better). 

Scott was four hours away in Laramie. 

We are lucky that it never occurred to me how much this would cost to fix or who would fix it: Scott would fix it. It just takes time. Everything takes time.

Anyway, I had to call work to tell them I wouldn't be there right away (and I sent a few instructions to my teammate for the sub), and then I spent the next hour on the phone with Scott while he told me what to check and what to take pictures of...

He was able to diagnosis the problem over the phone and he always asks so many questions in these situations...I could hear him watching Youtube videos about RAV4s and coolant leaks in the background...and it's honestly like I witnessed a crime: What happened before that? When did you see the lights? Did the red light come on before or AFTER the orange ones? Was there smoke? How long were the lights on for? I literally have to remember every detail on command.

Using the code scanner to figure out if there's a deeper issue other than the coolant sprayed around under the hood. (Scott wanted pictures so I happen to have them...I wasn't consciously thinking of documenting this.)

And then, I had to figure out how to charge the battery on the Nissan truck that we haven't driven since fall. I followed a lot of instructions. The battery was not charging quickly enough for me to make it to work, even for a half day. I had to call again and ask for an afternoon sub...I texted some plans to my teammate. (Later, I was told the students told others that it was an "awful" Valentine's Day because I wasn't there, which pretty much thrills me...these kids like me and I was so used to being despised by all...kids, parents, etc... last year.)

Scott walked me through how to jump the truck. My car would start just fine, so I used it to charge the truck battery and then the truck worked. It was too late to make it to work at this point.  If you don't get there by 11:30, they charge you for a whole day of leave and I wasn't working for free.  But the truck had to run for awhile to keep charging and it was low on gas. So I drove to the gas station and then to Target (with smeared mascara and a blotchy face...God bless that cashier for not saying anything about that), then Panda Express, and this is how I ended up on the couch by 2pm, watching Bachelor Winter Games.

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And honestly, this is why I'm not working next year. I know we made the decision to hold onto this place for a year while we were also going to "be" in Wyoming. I also figured that, since it was here and remodeled, I might as well work one more year. We'd be paying the mortgage anyway. PLUS, we didn't close on the Wyoming house until the end of September so we would've been virtually homeless had we tried to move in August when we were originally looking for a house.

Scott has spent a lot of our marriage away and I've had to take care of so much on my own. This idea that I'd be in Colorado during the weeks and he'd be four hours away (with traffic) and the problems it can cause seemed self-inflicted, however. But, if I didn't have a job that was so demanding, it legitimately wouldn't have been as big of a deal. I could've not been in panic mode over making sure the Nissan worked assoonaspossible because I could've stayed home for two days until he came back from Wyoming. It wouldn't be such a stressor to know I have a 40 minute, one way, commute and no vehicle.

I haven't even handed in my letter of resignation yet, and people are already asking when I'm going to go back to work. That's funny, right? They keep asking me what I'm "going to do next". Um, I'm going to be an army wife.  We'll move 2-3 times in the next 5 years. Being an army wife is a legitimate full-time job anyway with the constant inconveniences and necessities that must be taken care of...the mandatory fun events, the volu-told activities, the paperwork, the appointments, the moving, etc.
I've just made the CHOICE to work for the last EIGHT years because I enjoyed it. I don't have TIME to teach after this year.

Normally, I'm not one who believes I need to be overly feminist in my speech or writing because I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT and I don't need to announce it to the world because seriously icandowhateveriwant. But WHY do I have to have "something to do" next fall? I'll HAVE something to do (a baby plus two dogs) and if I want to stay home for a few years, I shouldn't have to act like that's a concession. I've done the teaching thing and now I'm getting to do what I actually want to do for awhile, instead.

I'll go back to education in some form at some point, but I don't even know what state we'll be in a year from now so I really want to encourage these question-askers to not try to make me explain myself. This is especially prevalent to the people who have never lived a military lifestyle and keep asking me what I'm going to do next. When you move somewhere new, you have no help with anything. You are on your own. People who've done the military thing never ask this question because they know what it's like.
Another HUUUUUUGE factor in me not attempting to work for a couple of years is that childcare is too expensive. Paying for that in Colorado Springs would be over 3/4 of my paycheck each month.

Anyway...I was forced to reflect on this:

It was my go-to during all deployments and it's still always in the back of my mind. It was one of the first thoughts I had last week when I realized my car would not be driveable, I was stuck at home, and Scott was four hours away.

Whether you are a Christian or not, it just makes sense. Of course, suffering produces perseverance. Of course, perseverance will help to shape our character. And, of course, having a well-shaped character will lead us to hope that things will get better.

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In the end, Scott was able to fix my car in 20 minutes, on Friday night, at 10pm, in the dark. A pressurized tube had popped apart because the gasket had come loose.

Still, it made for an uncertain few days because something usually (always) goes wrong for us.

