Crafty Day

I drew this picture

I sewed this laptop case. 

Now or never

Korra had a check up this morning. After waiting for about 15 minutes in the waiting room she said, "we should just go. It's now or never." 

Also after an hour of patching those jeans, she put them on and they're too short. 

More eating and talking

Making the most of our break: lunch with my former partner teacher and then dinner with a family from church. 

Talking, laughing, eating

Yesterday we spent from about 4-8pm helping friends pack for their impending move to Massachusetts. There was also lots of talking, laughing, eating pizza. I'm going to miss them tremendously. 

Today we spent about the same amount of time with other friends eating dinner, talking, playing board games, laughing. 

It was a really wonderful way to spend the weekend. 

More embroidery mending

New 'do

Korra wanted her haircut in order to better show off the pierced ears were getting done in 3 weeks. 

Gag Reflex

Korra's easy gag reflex annoyingly keeps her from doing many household chores. She can't put her dishes in the dishwasher or put things in the trash (it smells bad).  If we make her because we think she's just making excuses not to help out, sure enough, she barfs. Just imagine if we tried to get her to clean her bathroom. 

Playground Playdate #2

Second playground playdate in 3 days with friends from school that we just realized live only a few blocks away. It was really wonderful to meet up spur of the moment for just an hour or two. Also really nice that I enjoy the mom's company as much as Korra enjoys playing with the daughter. 

Mending

My sister inspired me to try some embroidery mending on a hole in Korra's jeans. 

Definitely going to try some more tomorrow!

Outside!

Enjoyed the weather today with a morning playdate and an afternoon family bike ride. 

Christmas Day

Woke up in my own bed on Christmas morning.  Made an egg dish and apple coffee cake.  Opened gifts with family.  Called/Skyped with more family.  Watched Elf (or actually put on Elf and then took a nap on the couch).  It was wonderful.  Very different than our usual Christmas but lovely all the same.

Christmas Eve

For the first time in my married life, we're spending Christmas at our own home. That means Christmas Eve service at our church. As a family, we lit the Advent candles and served communion. It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate Christmas with our church community.

Chinese

Tried a new Chinese restaurant (Chin Chin on Ponce) for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Everyone loved what they ordered so I'll count it as a success. 

ClueTown Scavenger Hunt

The weather is absolutely gorgeous today. 68 degrees and sunny!  My parents, brother, sister-in-law, Nate, Korra, and I went to Oakland Cemetery to walk around and do a ClueTown Scavenger Hunt. 

Gingerbread Train

Korra and my parents worked together to make  a gingerbread Hogwarts Express. 

Snack Dinner

Tonight's dinner: mini pigs in a blanket, shrimp and cocktail sauce, buffalo chicken dip, ranch dip and veggies, meatballs, edamame, black eyed pea dip, snickerdoodles, and chocolate covered pretzels. Our annual snack dinner (aka smorgasbord). I ate too much. Also there are so many leftovers. We didn't even put out all the cheese and crackers I bought. 

Birthday party and visitors

While Korra was at a birthday party, my parents arrived!  We had chili and homemade bread for dinner. Korra ate pizza and cupcakes in a cardboard box decorated to look like a car (for their "drive in movie). A great time was had by all, though Korra is having a really hard time calming down from the excitement of the birthday party and having grandparents here. Thank goodness there's no school tomorrow. 

Christmas Pageant

Korra was an angel in this year's pop-up pageant. 

King Arthur

Every recipe I've ever tried from the King Arthur Flour website has been amazing. 

Made this one today for a breakfast potluck at church (enjoyed before sorting the Christmas pageant costumes) and they were a huge hit. 

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/apple-muffins-recipe

Apple Muffins | King Arthur Flour

Super Cleaning

Hosting Christmas is an excellent excuse to deep clean the house.  

You get a To-do list and you get a to-do list!

Woke up at 4:30 again. Laid in bed listening to an audiobook until 6 (a perk of Nate falling asleep on the couch). Then coffee and individual To-do lists for each member of the family. I'm sure they're going to love it. 

At least it's over

The school day was not great.  The kids did not leave. My coteachers were way more ok with "unstructured time" (for me this feels like chaos) than I was. Korra threw up during my middle schoolers' award ceremony (too much sugar and a "bad smell") so I had to leave for a bit to check in her. It was long. 

