Lisa just posted a "Things I'm Loving Lately...." and in leaving her a comment I realized that I need this bit of reframing in my life after this weekend.
The last few weeks I've been feeling much better about work & life (while still ruminating and questioning) and I've just been in a better physical, mental, energy space in general. I'm not sure if it's been the dietary changes, extra vitamins, tons of prayer, a lighter work load, or all together....but my head space has been great. I even was more than okay when my planned shrimp boil with friends fell through on Saturday and I had a ton of fun going out with best bud (who came up for the event) & another guy that we know. The next day I also was so happy to host and have a great visit with two of my longest standing friends and their kiddos.
So I've been a lil bummed to be a lil bummed as some resurfacing grief and annoyance has risen in the last 48 hours also. I really try not to talk too much about my ex, but he was also connected to all 4 of the adults I spent time with this weekend...and it meant that my mind is attempting to process (but avoid) thinking about some things :) As I hadn't seen my hometown friends (who are like extended family to me....and the husband shares a best friend with my ex) in about four years, there was a bit of lost time to cover. The other two guys (best bud & the other vet) both are former friends of my ex and have or are currently living with him. [And in general, I've been feeling some annoyance lately at the responsibility of having all three of the pets that the ex and I chose together. (I absolutely love my dogs and know they've been absolute blessings...but we chose them because he wanted them.)] In some ways, the time with our mutual contacts was validating for me, but it also just makes me sad to realize how he has treated (and continues to treat) others. The good news is: I'm always truly grateful that I learned a ton in the process and I have no doubt that I needed many of those lessons, I truly am much better off now, I had a great time with all of the contacts this weekend, and I know I'll get over this newest little mental hurdle :)
So in an attempt to do so, here are some of things that I SHOULD be focusing on, because truly life is pretty blessed and I need to be much more grateful. At 33, there is still so much of life potentially ahead with ample time and opportunity for amazing & simple moments to unfold :)
So what am I especially grateful for as of late?
--For solid sleep and comfortable mattresses.
--For slower weeks of one job and relishing the potential last bits of my flexible work style.
--For work covering my travel tickets and the fastest refund they've issued yet.
--For the ability to harvest fruits and veggies directly out of my yard.
--For a stable housing situation & that C will transition in this weekend.
--For a great visit with my long-time friends who are on the verge of transitioning back to Oregon.
--For great conversations with J about sustainable permaculture farming operations.
--For great conversations with D about holistic health care.
--For amazing moments with their lil tykes: picking berries in the yard, digging through the toy box, swinging on the playground, and just getting to know their fun personalities.
--For a fun weekend outing with best bud & our buddy E: pizza, annual bowling trip, getting down on multiple games of air hockey, burgers, and a 4 hour game of super scrabble.
--For the opportunity to reach out a hand and help others.
--For good books and time/motivation to read them.
--For my body pushing out miles while still taking ample opportunities to rest & restore it.
--For getting the dogs on trail to see their joy & smiles.
--For a great tea gathering & walk with an old gal pal.
--For the professional opportunity here at my feet.
--For the opportunities that the last year has afforded me to travel, grow, develop, and explore.
--For the friendships I have spread throughout this country and globe.
--For hot days followed by needed coolness & rain showers.
--For access to healthy food, medical care, anything I need for my needs, and freedom.
--For flowering bushes & Poppa's roses.
--For the love, support, & time with family.
--For my new great-nephew who should be arriving any time in the next week or two.
--For the immense peace, trust, and faith that arrives with routine prayer.
--For optimism in the midst of despair.
And the list could go on and on......cause truly there is so incredibly much to be grateful for....
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Friday, June 10, 2016
Life As of Late
So I hope to get a few blog posts done in the next week or so...because I've been thinking of several things I want to update/share. But for now I'm just going to do an overall share "update."
--The term is over at my old institution--woohoo! After an especially rough term, I debated shutting the door on that original position, but an appreciation luncheon a few weeks back led to multiple refreshing and encouraging conversations with my current and prior supervisors at that college; which made me remember how much I truly do love the student body and the institution. I'm staying on but cutting back to one class each term next year.
--Two more weeks at the new institution and I've been working on scheduling an event for student presentations, grading assignments, some program items, responding to emails and concerns, setting up the next placements, prepping for Tanzania, and the lists go on. I have my official interview for the full-time slot next week and then we'll see...
