Posts Tagged With: rest

my own March madness

Posted on March 21, 2022 by robynbird

I’m at school more than I’m not.

How do kindergarteners know how to cuss?
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” when no one is even speaking.

Incident report because first grader beat me up.
Bite marks and bruising, but no broken skin – right forearm. Bruising from heel kicks – right shin. Redness from backhand punches – nose and left cheek.

School. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
It’s too much.
SPED class teachers and TAs are heroic.
Or crazy.
Am I a glutton for punishment?
I just wanted to help.

So tired.
Got sick.
Haven’t actually been sick in four or five years.
Worn slap out.

Sub job canceled today.
Sweet relief.
Can nurse this cold in peace.

No creative energy.
Literally just putting one foot in front of the other.
Fortunately it’s over now.

Rest.
Linger in steamy shower.
Write.
Rest.

Tomorrow brings something new.
Am hopeful.

Categories: me | Tags: ability to help, all the feels, common cold, over-functioning, overworked, random thoughts, rest, sick, substitute teacher, thoughts, tired | 4 Comments

Monday thoughts

Posted on August 3, 2020 by robynbird

My brain feels like it is chock full of mush. Something between the texture of cream of wheat and raw pizza dough.
It could be because that storm is headed this way.
It could be because I still don’t feel rested.

These are my random thoughts today:

We’re starting to get the hang of life around here. All these humans and canines in one place. We’re finding our way at becoming members of one household.
Baby K alternates from ‘most adorable baby on the planet’ to ‘face slapping and scratching demon baby’ in a way that is perplexing but makes a kind of sense. She is trying to get nine-hundred-seventy-three-thousand teeth all at once, but damn! Of course then she’s all lovey and snuggly and sings songs with you and you forget she was demonish.
Never a dull moment in life with a toddler.

August is here, and I’d normally be gearing up for going back to school. Only that’s not a thing this year. So disappointing.
I’ve contracted with a family to essentially tutor their daughter as they navigate online school. At least I’ll be able to work a little. I like the idea of working with kids to facilitate their learning. I’m hoping to schedule with (up to) five kids scheduled twice a week.

I have this concept that time is on my side when it comes to design plans for the new house and preparing this house for sale. In reality, it probably isn’t.
We’re about to schedule the ‘low voltage’ appointment to decide where all the extra normal and fancy electric stuff will be. Within another sixty days, we’ll do the appointment I’m most enthusiastic about, deciding things for the kitchen and bathrooms.
The house is scheduled for summer 2021 delivery.
In this house, we need new flooring on the first and second floors, and some rooms painted. We have to ‘unpersonalize’ by removing all our family photos etc. Our bathroom must be updated, and possibly the bathroom YBW’s sons use(d). Thing 1’s family can’t move until Husband N has a job and they can purchase their own home. Thing G is supposed to be moving to his mother’s ‘by the end of the calendar year’. Sooner than later would be good at this point because construction can’t take place conveniently with five adults and a baby sharing two bathrooms.

My brain isn’t working the way I’d like it to. I’m having so much more aphasia of late. Some migraine aura but no pain. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not really doing things to promote brain health, or because I’m so damn tired.
I know I have to find balance in figuring how to make time for myself while engaging my fam. I’m working on it.
I think naps may become part of my days until I finally feel rested.

It occurs to me these thoughts are so very Monday.
Even though I feel off kilter, I am filled with love and gratitude. I am hopeful.
When I begin to feel better, that hope, gratitude, and love will fuel me living my intention and nothing can stop me!

Categories: me | Tags: around the house, back to school, brain, brain health, covid, family, gratitude, hopeful, living my intention, love, Monday, moving house, random thoughts, rest, tired, tutor | 8 Comments

my mystery fever

Posted on December 15, 2016 by robynbird

I’ve had this weird fever all week. No other symptoms, just a fever. Well, headache too. (But I feel confident in saying I don’t have meningitis.)
I’m draggy, but not incapacitated…well, perhaps a little…
Early in week, I wrapped gifts, wrote, and took a pre-assessment for one of my education courses. I passed with no studying at all, now I can schedule that exam and check that course off my list. Boom! The next day, I did nothing but nap and take the hottest bath I could stand. Still didn’t break the fever. Yesterday, I got cute, went to the bank, post office, and to get my hair done. It nearly killed me. I came home and ate a bit, then pretty much fell asleep on the couch.
This morning I’m still slugging in my jammies, though I have stripped and remade the bed and put the sour, fever-smelling sheets in the washer.
This mystery fever has topped out at 102 and never dropped below 100. When I checked this morning, it was 101. I’m feeling a bit like Luigi from Cars. “Punch me Guido. Punch me in the face.”

