[kcaleece]

Woohoo! I LOVE New Year's and resolutions and the whole nine yards, though honestly I was a bit too tired this year to really enjoy it the way I normally do - which feels extra insulting this year, since it was one of the rare years where New Year's Day is on a Sunday which are my absolute favorite years because everything is brand new at the same time, if that makes sense? A new year always starts with a new month, of course, but to also start that with a brand new week is more unusual.

 

Anyway, so I'm hoping to start my new grad program by the end of this month - still waiting to hear from the university, which is starting to make me anxious. If they get everything processed in time, I will be starting a class on Spanish-language music with one of my favorite undergrad professors 🤞 I'm back at work as of yesterday, but I didn't plan or grade over break, so I still have a few days of hard work to knock out before I can start on any longer term work projects. Health-wise, my IVF transfer got postponed - yet ANOTHER ovarian cyst producing estrogen and fucking with my reproductive system in such a way that the doctors can't do anything except try to kill it off - but they think this one looks more cooperative and might clear out with my next period so we'll hopefully know in another 7-10 days.  Also, my kid went to his pre-kindergarten check-up yesterday and he grew 4 inches since last year's appointment! The doctor was impressed since apparently the average for kids his age is more like 2.5 inches. 

 

Honestly my resolutions aren't wildly different for a change - for the first time in a long time, I'm really just making further progress on longer-than-one-year-anyway type goals.

 

Quest One: Movement

1: I'm going to keep walking and maybe add in some very short running. I joined a challenge where the goal is to walk the equivalent of one mile every day (though it's totally cool to not walk every day but walk more than a mile - which will very much be my plan, between schedule and January weather nonsense). So for this challenge, that would be 35 miles.

2: I do want to start diversifying my workouts some and protect against injury, but I suck even more at doing-something-other-than-walking-or-running workouts, so I'm starting stupid low: a single yoga workout. Legit. Just one. Get your butt going, self. (May not be able to do this for about 2 weeks depending on when the transfer gets moved to, but that still gives me a ridiculous abundance of time to get it done before that)

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice. One of these recipes must use cabbage - it's a new vegetable to me actually and I have a few possible recipes already from my primary cooking app plus my new Korean cookbook

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - one max per day with a goal of 8 days with none at all this challenge

3: Try the partial replacement strategy for at least one week! I found this via a social media video from one of my favorite fitness guys, Ben Carpenter. Basically the idea is that you can eat whatever the heck you want as long as you eat it with or after something healthier that you also like. For example, if you like carrots, eat a few before you eat pizza under the idea that it will help you eat less pizza without the mental stress of not being "allowed" to eat as much pizza as you normally would want.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work! Goals here are:
-20+ word daily journal

-watch 5 intermediate or advanced videos (theoretically 1 per week)
-read to chapter 12 (or more) in my new Spanish book, Gaby perdida y encontrada

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts

3: get Spanish 2 Unit 4 put together (can be done largely as I go, since the unit begins on Monday and runs through Feb. 8th)
4: enter at least one grade for each class every week. Falling behind on grading kills me at the end of every semester, so I need to keep it continuously churning here at the beginning

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. finish the log cabin quilt top. I still can't believe I didn't get this done over break - I really and truly thought I would - but I only have 6 more pieces, surely I can knock that out...???

2. Organize part of my sewing room. I'm starting with the one wall that is arguably the most needed (as it's the primary pathway to walk around the room) and is also the least crammed with random stuff. I'm hoping to be able to at least start another area too, but...baby steps, right?

3. patch sweatpants - I have the same tiny hole in the front but now there is also a small rip just below the butt. Since they are much loved, warm, but 99%-never-out-of-the-house pants, I'm probably just going to patch them with giant fleece squares and just look silly  

4. try to get a bit on top of the finances by keeping a very close eye on my credit card spending. I swear to the gods I keep thinking I'm making headway and the next month it's somehow even higher? So I'm going to try my damnedest to keep credit card spending under $200 (randomly guessing at what might make a good limit here, so it's very open to change). This will include necessary purchases as well as superfluous ones but does NOT count stuff that I buy with cash or direct cash transfers from our bank account, since the goal is to lower the credit card debt. 

