Mourning Time

I am mourning my summer morning routine.

I like my morning time. It keeps me stable and kind to others.

Awhile ago, I heard the definition of introverts and extroverts: if you're an extrovert, you get your energy from people. If you're an introvert, you get your energy by being alone.

I am definitely on the introvert spectrum.

Now that's not to say I don't like people; I definitely do. But I need my morning time to stay balanced and confident and happy.

It's my favorite time of the day.

Now Roy? He definitely does not operate like me. Roy's mode of living is to get up, eat breakfast, and WORK. When his feet hit the ground every morning, that's his sign to make the most of daylight hours. And so, by the time he arrives in the living room for the first day, his arms are filled with a filled trashcan (filled from the other trashcans in the house), and stray glasses that he spied meandering around the house (usually in Jace's room). 

It is polar opposite of me. I prefer a cup of steaming coffee, my iPad, a few inspiring videos, my journal, and a personal growth book of some sort. Mm.

It makes me happy just thinking about it.

But lately my family has been disrupting my peaceful routine. First of all, let's talk about Roy.

Getting Roy out the door is an Act of Congress. Armed with his NotePad, notebooks, a pen, his iPhone, a lunchbox packed to the gills, three drink cups (no, I'm not kidding), his wallet, and probably a couple of things I'm missing, it takes more than one trip to get this  boy settled in his pickup for the morning drive. It might be amusing to have a video of us working side by side for about fifteen minute before he exits the house. 

Then again...I haven't showered at this point and sometimes I'm edgy so....maybe not.

And then there's Jace. Since joining athletics, Jace has to be at school a little before 7:00 am. That, folks, means a whole litany of duties:

Unfortunately, I have always believed that my kids should have a hot breakfast before they start their school day. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY KIDS HAS CAPITALIZED ON THIS! By the time they hit high school? I. AM. OVER. IT.

Clearly they are not. It's expected. They are entitled.

#IHateEntitlement

But cook breakfast I do: scrambled eggs, some form of bacon, a piece of fruit, and two pieces of buttered toast. 

Every morning.

And then I gather all of the foods for Jace's packed lunch (prepared the night before). 

Thankfully Jace is a hair-bit more responsible this year than last so his backpack is ready to go without rehearsing all of the things that need to be in there. I'm grateful for that.

(Gotta give thanks for the little things around here, people.)

But by the time we're in the car and racing down the road towards Keene ISD, I'm sighing.

One of those "oh my word I can't believe it's only 6:45 and my day has hardly started and here I am in the car and I only had 30 minutes to myself this morning..." sighs.

It's not pretty. And it's definitely not pretty for others.

The good thing is, I typically keep my thoughts to myself, so people don't see all the snarling and eye rolling going on behind the pasted smile. 

The bad thing is, I'm not so generous with my family. They get to see the real me.

June and July? I miss you. 

I bet my family does too.

We've Got This

It is the beginning of a new school year.

This time of year has always been one of my favorites. It signals the time to hit Target and load up on 3 ring binders, college-ruled paper, mechanical pencils, colorful folders, and the promise of jobs well-done. 

It signals the time to purchase that first day of school outfit, brand new tennis, and a few other clothing essentials that one needs to begin a new school year.

The new school year means a brand new slate, new goals, fresh beginnings.

I get excited just thinking about it.

That’s what I miss the most from teaching — that first day excitement. 

Roy, Jace and I spent this past weekend loading up on first day “essentials.” We hit Sam’s Club and Academy Sports and Kohl’s. Jace is well-prepared in the area of clothing; we kind of skipped over the supplies, however. I’ll get those tomorrow as his first day is Thursday.

We registered Jace last week and the school sent him home with a brand new MacBook. It is still sitting on his dresser in anticipation.

Well, I’m “anticipating…” Jace? Not so much. He claims he will miss these lazy days of freedom — sleeping in, hanging out, long hours with nothing to do…

But I think that secretly he’s excited. And if he isn’t….well, I’m excited enough for the both of us.

Jace chose to join sports this year. He intends to play basketball but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him throw a couple more sports in the arena once he starts. But joining the sports program is a big decision. It entails arriving at the school gym by 6:00 every morning for calisthenics and practice. 

I do believe that will teach some kids a few things about discipline — my kid being one of them.

I’m happy for him. And I’m happy for his teachers.

And I am especially happy about cheering for Jace at his games — even if he’s just sitting on the bench. Tami (my sister) and I talked about how we are going to get special shirts made that have Jace’s name on them so that whenever we are at the games, the crowd will know we are there to REPRESENT.

Jace was super excited about that idea. When we told him, he just shook his head and walked away. I’m sure he was overwhelmed with gratitude.

Students will be coming back to Southwestern this next week as well. It’s rather quiet in our office during the summer, so we are all ready for some energy in our hallways and on our campus. 

As this new year begins, I have many things to anticipate:

   *Tami and Chas will be moving into their brand new home which is almost completed. I can see their garage door from my porch and we are eager for them to be our neighbors. Frankly, I can’t wait. In fact, most evenings Tami and I meander through their house to see the progress. Change is subtle now as it’s just the details: light fixtures, electricity — that sort of thing. We are all anticipating our side-by-side future together.

   *A cruise. Roy and I have booked a cruise for the end of January in celebration of our 30 year anniversary which we just hit on August 2. We are both counting the days.

   *Fall. It’s my favorite time of year. Of course, I say that about just about every season right before it rolls around. But that’s okay. It keeps me looking forward.