After school however was great. A teacher friend and her daughter joined Korra and me in the park for a little decompression time. I wrapped presents while watching Christmas episodes of The Simpsons. I took a long bubble bath while listening to an audiobook (by Liane Moriarty) and drinking "sipping chocolate" spiked with peppermint vodka. Those things have helped me shake lose the last bits of school so I will hopefully be able to fully enjoy my 2 week vacation. 

More things to keep me from sleeping

All the little end of the semester stuff is making me just stressed enough to impact my sleep.  Lists of things I need to remember to do or conversations that didn't go well that I'm replaying or future conversations I might have that I obsess over. Having to take melatonin at night to fall asleep but that doesn't help when I continually wake up at 4:30am. And then I check my email and see a confirmed cases of scabies in Korra's grade. Just one more thing to rob me of sleep. 

And now we wait

The pediatrician saw us quickly and then sent off Korra's urine to a lab. Glad we got the ball rolling before the weekend and holidays just in case it is a UTI. 

Mindful strategies

Really had to put my SEL (social-emotional learning) strategies into practice to pull myself together. I ate some lunch. I took deep breaths. I called a couple people to talk through my feelings. I made a new plan. I listened to Christmas music to distract myself from negative thoughts and reset. 

Took Korra grocery shopping. Called the old pediatrician at 2 and made an appointment for 3:15. Made an appointment to get the oil changed on Monday. Not the day I had hoped and planned for but not the end of the world either. 

What plans?

Today I had a half day.  I was going to take the car to get an oil change, go grocery shopping, maybe even pick up a fancy coffee for myself.  Right as I was about to leave, Korra's teacher brings Korra to me. She's sobbing.  Says it hurts when she pees.  Another UTI.  So I can the pediatrician around the corner. The one I was planning on transferring to anyway (just not today).  They say to come right over. After filling out ALL the paperwork, they tell me they don't accept our insurance.  So I call our old place to see if we can come in.  They're closed for lunch until 2 (it's NOON!)  I can't drag a crying kid who has to pee every 3 min around to run errands while I wait until then.  So do I go to Urgent Care?  Do I wait until 2 and call and hope they can squeeze us in?  Oh, and Korra has totally stopped crying now so does she really have a UTI anyway?

Threat

Friday morning we have the end of quarter awards ceremony. I told the kids that after that we'd be writing essays for the rest of the day. I'm not telling them outright that they should go home with their parents after the program but I'm trying to nudge them in that direction. Let's see if it works. 

Administrative Tasks

This time of year (like the beginning and end of the school year) are filled with administrative tasks. Entering grades, putting test data into spreadsheets, making lists for honor roll and perfect attendance, evaluations and surveys to complete... Whew. It's not even the kids who are making me exhausted. I'm ready for this break. 

Disorganized

A parent accused me of losing her child's assignments. Right after she said she was surprised he had a D because her son never gave her the biweekly progress reports. Yeah, because 35 year old professionals are way more disorganized and irresponsible than 12 year old boys. That's definitely the most logical assumption. 

Blog Scrolling

Spent about 15 minutes this morning scrolling through my old blog posts to figure out Austin (NA), Alquida (AL), and Danny's birthdays and then putting them on my calendar.  Thinking about each of them extra today for some reason.

Yoga

Tonight I went to my first yoga class in probably about 2 years and it was the best class I've been to since moving to Atlanta. It was so relaxing and intimidating (so much like the vibe in my neighborhood yoga classes in LaGrange that I loved so much). And maybe best of all, it was at a place I already had to be for an hour. Korra has Girl Scouts on Monday nights at our church. This yoga class is in the church basement at almost exactly the same time. 

Neighbor Friend

Korra decided to go outside to play this afternoon and I was able to arrange for a 3rd grade girl who lives in the next building to join her (she's also an only child). They played soccer and hopscotch and then went inside to play Connect Four and paint. Both girls had a great time and plan to hang out again. I'm extra happy about this because it feels like a bit of "real" childhood- going over to a neighbor friend's house and just knocking on the door to ask to play. Playing outside without constant adult supervision. Sometimes I feel like living in a big city limits some of her Independence, so this feels like a big deal. Hoping it's the first if many playdates!