 

(First 3 days update to come either tonight or tomorrow morning, we'll see how much time I have after grading some leftover final exams)

[Everstorm]

14 hours ago, kcaleece said:

For example, if you like carrots, eat a few before you eat pizza under the idea that it will help you eat less pizza without the mental stress of not being "allowed" to eat as much pizza as you normally would want.

Oh, interesting trick!

 

14 hours ago, kcaleece said:

. Falling behind on grading kills me at the end of every semester, so I need to keep it continuously churning here at the beginning

Yes!  Why is grading so hard ?!?

[kcaleece]

8 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Oh, interesting trick!

I think it sounds promising at least! It didn't work for me this morning but I think that was because I waited too long to eat breakfast so I was extra hungry anyway and my lunch was healthy enough that I didn't feel like I needed to do anything special. I might wait and try it on a more stressed-out day to see if it works against my very unhealthy cravings. 

 

8 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Yes!  Why is grading so hard ?!?

Oh my gods it takes freaking forever! Honestly the only weeks I'm usually caught up on my grading are weeks that I work all 7 days, then I burn out and refuse to spend my weekends grading, then I fall behind and panic under the constant stress until I inevitably pull a few all-nighters catching up...only to promptly fall behind again because I'm too tired to keep going. Admittedly, I am only contractually obligated to enter one grade a week, but I never enter that little - I feel strongly that it is wildly unfair to determine a foreign language grade on the basis of only 19 assignments, especially when 5 of those will be exams (4 units and a final). And gods know students need more feedback than that anyway so I might as well take the extra two minutes to enter it into the gradebook. But even my ~75 student load, which is pretty light, takes me somewhere between 10 and 20 hours a week to do properly (most weeks, sometimes my husband and I joke about inventing multi-day projects simply because we need a break hahaha)

 

Well I normally don't like to post updates in the middle of the day, but this is when I have time today, so...

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 4.9 miles and a blister on the bottom of my right foot. Ouch! I got it trying to control a very muscular, overexcited dog for 3 miles straight in what turned out to be not very good walking socks (despite being both cute and cozy). I didn't walk yesterday to help keep unnecessary pressure off it and that seems to be helping, so I'll probably take today and maybe tomorrow off too.

2: A single yoga workout - not yet

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - not yet and I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer yesterday so...maybe on Friday?

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 1 day with none so far

3: Partial replacement strategy - as stated above, I tried it this morning but it didn't seem to make that much of a difference (I had about half of an apple first but then still ate my entire strawberry butter braid). But I was unusually hungry this morning and also ate breakfast late, so it was an unfair environment to judge the strategy on. Will have to keep trying and see if it helps in more normal conditions.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
a. 20+ word daily journal - currently at 44 words out of the 80 I should be at by the end of the day, I will write some more after work!

b. watch 5 videos - none yet, but have my eye on a few possibilities
c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 1/12 done

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - posted a dumb French meme about New Year's Resolutions this morning and have a few options in my back pocket for el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos on Friday

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - not started
4: grades - first semester grades aren't due until the 6th, technically, which I finished last night! Whew!! This is just a warm-up week for my classes so I'll probably just slap some completion points in there on Saturday and start the real grading next week.

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - no progress

2. sewing room organization - technically backward progress, as I took a "before" picture (below) and then got a backordered box of fabric in the mail from November and just threw it onto this pile. Woops?

3. patch sweatpants -not started

4. credit card - I have spent a bit over the last few days. Let's see, I bought: bingo chips for school ($9.37), the Korean cookbook ($2.99 on Kindle), a pair of pants for my son ($8.56), and a vanilla Diet Coke (about $1.50) for a grand total of $22.42 in 4 days. Good thing I had gas to start the month, because I have to stop by WalMart after school today to get something small for my kid for the Reyes Magos!