Not because I’m excited about Michael Schumacher’s Ferrai, but because I’m sick of his damn fever.

Of course, I’m one of those strange human beings who’s “normal” body temperature is closer to 96 than 98.6. This certainly caused a great deal of commotion with the nurse at every school I ever attended. When I was at 99 on her thermometer, the nurse would smile at me and send me back to class. My mom shut them down most of the time with a fierce phone call and a letter to be filed in the clinic that if I was at 99 or more she was to be called. That letter (or subsequent letters) followed me from school to school.

Anyway…
I’ve just put a small frozen pork roast in the sink of warm water to defrost. I’m going to cook it with some mojo and a bit of Nando’s Peri Peri sauce…but not too spicy, YBW doesn’t like it too spicy.
Is it starve a fever? I’m not sure. I’m so hungry! I’m going to feed this fever…
I’ll do laundry, even though it isn’t laundry day. I’ll try to finish wrapping the last of the Christmas pressies. (Hey, at least my OCD will feel well today.)
I will also take a nap. And maybe a bath. And maybe I’ll lie on the couch and watch Christmas movies…
I’m hoping I can go back to school tomorrow…cross your fingers, y’all!

Categories: me | Tags: Christmas movies, fever, headache, ill, rest, wrapping presents | 2 Comments

chaos and big love

Posted on May 21, 2016 by robynbird

Oh God! Will it ever stop raining? ~ The Saw Doctors

Chaos rained down in big fat drops!

My birthday was actually quite lovely. YBW surprised me by staying home and greeting me with kisses and pressies as I woke up. Then took me to my favorite “dump” for breakfast! Heading into work late, he dropped me off with Sundance. She and I went to see her folks and had a little lunch with her mom.

Graduation was long, but not at all boring. And though he’s not “really” my kid, I was filled with love and pride as Thing C crossed the stage in his green cap and gown.
The added surprise of seeing a girl who was absolute best friends with my own Thing 1 from the time they were four cross the stage brought me so much joy!

I woke Friday morning (Friday the 13th even…my favorite!!!) to the news that my darling friend and mentor’s beloved died the night before.
Yes, he had been ill. But after the news of “four to six months” his illness took his life in one short week.
I started my drive to Charleston at four o’clock Sunday morning and spent the next three days loving my friend through her initial grief. There was much wine and laughter and some sadness as we celebrated the life of this man we all loved.
She kept thanking me for being there. Truthfully, there was nowhere else I would have been. My place in the world in those days was with her. There was no question. I was where I belonged.

I was able to squeeze in time with my sister-in-law. (I got to keep her in the divorce, the love we share made us sisters in our own right, it just so happens she was the former husbands sister first.) Got to spend time with my nephew and niece. That little girl is a bundle of kookiness if I ever saw one! She so reminds me of Thing 2 when she was that age. All “chatty Cathy” and bouncy arms and legs, trying so hard to be grown and still so little. She’ll be ten next week. I can’t believe how quickly the time passed!

I came home in time to celebrate Thing G’s birthday on Wednesday. Celebrating sixteen is so different for boys than for girls. It isn’t quite as big of a deal. Thing 1 had a huge “Punked Out Wonderland” party for her “sweet sixteen”. Thing 2 and I spent the day at the spa…facials, manis and pedis and lunch. She didn’t want a big party. That’s her personality though…

Last night my Arizona friend and her two daughters arrived! So much Robynbird joy!! They’re here for the weekend and then just as they leave, her eldest son rolls into town. Getting to love two thirds of their family is nothing to sneeze at!
She and I will go to the ballet this evening while the girls go visit old friends.
The oldest sister, my Goddaughter, just woke up and now we’re going to have tea and visit before everyone else gets out of bed.

Yesterday afternoon, YBW and I were up the street at our neighbors for cocktails. I remarked that I felt like I hadn’t seen him in a month!
It feels like I got on a hamster wheel on my birthday and just yesterday finally got off. The last ten days were fast, furious, and chaotic, but filled with great big love.
It’s time for me to keep the love but say “Bye Felicia” to the chaos…I need the rest.