Christmas cards

Today I wrote cards to all 23 of my students. The hardest part was making sure they don't all sound too much alike. What wasn't hard was saying how thankful I am to teach each one of them. 

Photos from Franklin

Pretty cute for a girl who doesn't believe in Santa. 

Family photos

Lots of hugs

Not sure why but I've been getting lots of big hugs from my students the last few days. It's been nice. They like me. 

Eye Doctor

Annual eye check-up. 

He who smelt it

I farted and then watched my students blame each other. 

I don't think that's right

One of my students said, "Ok, Boomer" ... to another student. 

Migraine Day

Went to school for less than 2 hours. Came home because yesterday's headache is a full-on migraine. Laying on the couch, listening to an audiobook with a heating pad on my neck and head. 

SHEL

The band that opened for Jars of Clay last night (they also collaborated with them on the new Christmas album) was AMAZING. 4 sisters, harmonies, mandolin, violin, BEATBOXING. I'm kind of obsessed. 

Korra loved them, too. She got them to sign her CD (though she didn't know what a CD was at first)

Here are some videos so you can get obsessed, too:

https://www.npr.org/2016/05/22/478738888/four-home-schooled-sisters-one-awesome-metallica-cover

Four Home-Schooled Sisters, One Awesome Metallica Cover : NPR

https://youtu.be/wIruMEXx7Nc

🎥 incredible female beatbox- Liza from SHEL rocks it out

https://youtu.be/-sikjsW4jiI

🎥 SHEL - When The Sky Fell (Official Music Video)

VIP

Thanks to a monthly donation to Blood: Water for the past 10 years, we got VIP tickets to the Jars of Clay Christmas concert. Neither of us have ever been VIPs before so this is extra exciting. We got to go in early for food (really delicious) and drinks (cocktails made with local whiskey) and have special reserved seating in the balcony (the rest of the concert is general admission). We also had the opportunity to get family portraits made before the concert. 

Christmas Parade

While exploring downtown Franklin, we learned that this afternoon is their big Christmas parade!  It was fun but quite long (how does such a small town have so many marching bands and dance teams?!) 

Because of traffic

We have hotel reservations in Franklin Tennessee tonight. Even though we were both home by 4:30, we decided not to leave until nearly 7 to avoid sitting in Friday rush hour traffic for an extra couple of hours. We won't get to the hotel until almost 10:30 but hopefully it'll be a much less stressful drive. It'll be even less stressful if Korra will go to sleep...

Persuasive essay

Today I had my students write persuasive essays about what their parents should get them for Christmas. It was mostly to practice correct essay organization but they seemed to really enjoy it.

Just a generally good day

School was really good today, mostly because of an encouraging one on one conversation I had with the executive director.  It made me feel freed of some pressures and constructing expectations and energized for the next semester. 

After school Korra and I walked to the library and then I made tacos, banana muffins and peanut butter cookies. I also got some post-illness house cleaning done which makes me feel much more back to normal. 

Back to Normal

I'm back to feeling normal again.  Nate's on his second day home from school but I think he's on the up-swing.  That means tonight I'll be washing all the sheets, cleaning the bathrooms, and spraying everything with Lysol so that maybe I can sleep in my own room tonight (I've been bunking with Korra since Sunday).

Low Energy

Woke up feeling totally fine this morning, but was about to lay down on the nasty carpet in my classroom before homeroom even began.  I've spent the whole day teaching from my rolling chair.  Super thankful for my student teacher (who was very helpful) and my students (who were calm and gracious).  Going to nap and then order pizza as soon as I get home.

Other side

I've come out on the other side of this illness (which in now starting to suspect it's actually the flu) but Nate's even worse. He spent the whole day in bed. I spent most of the day on the couch. Korra and I watched 2 Christmas movies and decorated the tree (Korra did most of it). I also watched about 6 more episodes of Veronica Mars in between very slowly folding laundry, taking out the trash, putting away the groceries, and making a frozen pizza. That's about all the energy I had today which doesn't exactly bode well for teaching tomorrow.