 

Picture of semi-current state of sewing room wall:

[Everstorm]

2 hours ago, kcaleece said:

But even my ~75 student load, which is pretty light, takes me somewhere between 10 and 20 hours a week to do properly

Aaaaaand this is why I am glad that I no longer work for the public school system.

 

2 hours ago, kcaleece said:

a blister on the bottom of my right foot

Depending on how big the blister is, you could possibly expedite returning to walking by investing in those fancy Band-Aids with a built-in cushion to protect/support blisters.

 

2 hours ago, kcaleece said:

technically backward progress, as I took a "before" picture (below) and then got a backordered box of fabric in the mail from November and just threw it onto this pile. Woops?

🤭

[kcaleece]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:15 PM, Everstorm said:

Aaaaaand this is why I am glad that I no longer work for the public school system.

Honestly, grading sucks everywhere, though a typical student load around my city is more like 100-140 with a few even higher, especially in electives where we're expected to cover a batrillion different classes. But it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have 4 preps this year, so what would be my grading time gets spent writing 4 different lesson plans on the daily. And next year it'll be 5 preps, and I'm praying for 6 the year after...though I think I might have finally made a tiny bit of headway in my "good gods we need another teacher" campaign with admin after I pointed out that several departments, including my own, would be FAR more effective even if we only had part-time help. Honestly give me a French teacher who can take 2-3 classes a day and I would be thrilled. And a lot of us take part-time work exactly like that, because finding a full-time job is stupid competitive and that's a common foot in the door. Not holding my breath for next year, but maybe this is a point of argument that will help down the line 🤞

 

On 1/4/2023 at 5:15 PM, Everstorm said:

Depending on how big the blister is, you could possibly expedite returning to walking by investing in those fancy Band-Aids with a built-in cushion to protect/support blisters.

That would have been smarter than what I did! Which was try to fake it with a bit of extra moleskin, which slipped and then popped the blister prematurely. Ouch! Thankfully it didn't tear off much of the skin, and I can at least walk on it without pain now.

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 7 miles on the dot! So only 1 mile "behind" so far and the next few days are supposed to be nice, though I work late tomorrow.

2: A single yoga workout - not yet

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - chicken cabbage tray bake thing in the oven currently! I'll let you all know how it tastes

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 2 days with none so far (assuming I don't have one tonight, but I don't see why I would open one now considering it's nearly 7pm here)

3: Partial replacement strategy - I have realized I don't really need this on the weekends. I regulate my food far better on not-at-school days (refusing to call it non-working since I have in fact worked several hours yesterday and today). Will try again starting tomorrow, hopefully a good 5 day run will help shine some light on how well this might work for me.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
a. 20+ word daily journal - still at 44 words out of the 160 I should be at by the end of the day...oops

b. watch 5 videos - 1 video done
c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 1/12 done

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - made several el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos posts on Friday actually, need to plan what I'll do for this week

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - first 4 days made in terms of lesson plans, need to get those into the curriculum ironically enough
4: grades - completion grades entered and ready for the nonsense that will begin tomorrow

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - no progress

2. sewing room organization - I cleared off a few books from that bookshelf you see in the picture and realized I have a ton of yarn on that bottom shelf (I don't crochet and can only barely claim to knit, so I'm mildly impressed with how much I've accumulated anyway!) Will be snagging a largely unused storage container from my classroom to help hold it in a slightly more organized way

3. patch sweatpants - not actually started, but I am currently pre-washing my chosen to-become-patches fleece just to be safe

4. credit card - New purchases include $21 for home Reyes celebrations, $18.10 for school Reyes celebrations, and $6.50 to buy myself a new pair of underwear after a few previous pairs finally ripped. Current total: $68.02...more than I'd like, but I've legit already restrained myself from a few other school-related purchases, so the quest is technically still doing its job!