--I bought my tickets for summer work travels...and ended up in this fiasco of a situation due to one of the links/bookings I went through via re-route from kayak.com. It took five hours on the phone and multiple calls between my credit card company and the booking company to more or less rectify that situation and I'm still not sure if I totally have one ticket or where the charge for it went.... but in good news...I'll be in Tanzania for 3.5 weeks total, will spend a weekend in Munich with my host sister, and then will spend a week in Ireland! I was debating between Italy, Greece or Ireland. I decided to go with Ireland cause it's the one place in Europe that I definitely would like to see in my lifetime AND when I checked prices it actually was the better deal (even with an additional connecting flight!). I still need to plan the week that I'm there...but I'll get to it.
--I took care of the tire rotation.....only to discover that I needed to replace a part...that had a cost of almost $1700. Oh man....so yea, that car will still get paid off by the end of this year, but that part is delayed for a bit...and I'm hopeful this sucker lasts me another 100k miles at least :) I'll also have to replace the spark plugs at some point later this summer or fall, but everything else "seems" to be running alright. :)
--I'm not looking forward to this half marathon. :) I have no doubt that I CAN do it. I'm just starting to realize that I don't know that I WANT to do it. Running isn't as fun for me as it used to be, but I'm still glad that the half is motivating me to get back after some longer distance. Ironically I just sent a link to my gal Christina about running a half next spring in a National Park I've been desiring to get to...so maybe I'm not totally done juuuuust yet :)
--I also finally went in to see the doctor. Really I had a list of about 6 items I wanted to touch on but I went in for 4. After a week of trying to get malaria pills, I was able to finally get the prescription. I had my wrist x-rayed because I'd been battling with pain for about a month and couldn't put weight on it. I had a PAP cause it'd been waay too long since the last one. And then I also had two wonky moles on my back looked at. I'm also still coughing after getting sick in DC...but I've had issues with "weak" lungs most my life so this is pretty standard.
--One of the other issues I had thought about talking over with the doctor was just a general lack of energy & motivation, but over the last 2 weeks things have been a bit better. I spent a few weeks granting myself down time and I had a mini-staycation over the Memorial weekend. I've been getting better about shutting work off...and I'm soaking up these next few part-time weeks as much as possible. I also was given an antibiotic for another issue they discovered at the doctor's appt and that antibiotic didn't permit alcohol use. So I also stopped my coffee habit and decided to stop eating excess sugar all at the same time. Tomorrow will be two full weeks without any of the three items. I also added in drinking extra water, cross training with some yoga and walking the dogs, monitoring my sleep hours, eating solid meals, AND daily supplements: Vit D, calcium, fish oil, and b complex. During these last two weeks, I've had a MUCH better mood, more overall energy, increased motivation levels, my skin has cleared up, and my mind is just operating better in general (both mood wise and with things like processing & recall). I'm hopeful this keeps up because it would be great to go into this summer's travels already feeling full & restored!
--Oh and the other big thing is that last month I was doing a 30 days of prayer challenge....that I'm continuing on with for the most part into this month. I'm truly finding that when I spend time just talking to the dude upstairs for a bit every day...that life just goes a bit easier. It's not smoother per se, there are still unfortunate things in this world and still bumps to life (like $1700! :)), but I also just trust a little bit more that things will work out. He's got this...we've got this...and I also am realizing yet again, just how blessed that I have been...and continue to be.
--And I also have a summer houseshare set up! Ironically after the surprise costs, I'd thought about just subletting for full or half price in order to input some more money....but then I decided to go ahead with my original Plan B....so the student who stayed here for a few weeks last summer post-Tanzania will be here in two weeks (as his current lease will be up). He'll stay on through the summer taking care of the house, yard, plants, and Major while I'm gone...and then he can decide once I'm back at what point he wants to transition back downtown. He's a pretty quiet guy so I don't forsee any issues and I'm just so grateful to have someone to look after the place (and cat) while I'm gone. I also know that he'll enjoy the raised beds...and having a full house to himself.
I'm sure there is more....but some of those will be covered in coming posts!
--The term is over at my old institution--woohoo! After an especially rough term, I debated shutting the door on that original position, but an appreciation luncheon a few weeks back led to multiple refreshing and encouraging conversations with my current and prior supervisors at that college; which made me remember how much I truly do love the student body and the institution. I'm staying on but cutting back to one class each term next year.
--Two more weeks at the new institution and I've been working on scheduling an event for student presentations, grading assignments, some program items, responding to emails and concerns, setting up the next placements, prepping for Tanzania, and the lists go on. I have my official interview for the full-time slot next week and then we'll see...