Categories: death, love, me | Tags: ballet, birthday, chaos, chatty Cathy, cocktails, comfort, death, family, friends, graduation, grief, joy, love, rest, support | 4 Comments

if wishes were horses, beggars could ride

Posted on June 16, 2014 by robynbird

Yesterday was hard and I felt quiet. YBW celebrated with Thing C and Thing G and we went to his nephew’s graduation party. I was quiet, I drank water and ate a tiny spoonful of banana pudding. We went home and watched a movie all snuggled together on the sofa before the boys went back home to their mom’s. (It’s her week.)
When the boys left, YBW hugged me and asked was I sad, was I thinking about my dad. No, not sad, no, not really thinking about my dad in the context of Father’s Day…I can’t stop thinking about him…about the mess he left behind…about how much work it is to clean it up and how much I don’t want to clean it up.

I got home from school right about 4:00 on Friday, went upstairs, took off my shoes, then my britches and before I could put on new ones, I fell asleep on my bed. YBW came home (I don’t know what time it was.) and checked to see if I wanted to get up. I tried and couldn’t…I just kept sleeping. He came back a few hours later asking if I wanted dinner. No thank you, and back to sleep. I got up at 8:00 and got a drink of water pulled my jammies on and went back to bed. I slept straight through till 8:00 Saturday morning.
I just want to stay in my bed all the time.

This is my last week in my classroom…I move to a new classroom in a different age-group next week…I came here and completely salvaged the two year old program and now have been asked to do the same for the three year old program. So when I clean up this mess…will I have salvaged myself out of a job?
There is a part of me that is eager to get it underway, the transformation of space and ‘wrangling’ of children, creating a sense of community…a classroom family if you will.
YBW told me it’s what I do best, organize and restructure and make it run smoothly…he says I like to see the progress. He’s right. I’m just not sure now is the best time…
What I do know is this: I’ll be successful and satisfied.

Sundance and I are currently texting, asking how the other is we each respond with: ‘Same as it ever was.’ I then wrote: ‘I’m so sick of same as it ever was. Yet I dread change.’ (I’m going to need for you to get it together, Robynbird.)

Today is the first day of a thirty day cleanse…my body has suffered my indifference long enough and needs to be taken good care of. I spent a goodly bit of money without much thought…but it felt right when I considered it. It’s not about weight as much as my health and way my clothes fit…this is about losing inches as well as weight…bring on the inches! (Well, take away the inches, but you know what I mean.)

My dad used to say: If wishes were horses, beggars could ride.

That’s cool, Daddie, but I’m going to wish and ride and eventually feel better in the process. Perhaps the cleansing of my body will somehow promote the cleansing of my soul?

Categories: me | Tags: cleaning up the mess, cleanse, cleansing of body, cleansing of soul, early childhood education, emergent curriculum, family, father, fathers and daughters, grief, hopeful, organize, preschool, quiet, quietly hopeful, rest, restructure, satisfied, sleep, successful, unconditional love, YBW | 1 Comment

I’m going to need for you to get it together!

Posted on June 3, 2014 by robynbird

The month of May was absolute crap. My favorite of all the months…my birthday birthday month…absolute crap. Not that I want a “do-over” or anything…more along the lines of telling May 2014 to F.R.O.

That said, there was a good part of May…Things 1 and 2 were with me at the same time for the first time in well over a year. I was so glad to have them with me. Thing 2 for such a long time and Thing 1 when we needed to be with the other most.

Now my two Things have gone on…Thing 1 back on the road with N a week ago Wednesday. Thing 2 left on Friday home to her dad’s to celebrate all the summer birthdays of her friends.
Thing C and Thing G left Friday for their week at home with mom and it’s just YBW and me.

Know what we did?
No! Naughties!

We slept. We slept a LOT! I knew how exhausted I was, but the amount of time I spent sleeping this weekend really put it into perspective.

I could not have survived the last month without the love and support of my family and friends, especially Sundance and YBW.
Sundance supplied the xanax and sass I desperately needed. My love for her knows no bounds and my life would be less if she were not a part of it.
I think YBW was just as exhausted as I was, but never wavered, he was so strong for me. Bless him, that precious man I love.

It’s June now. Time to get it together. I’m chock full of things to accomplish this month, for “the estate”, for my classroom school, for my own school, for my family, and for me.
I am filled with willingness…desire, not so much. But I learned a long time ago, “feelings follow actions” so I’m going to act as though I’m getting it together and soon after I’ll feel like I actually am.
As I say to my little students, “I’m going to need for you to get it together.”
Getting it together is going to feel good.