[Everstorm]

54 minutes ago, kcaleece said:

chicken cabbage tray bake thing in the oven currently! I'll let you all know how it tastes

🤩  I used to hate cooked cabbage as a kid (or maybe just the way my mother prepared it) but lately I have become a bit obsessed with it.

 

55 minutes ago, kcaleece said:

Not holding my breath for next year, but maybe this is a point of argument that will help down the line 🤞

Hopefully you do.  I can't even believe your workload.  When I worked for public schools, I was a special Ed teacher in a rural county.  I had four students 😂.  

[kcaleece]

17 hours ago, Everstorm said:

🤩  I used to hate cooked cabbage as a kid (or maybe just the way my mother prepared it) but lately I have become a bit obsessed with it.

It turned out really good! Which prompted my husband and I to get into a mini-argument over how healthy cabbage is (he thought it was just roughage without many nutrients) but eventually he relented after I started googling cabbage facts at the table. Though I'm sure the fact the recipe included small bits of bacon in the cabbage mixture helped counterbalance that anyway 😆 But it was relatively quite fast and easy, really only used things that we typically have in the fridge plus cabbage, and better yet, it used those things in the exact way that we buy them (for example, bone-in chicken). The only bad thing about that recipe is that the ratio of chicken to cabbage was off, but that's an easy fix for next time. That recipe will go into the rotation for sure!

 

17 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Hopefully you do.  I can't even believe your workload.  When I worked for public schools, I was a special Ed teacher in a rural county.  I had four students 😂.  

We're technically rural, but not far at all from a reasonably large city (about half an hour out from the 'burbs where I live, more like an hour 15-ish from the city proper). The entire school is just under 700 kids this year, thanks to an unusually huge freshman class, and about 170 of those are in some kind of foreign language class. A pretty darn solid percentage, actually! But yeah, my co-worker is a bit of a bum who likes to tell me how overwhelmed and stressed he is on the daily with his single prep and 100 students, and I give him tips and tricks and piles of materials to work from, then go back to my classroom and roll my eyes while snarky texting my husband about what a bum said coworker is. Also I don't think my admin realized what would happen when they agreed to let me start a program honestly. Even during that most recent conversation, I got "well isn't French just poaching students from Spanish, so two teachers can still handle it?" Doubling the preps in a department doesn't work like that even if the student numbers stayed the same, but no, they appeal to different students so more sign up across the board. We're already up an entire section's worth of students and we still have 3 more years to build...

 

Not a heck of a lot to report, as I only posted my last report less than a day ago, but I'm here and have done a little bit, so what the heck, let's go for an update anyway:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 7 miles, it's not looking good for a walk today but tomorrow is a 100% for sure, even if I'm walking in the dark. It's supposed to be really warm and sunny and I need that in my life in January!

2: A single yoga workout - not yet

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - chicken cabbage tray bake thing was awesome!

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 2 days with none so far 

3: Partial replacement strategy - Doing okay today, but I have so far learned that I really need to bring an entire apple. I prefer to cut it into slices (easier to eat just a bit as I run around the classroom/school) and my bag of slices is almost completely empty despite the fact I cut about 3/4 of the apple this morning.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - currently at 133 words out of the 180 I should be at by the end of the day

     b. watch 5 videos - 1 video done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 1/12 done

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - made several el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos posts on Friday actually, need to plan what I'll do for this week

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - first 4 days made in terms of lesson plans, need to get those into the curriculum still
4: grades - completion grades entered and ready for the nonsense that will begin tomorrow

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - no progress

2. sewing room organization - unused fabric cube storage container stolen from my classroom, hopefully it's big enough to hold all the yarn I found?

3. patch sweatpants - fleece pre-washed and ready to go!

4. credit card - No more money spent yet but I will need gas and school snacks today or tomorrow so it will definitely go up. Current total: $68.02

[Elastigirl]

How's this week been treating you?

[kcaleece]

14 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

How's this week been treating you?