   *Holidays. As I get older, the holidays get sweeter. I still have my parents; Sav and G will head home for a few days; Darian will be here as well. What’s not to love?

And so, even though I’m not in the classroom, I’m still excited about all the promise that a brand new school year brings. Bring on the sharpened pencils, creative projects, red ink and furrowed brows.

We’ve got this.

The Photos to Prove It

It’s 6:00 in the morning and Darian just pulled away, headed for Southern — a 13 hour drive by herself.

I’m not sure when this happened, when she grew up, when she became so independent and fierce and capable.

It seems like yesterday we listened carefully to understand her because of her speech impediment. I can remember my dad saying, exasperated, every time we visited for a few years: what did she say?? And Savana would translate.

One time a friend of mine rode in the car with six year old Darian for two hours, and Darian chattered away for the entire ride while I drove separately. When we arrived at our destination, my friend said, “She talked the entire ride and I didn’t understand a single word!”

But after a year of intensive speech therapy when Darian was a little first grader, she learned to say her r’s and her sh’s and now she can talk with the best of them.

When Jace was two years old, our computer crashed, taking a ridiculous amount of photos with it from his first two years of life. It was a hard lesson — that a computer isn’t dependable and backup is always needed in order to preserve photos. 

And so we bought a hard drive and began to transfer photos to it from then on. However, I have been embarrassingly irresponsible with those photos. I haven’t uploaded them to a cloud or printed them off for photo albums. I haven’t scrapbooked them. They have just patiently waited on the hard drive for “someday.”

Yesterday, Darian bought a brand new computer and she began the process of transferring photos from a spare hard drive to the new computer. I was inspired.

And so Roy and I together hunted through boxes and shelves, searching for the hard drive. We finally found it, tucked away underneath Darian’s bed in a blue storage container. I pulled it out of the box, hooked it up to the laptop, and began going through old photos and videos that I haven’t seen in years.

Jace dragging his high chair over to the counter so that he could climb up and get crackers at 18 months

Savana’s surprise 13th birthday party when we first moved to Keene eleven years ago

Jace dressed up like a firefighter for his kindergarten end of the year party

Darian holding Jace and grinning up at the camera with those braces that she wore for probably five years

Feeding the goats at the Wisconsin zoo

And it continues. So many memories, so many good times encapsulated in a hard drive.

Roy and I are going to get another hard drive to back up these years of photos before it’s too late. And I am going to figure out a way to organize these photos so that I can actually see time passed in action rather than wondering what happened to all of the years.

It’s funny how our minds work, how time begins to fly the older we get. Now, when I look ahead and think, in twenty years, I’ll be 70…that seems like nothing at all. And yet…70? That number sounds scary. That’s when people start edging towards old age, towards health issues, and slowing down.

Recently I was thinking about how, when my girls turn 40, that will seem kind of crazy. And I realized that when Savana is 40, I’ll be 65. That doesn’t sound so bad. That sounds youthful actually — like I’ll be in the prime of my life.

65 sounds better than 70. I have learned that “old” gets older the older we get. 

When I was Houston, I ran into James — one of my students from Wisconsin who, of course, is now all grown up, a dad and in his late 30’s. I haven’t seen him since he was just a kid, and now he has some gray hair shining through and it’s evident he’s not a teen anymore. But we talked about how we all feel the same on the inside really, at our core. It’s our bodies — our hands, our hair, our outward physique — that change. Our age doesn’t count nearly so much when it comes to the inside.

Darian is probably hitting Alvarado right about now. She’s listening to Pandora because we still have unlimited data so she can listen to her heart’s content. She’ll arrive at Southern this evening around 8:00 and she’ll gather with her boy and with friends and together they will eat out and laugh and tell stories and catch up. She’ll have a delightful time.

She’ll probably call me at some point, to say that she’s okay, and to give me an update.

She’s all grown up now. 

And I have the photos to prove it.

No Place Like Home

We are home.

It has been an amazing week of soaking in the sun, laughing at Sea World, eating out way too much, and splashing in the ocean. 

Our week began last Saturday. We loaded up the car and headed out bright and early for South Padre Island — Roy’s old stomping grounds. As it was Day One, everyone was chipper and chatty and filled with anticipation for the ensuing days which promised all kinds of adventure. We even bought a month’s worth of unlimited data so that Jace could watch Netflix to his heart’s content in the car. (Darian spent her time reading…) The only thing that dampened the eight hour trip was a ticket in a small town from a small town policeman who had nothing better to do than sit behind a grove of trees and watch for unsuspecting travelers. Behind his back, Roy called him Barney Fife with his wobbly gun and single bullet. 

Gotta love small town policemen. Keene is full of them.

We spent a couple of days in South Texas, loading up on family (Roy’s brother and “second parents” live there), beach and ocean, and seafood. (Ew.)

And then we headed for San Antonio and experienced the riverwalk (a river that flows underneath the city that has been turned into 15 miles of shopping and dining along the riverway). Jared, my adorable nephew who just started med school, joined us for dinner and then headed off to study. We also visited Sea World and swam in the pool at our motel. This pool was an amazing creation—spanning both indoor and outdoor with two hot tubs. It proved a perfect ending to our days.

Finally, we headed over to Houston as I had to work at a convention and host an alumni event at a local Houston restaurant. The kids and Roy visited NASA, played in the pool, and enjoyed some cousin time (as Tami, Lori and Mom were there). By the time we headed for home on Friday afternoon, we were all eager to  get back into our regular.

Vacationing is splendid - no doubt about it. But the truth of it is…

…there is no place like home.