Here's hoping the rest of this week flies by. 

See the Good

I've been not posting on Wednesdays for the last two months but I feel like there's a lack of substance lately on this blog, so I'm going to add in a post here or there as necessary. 

It was a rough spring. I didn't get the jobs I was interviewing for and we weren't sure if Scott would stay active duty, Scott left for a month on short notice, and we went through a failed IVF cycle.

That being said, there are always good things that come with the arrival of August and September. It's always been my favorite time of year.

I was listening to a podcast about a former teacher who was in the classroom for 5 or 6 years and then quit to pursue something else. Her story is the story of many, many people. And she had a really rough start to her career. Over the last few years, I've met many first year teachers and some of them never came back, simply because things started rough for them and, with no positive prior experience, they had to move on. They knew no different.

I had the best start to my teaching career. The best start possible. It was more than I could've ever imagined for myself during all those months of desperately trying to get a job in Pennsylvania (see: proof that God knew what He was doing). I worked in a wonderful school in Alaska with a very veteran staff. There was almost no turnover there. I got LUCKY. That position was made just for me. That's where I learned how to teach and I will be FOREVER grateful to those teachers and principals. There were rough patches (there's always rough patches) but I took away an infinite amount of positive when we left Alaska.

What has kept me doing this year after year and what has kept me going back to the classroom is that I remember how ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL my first job was. I remember how magical it felt. I even remember how much I loved every second of my student-teaching. Those are the reasons I keep going back. I know how much I love teaching kids and I love working with other teachers and I can't imagine what my adult life would be like without the relationships I've established with families and educators across the country. I mean, seriously, what a blessing.

In fact...not trying to act like I'm doing some act of piety or godliness each day, but my teammate told me that she applauds me for just showing up each day after the year I had last year. It makes me feel good to know that I can take that love for teaching that I had 8 years ago and still show it to people today.

Allllll that being said...there are some very good things about going back to the same school and the same classroom this fall.

1. I already know a lot of the kids and families in the building.

2. I know what to expect. There won't be big surprises when it comes to what is expected of me and my teaching.

3. I get to continue working with a great team. Part of what made me realize I had to go back was that I get a lot of support from the teachers I work with. Going through IVF, I had a lot of help and support from other teachers...my teammate helped close out my classroom for me, for example, because I was out sick for the last week. That's dirty work and that kind of support is priceless. Other teachers covered my class for 15 or 20 minutes in the mornings while I was at appointments. Teachers just do these things for each other, no questions asked, and I'm so grateful to be in a profession where no one is ever really out for themselves. It's not about us.

4. I know what I'm doing. If I count student-teaching, this is my 8th year in 4th grade. After many years at the grade level, I look at each new one as an opportunity to expand, tweak, and perfect what I'm doing. It's not guesswork, it's finishing-work.

5. I'm grateful to have the opportunity (period) to teach another year. With this military life and with this profession, at times, another school year isn't always guaranteed. When Scott asked me why I wanted to go back, my only response is that I love teaching too much not to. He has always left me working up to me, which I appreciate.

I bought this on Etsy as a d.a.i.l.y reminder that just because things aren't how I imagined, things aren't bad either:

And, trust me, I'm not normally the optimistic type. We have a WHOLE LOT of things up in the air right now and, out of all the things I can stress out my pessimistic side over, teaching isn't one of them right now. This is the aspect of life I can feel settled with, so I'll take it.

Can't even

Oh these last few weeks.

No filter

Scott keeps telling me not to be stressed out because everything we're trying to do is his stress, not my stress. But his stress is my stress #becausemarriage.

So, over the last few weeks, every outdoor tool and/or piece of equipment we use regularly has broken. This includes but is not limited to: lawn mowers (plural), swamp cooler, vehicles, pressure washer, sprinkler system...there's more I'm sure but keeping track is depressing. He has fixed all of these things as they decide to stop working.

In addition, we are trying to finish the new bathroom in the basement because we may be having some friends stay with us and they need functioning living accommodations. We are in the process of buying a second house (again, can't even) and we are doing a major swap/sale/trade of vehicles. We currently have 3 trucks and an SUV.

As well as...with the constant rain/hail of late, our dirt road has surpassed "mud puddle" and turned into "lake".

After picture is forth-coming

Scott bought a water pump, hooked it up to a generator, and is trying to remedy the solution under the suspicious eye of neighbors who are, I can only guess, okay with "lake". But when some saw what he was doing, they were very happy and offered whatever they could to help. We spent the weekend pumping water. He did at least and I helped the best I could because his stress is my stress. We also ate a lot of ice cream.