Awww, thanks for asking! I genuinely hadn't realized it had been quite that long since I'd last posted. But it has been a bit insane - a very long (12 hour) workday on Monday meant that my internal schedule for the entire week was thrown terribly off and Tuesday felt like Wednesday, Wednesday felt like Thursday, etc. Also not helping was the fact that my son managed to sleep all the way through the night only once this week. Is there some kind of sleep regression still that hits at 5 years old? Because it sure as heck feels like those old infant sleep regressions! Though to be fair, he has always been a terrible sleeper. He did great on his first night after being born and it was sharply downhill after that 😂 But the week had its highlights too, such as discovering that a bureaucratic snafu at the university (100% not surprising at all, they are a complete mess despite being well-respected) is now leading my Spanish 3 and 4 classes to earn twice as much dual credit as we thought they were going to get, so that was pretty cool!

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 13.0 miles after tackling two walks on the warmer days this week. I would have been slightly further ahead except the dog was being an asshole on the first walk so I had to cut it about a mile shorter than planned. Today is still stupid cold but I'm currently planning on at least getting around the block - even if I don't get a full mile in, I just really enjoy being ahead of the 1-mile-per-day goal. 

2: A single yoga workout - not yet

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - second recipe being narrowed down, but not 100% chosen yet

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 3 days with none so far...I think? Genuinely am pretty sure it's not 4.  

3: Partial replacement strategy - I think, given some attempts at this throughout the week, it will continue to be hit or miss for me. I still think it will be a good tool to help deal with cravings and super hungry days (yay IVF hormones on top of my normal hunger fluctuations!) but I don't think it makes that much of a difference for me on the daily. It does help me get more produce into my diet though, so there's a benefit at least.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - currently at 260 words exactly out of the 260 I should be at by the end of the day. Whew! Barely made that one so far.

     b. watch 5 videos - 2 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 2/12 done, this is what I'm most behind on right now

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - made a post on Wednesday about the Spanish 2 "cookie-off" (tasting some mass produced Mexican cookie snacks and practicing how to describe/compare them)

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - first 9 days made in terms of lesson plans, they are partly built into the official curriculum but I still need to tie them to standards before they can be "done"
4: grades - getting ready for the first round of grading to come this weekend...

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - no progress

2. sewing room organization - yarn corner of bookshelf complete! It's a tiny corner, but at least it's a start. Photo below!

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - Yup, it went up. $31.18 for gas and something around $19 for the cookies described in the Instagram post. Current total: $118.20

 

Yarn enclosure:

[Everstorm]

17 minutes ago, kcaleece said:

Is there some kind of sleep regression still that hits at 5 years old? Because it sure as heck feels like those old infant sleep regressions!

My oldest only started sleeping through the night consistently at 5 🙈  He had just started sleeping all night just before he turned 4,  but then we moved and spent several months in transition (visiting family, staying in hotels) and it completely undid everything.  He finally got consistent...just before his brother was born. 😂😭

 

 

[Elastigirl]

Nice job on getting the yarn tidy and keeping up with the Spanish goals!

[kcaleece]

2 hours ago, Everstorm said:

My oldest only started sleeping through the night consistently at 5 🙈  He had just started sleeping all night just before he turned 4,  but then we moved and spent several months in transition (visiting family, staying in hotels) and it completely undid everything.  He finally got consistent...just before his brother was born. 😂😭

Oh, sounds like my kid might be on a similar trajectory, minus the little sibling (yet...we hope). He really didn't sleep all night until a little after 3.5, and it's been pretty okay since then with only a random night here or there that's troublesome. Which is why this week was such a surprise when it kept on happening - one night wasn't weird, two was a little funky but nothing eyebrow raising, but by the third night it's like, dude, what is going on here, I really thought we were past most of this! 

 

2 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Nice job on getting the yarn tidy and keeping up with the Spanish goals!

Thanks! I tend to go in bursts - it's very "fall behind for a few days and then catch up" as of late, but as long as I get there, right?