--I bought my tickets for summer work travels...and ended up in this fiasco of a situation due to one of the links/bookings I went through via re-route from kayak.com. It took five hours on the phone and multiple calls between my credit card company and the booking company to more or less rectify that situation and I'm still not sure if I totally have one ticket or where the charge for it went.... but in good news...I'll be in Tanzania for 3.5 weeks total, will spend a weekend in Munich with my host sister, and then will spend a week in Ireland! I was debating between Italy, Greece or Ireland. I decided to go with Ireland cause it's the one place in Europe that I definitely would like to see in my lifetime AND when I checked prices it actually was the better deal (even with an additional connecting flight!). I still need to plan the week that I'm there...but I'll get to it.
--I took care of the tire rotation.....only to discover that I needed to replace a part...that had a cost of almost $1700. Oh man....so yea, that car will still get paid off by the end of this year, but that part is delayed for a bit...and I'm hopeful this sucker lasts me another 100k miles at least :) I'll also have to replace the spark plugs at some point later this summer or fall, but everything else "seems" to be running alright. :)
--I'm not looking forward to this half marathon. :) I have no doubt that I CAN do it. I'm just starting to realize that I don't know that I WANT to do it. Running isn't as fun for me as it used to be, but I'm still glad that the half is motivating me to get back after some longer distance. Ironically I just sent a link to my gal Christina about running a half next spring in a National Park I've been desiring to get to...so maybe I'm not totally done juuuuust yet :)
--I also finally went in to see the doctor. Really I had a list of about 6 items I wanted to touch on but I went in for 4. After a week of trying to get malaria pills, I was able to finally get the prescription. I had my wrist x-rayed because I'd been battling with pain for about a month and couldn't put weight on it. I had a PAP cause it'd been waay too long since the last one. And then I also had two wonky moles on my back looked at. I'm also still coughing after getting sick in DC...but I've had issues with "weak" lungs most my life so this is pretty standard.
--One of the other issues I had thought about talking over with the doctor was just a general lack of energy & motivation, but over the last 2 weeks things have been a bit better. I spent a few weeks granting myself down time and I had a mini-staycation over the Memorial weekend. I've been getting better about shutting work off...and I'm soaking up these next few part-time weeks as much as possible. I also was given an antibiotic for another issue they discovered at the doctor's appt and that antibiotic didn't permit alcohol use. So I also stopped my coffee habit and decided to stop eating excess sugar all at the same time. Tomorrow will be two full weeks without any of the three items. I also added in drinking extra water, cross training with some yoga and walking the dogs, monitoring my sleep hours, eating solid meals, AND daily supplements: Vit D, calcium, fish oil, and b complex. During these last two weeks, I've had a MUCH better mood, more overall energy, increased motivation levels, my skin has cleared up, and my mind is just operating better in general (both mood wise and with things like processing & recall). I'm hopeful this keeps up because it would be great to go into this summer's travels already feeling full & restored!
--Oh and the other big thing is that last month I was doing a 30 days of prayer challenge....that I'm continuing on with for the most part into this month. I'm truly finding that when I spend time just talking to the dude upstairs for a bit every day...that life just goes a bit easier. It's not smoother per se, there are still unfortunate things in this world and still bumps to life (like $1700! :)), but I also just trust a little bit more that things will work out. He's got this...we've got this...and I also am realizing yet again, just how blessed that I have been...and continue to be.
--And I also have a summer houseshare set up! Ironically after the surprise costs, I'd thought about just subletting for full or half price in order to input some more money....but then I decided to go ahead with my original Plan B....so the student who stayed here for a few weeks last summer post-Tanzania will be here in two weeks (as his current lease will be up). He'll stay on through the summer taking care of the house, yard, plants, and Major while I'm gone...and then he can decide once I'm back at what point he wants to transition back downtown. He's a pretty quiet guy so I don't forsee any issues and I'm just so grateful to have someone to look after the place (and cat) while I'm gone. I also know that he'll enjoy the raised beds...and having a full house to himself.
I'm sure there is more....but some of those will be covered in coming posts!
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Life in Teacher Mode
Some weeks my work schedule is looser than others and I've learned to roll with work energy when it's here...and let things go when the work energy is less. Somehow it all balances out in the long run and everything more or less gets accomplished.
The beautiful thing of how the schedule has unfolded over the last several years is that I tend to work via prepping and grading for at least one solid weekend day in order to play hard on at least one solid week day. However there are other week days that also can be full of super long days of work.
Case in point:
I attended some work events at my original teaching institution on Thursday afternoon and picked up some work related books & responded to some work emails for my new institution on Friday. However I didn't do a ton of practical work things on Thursday & Friday of last week. I did check and respond to most emails those days and I set up meetings for this week. I took all of Saturday off and then put in about 1.5-2 hours of teaching prep on Sunday and spent about another 45 minutes doing some grading.