See the blue truck in the picture? That's our Nissan from Alaska. We got it back from Pennsylvania and it's my new ride until Scott fixes my SUV because there's an issue (never again, RAV4) and he can't fix the SUV until we have a garage and we won't have a garage until we close on this house (I won't even tell you where this house is yet because that adds another layer of complication). We're excited about the house for many reasons and are looking forward to a fresh bit of change but we can't close on the house until the end of September so that adds yet another layer of complication.

This is really just a story of cause/effect and complication. We have a good life and things aren't that bad but man. If I'm quiet, this is literally why. It's too much to explain but this is a rough summary.

Oh, and school starts tomorrow and I'm overwrought with nervousness. Today is the hard day though with meetings/planning and then Meet-the-Teacher in the evening. It'll be a 14 hour day. Brilliant way to start a week, right?

S&T 5/18

Somehow it's only Thursday (morning). It's been a tumultuous week.

This came up as the verse-of-the-day on Monday and I had to laugh:

And I did actually laugh out loud.

Like if I made a list of silver linings and happy things, it'd exist but it'd be short-ish. So I'm also not going to complain today. I'll just leave it because pity makes me feel bad too.

I'll just wish you an easy end to the week and you can do the same for me.

Self-Compassion

Edited to add: I wrote this before the Women Tell All episode of The Bachelor last week. You know, the showdown in which Corrine was given a free pass to act like a spoiled brat and was actually celebrated for it because that's what our country seems to value. Sickening, right?

Subtitle: Personal development learned from The Bachelor.

I was listening to the Here to Make Friends bonus episode on Friday afternoon a few weeks ago. Actually, Friday night. I'd put in a full day at work and then I'd had a thing to go to after work and this led to me getting home at 6:30pm, which is out of my normal routine. The dogs weren't pleased.

The hosts were interviewing Taylor. Taylor of Taylor-and-Corrine. That Taylor. She is a counselor and she was speaking really reflectively about her time on the show and the impact it's had on her professional life. She summed it up as people not necessarily liking her or trusting her because of the way she was portrayed on the show. We know they edit the show within an inch of its life, so it's not that she was a villain; they just needed watchable TV.

The one thing she said that really stuck with me was that she knew she had to give herself a bit of compassion concerning the fact that she did the best she could with what she had.

A paraphrase: Sometimes I regret certain things and thought that, as a counselor, I should've handled everything perfectly. And then I stop and think, No, I did the best I could and I have to trust myself in that. 

And then it was brought up that this is especially important when you're taking the criticism and feedback from others toward yourself.

I've had a rough go of it lately. I've been beating myself up for not being perfect in certain situations. But am I doing the best I can? Usually. I'm not intentionally screwing up or doing my worst. I'm not sabotaging myself. I'm forced to take very real criticism on a very-often basis. It's the nature of things. Again, I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN with what I have and based on what I know.

Sometimes it's necessary to have this reiterated but I didn't exactly expect to come from The Bachelor. I'm guessing it'd just been a really long week and this was certainly a quite necessary ah-ha moment for me.

via

Fortunate(ly it's) Friday

It has been a week.  Or rather, it started off as a week. Then it got better. As most weeks do when Monday is over.

I'm feeling fortunate that our house did not burn down on Monday. I'm fortunate that the huge grassfire that engulfed almost 4,000 acres about 3 miles from our house didn't get to us. I'm feeling fortunate because no homes were lost at all. People and animals are safe. A few out-buildings (think: treehouse or old shed) were burned, along with two vehicles, but none of the houses.

I'm feeling fortunate that we didn't even have to evacuate, but 600 people nearby did.

I'm feeling fortunate that Scott did, in fact, pick up and leave work when I called him to tell him what was happening. I didn't have to deal with this alone, the way I did last spring when I was packing up valuables and trying to decide what vehicle to take in case the dogs and I had to leave.

My "go" bags.

I'm fortunate that the fire was contained within the day and this wasn't some multi-day devastating event. I could go to bed feeling at least okay.

I'm fortunate that, even though the phone lines ended up being down for a day or so, CenturyLink got to work and the internet and phones were restored very quickly. This meant that the local school didn't have to cancel more than one day.

I'm fortunate for, most of all, my dear friend who started prepping her guest room for us "just in case". I didn't even have to ask.

I'm fortunate for the teeny bit of snow/moisture we got the next day. Even though more warm and windy weather is on the way.

Living here is NOT for the faint of heart. That's more or less all I have to say about that. I read the Little House on the Prairie books dozens of times and they were always so afraid of fire and now I see why.

However, Ma has her "All's well that ends well" saying, so that has more or less become my personal motto in the last few years.

Me, taking a very unsafe-while-driving picture, but the road was blocked off ahead so it's not like I was doing much more than crawling. You can see the burned land as the fire moves to the north (the left). 

I'll send you the link to the information about the fire if you want...no need to triangulate my location to the whole world. 

Here's to the weekend and checking a few things off of my March goals list.