 

Quick update because I have some good news! Finally, after much argument and debate and red tape, I am enrolled for my first graduate Spanish class. 🥳 Transatlantic Spanish Music starts on the 17th - so we were really cutting it close to the wire! - with one of my favorite professors from undergrad, so let's hope she and I still connect as well as we did 15 years ago. I'm equal parts super excited and super nervous, since my Spanish has rarely been tested at such a high academic level and the one time it was, to earn my teaching license, I honestly passed by the skin of my teeth. If I remember correctly, I needed a 165 out of 200 on their special super duper secret rating scale and I earned a 166. So I know I can do it, but the question is at what price. How many hours, tears, sleepless nights, etc. might be ahead? But the reason the advisor was pushing so hard for me to start in this class specifically is because it should have the least amount of extra reading and whatnot out of all the possible classes on offer this semester, so at least I have that going for me. 

 

(Also I caught up on some more reading in between my meetings this afternoon, so I'm through chapter 5 in my book now! Much happier with that. But why is it that every single time I go to a department meeting, I leave feeling like I'm eventually going to have to switch school districts again?? I appreciate the honesty from the guy who is our official department head but damn. One more reason to try to bust through this grad program as quick as I can, I should be ridiculously marketable after I get that and a few other checkmarks from this job under my belt/on my resume.)

[kcaleece]

Challenge Update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 18.1 miles. My super-cheap-but-highly-effective Garmin watch has quit counting steps for whatever unknown reason - hoping a software update and hard reset will work, it's currently processing all of that - but at least it still tracks miles. I will cry if it dies and stops doing that too.

2: A single yoga workout - not yet...meant to do one today, honestly got sidetracked because I chipped my last manicure really badly on multiple fingers while cleaning the kitchen and I will be damned if I go into a new grad school class that I'm nervous about without a kickass manicure to make me feel more confident and powerful. Sometimes it really is the silly little things.

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - second and third recipes complete! Not planned, honestly, just needed stuff when we ran out of leftovers this weekend. I made a chicken orzo thing that took nearly 15 minutes longer in the oven than the recipe called for, but turned out to be pretty darned good once I actually got the damn thing cooked. And I also made a pea risotto that was really good (but I have yet to meet a risotto I didn't like, so it was kinda low hanging fruit there lol)

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 4 days with none so far, trying to make today #5  

3: Partial replacement strategy - I should have some high craving days coming up, with the potential start of my cycle coinciding with the first week of grad school. Hoping this technique will help!

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - still currently at 260 words out of an ideal 320

     b. watch 5 videos - 2 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 7/12 done, glad I'm catching up there!

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - will have to decide what to post this week. Hmmm....

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - first 9 days made in terms of lesson plans, they are partly built into the official curriculum but I still need to tie them to standards before they can be "done"
4: grades - grades done for Spanish 3, 4, and French 1. Started for Spanish 2 but so far only 1 out of the 3 sections are complete; a second has been started but is less than halfway done

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - no progress yet but I will get at least one thing done on this today so help me gods

2. sewing room organization - I thought the yarn corner looked good so I condensed at school and brought home another storage cube thing. I tried to organize that cardboard box which was just random fabric into colors...it kinda worked, then I got distracted trying to organize all the fabric in the entire room and then gave up temporarily. I also need to find those little notch things to hold shelves, because having another shelf installed in this bookcase would be super helpful

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - Sigh. I swear to the gods, until I did this, I didn't realize how much money we were spending all the time! But my headband finally crapped out on my most recent walk (I'd had it since high school, so it very much did its duty!) so I bought a new set of 12 for just under $16, then spent another $36 setting up our first camping trip for the year. While we're not going until the first weekend of April, sites at the start of the local camping season go fast so we wanted to get a good spot reserved now. Current total: $170.20 already, shit

[Everstorm]

Ooh...I have never tried to make risotto before.  Is it hard to make?