And then today happened:
--7 hours on site at the new institution (2 hrs of which were teaching, 3 student meetings, various emails, and dealing with two issues that came up)
--3.5 hours of grading at home for my original institution
--2.5 hours (home) online content review & analysis typed up for a phone mtg tomorrow morning
On Tuesdays I generally work for my original institution but tomorrow I'm doing 3 items for the new institution:
--phone mtg on program lay-outs
--prepping independent study that I just picked up with two students
--mtg with said students to lay out academic plan for rest of term
Then I will update grades for my online courses & review material for teaching...and then teach for three hours in the evening (for my original institution).
At some point Weds-Friday (yea for flexibility!), I'll grade online & in-person assignments for my original institution, follow-up with all of my mentor students via email, book my summer tickets, grade assignments for my 3 classes at the new institution, review syllabi for the potential 4 new-to-me courses I might be teaching next year, meet with the independent study students again and teach them course 1 material, prep said material in my own head, follow-up with a couple of community contacts and research others, and take care of any additional items that arise.
In theory, it's not a ton, but sometimes managing so many different items exhausts my brain. Two more weeks of the term at the original institution and then a few more beyond that at the new one. But the reality is that I'm trying as much as possible to soak up the flexibility of the schedule that I do have (and that I have been incredibly fortunate to have had for the last several years). I haven't mentioned this here but it's been on the table for the last six months that I might be transitioning to full-time at the new institution. While I'm still not sure (1.5 months out from said contract start) whether this will actually be the case, it's been a bit of a mental shift for me to contemplate working a regular schedule for the first time in six years. I'm excited for the opportunities it could create (plus financial benefits and better boundaries), but there are also some hesitations, especially as I also contemplate potentially letting go of my other teaching position....
Big changes could be unfolding....but for now I'm going to enjoy the chaotic freedom that exists...and trust that life will work out as it should during the academic year that will soon be arriving.
Now here's to skedaddling to bed :)
The beautiful thing of how the schedule has unfolded over the last several years is that I tend to work via prepping and grading for at least one solid weekend day in order to play hard on at least one solid week day. However there are other week days that also can be full of super long days of work.
Case in point:
I attended some work events at my original teaching institution on Thursday afternoon and picked up some work related books & responded to some work emails for my new institution on Friday. However I didn't do a ton of practical work things on Thursday & Friday of last week. I did check and respond to most emails those days and I set up meetings for this week. I took all of Saturday off and then put in about 1.5-2 hours of teaching prep on Sunday and spent about another 45 minutes doing some grading.
And then today happened:
--7 hours on site at the new institution (2 hrs of which were teaching, 3 student meetings, various emails, and dealing with two issues that came up)
--3.5 hours of grading at home for my original institution
--2.5 hours (home) online content review & analysis typed up for a phone mtg tomorrow morning
On Tuesdays I generally work for my original institution but tomorrow I'm doing 3 items for the new institution:
--phone mtg on program lay-outs
--prepping independent study that I just picked up with two students
--mtg with said students to lay out academic plan for rest of term
Then I will update grades for my online courses & review material for teaching...and then teach for three hours in the evening (for my original institution).
At some point Weds-Friday (yea for flexibility!), I'll grade online & in-person assignments for my original institution, follow-up with all of my mentor students via email, book my summer tickets, grade assignments for my 3 classes at the new institution, review syllabi for the potential 4 new-to-me courses I might be teaching next year, meet with the independent study students again and teach them course 1 material, prep said material in my own head, follow-up with a couple of community contacts and research others, and take care of any additional items that arise.
In theory, it's not a ton, but sometimes managing so many different items exhausts my brain. Two more weeks of the term at the original institution and then a few more beyond that at the new one. But the reality is that I'm trying as much as possible to soak up the flexibility of the schedule that I do have (and that I have been incredibly fortunate to have had for the last several years). I haven't mentioned this here but it's been on the table for the last six months that I might be transitioning to full-time at the new institution. While I'm still not sure (1.5 months out from said contract start) whether this will actually be the case, it's been a bit of a mental shift for me to contemplate working a regular schedule for the first time in six years. I'm excited for the opportunities it could create (plus financial benefits and better boundaries), but there are also some hesitations, especially as I also contemplate potentially letting go of my other teaching position....
Big changes could be unfolding....but for now I'm going to enjoy the chaotic freedom that exists...and trust that life will work out as it should during the academic year that will soon be arriving.
Now here's to skedaddling to bed :)
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