[kcaleece]

On 1/16/2023 at 4:44 PM, Everstorm said:

Ooh...I have never tried to make risotto before.  Is it hard to make?

In the opinion of many TV and YouTube chefs I have watched, apparently? But honestly, I've never had a problem with it and I'm like...maybe an intermediate cook? They make a big deal out of using a specific type of rice and stirring without stopping for a super long time and always being careful of the exact liquid amounts, etc. etc. but it doesn't seem to matter in real life? Maybe my risotto would be better if I did all of that, but I just make it with the regular white rice we buy at Aldi and I have recipes that both require some stirring, very little stirring, and one that goes in the oven with absolutely zero stirring. I always get well cooked, creamy, delicious results, so it must be working! 

 

So! Last night was my first grad class! Not going to lie, I felt a bit like a fish out of water. The desks were way too small and too crammed together so I accidentally knocked over my coffee mug a grand total of three times which was very loud and annoying, about half the class are native speakers, and the professor of course had to throw us in the deep end by starting off with sustained spontaneous conversations and mini oral presentations when spontaneous oral production is by far my worst skill. Which is perfectly normal and I know it, but gods damn it all Dr. R, why do you have to do that to me? Lol she totally spent extra time hanging around my group during the conversation bits too and would pointedly not move on until after I'd had my turn in the conversation every. single. time. because she and I both know she was checking in on me to see if I'd sink or swim. In the end, I...desperately doggie paddled my way to shore, hahaha, but at least I didn't drown? And I could manage her lecture fairly easily, so I know I'm not totally helpless at least.

High points of the syllabus - I can see some stuff in there that I'm super duper interested in; there are only 3 essays and they all have the ridiculously low goals of only 2 references and 800 words each (what?!? I did my undergrad at the same university in the French department and we were routinely writing multiple 3-5,000 word essays per semester, so I was legit shocked to see my graduate level goal at only 800 words); the final project sounds stupidly easy; and there are some chances for extra credit which you know I'm going to take - any practice is good practice and I'll probably need the points anyway

Low points of the syllabus - there are also 3 "proper" exams, which I have not done in almost 2 decades (the French undergrad didn't do exams, only projects and essays), and 3 oral presentations which make me nervous; the topics I'm most interested in are all packed into the first four weeks, which could make for a long 12 weeks after that ends; office hours and the conversation practice time are both in the middle of my workday, so I can't access the most traditional forms of help available to college students; and I'm terrified that I have to get at least a B in the class or I get temporarily dropped from the program entirely until I take enough undergrad classes to raise my Spanish-class-specific GPA to a 3.0 or higher, which would totally destroy the shaky confidence the department has been willing to put in me thus far just by accepting me with this little academic Spanish experience

 

It was really cute though, as soon as I got home my son ran to me to ask "what did you learn in school today mommy?" because he thinks it is wonderfully fascinating that I am also a student in a classroom just like him now 😍 and I showed him some of the videos we watched of pre-agrarian dances in the Andes and he was absolutely enthralled! So that might be a thing we do now, which is both adorable and a great way for me to review the lecture topics.

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is still 18.1 miles. I am admittedly grumpy as hell about this - I had full intentions to go for a walk on Monday, but ended up not being able to for various reasons, and then yesterday was both a late day at work and my first grad school class, and now today is cold as hell and rainy. UGH. 

2: A single yoga workout - not yet...soon though, as the doctor wants to see me soon and I'm not sure if I'm going to get restricted again or not!

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - technically done for the challenge already, but why not go for 4?

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 5 days done with none so far, I'm already seeing how much this is going to start hurting soon though hahaha. Child sleep issues on top of work on top of grad class - I'm practically dying over here and my coffee somehow keeps disappearing faster and faster...  

3: Partial replacement strategy - Mildly surprised the cravings haven't hit quite yet, but we shall see.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - still at 260 words out of an ideal 360 now. But I have some ideas of topics I might include for my first grad essay, so I might jot down some ideas later today

     b. watch 5 videos - 2 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 12/12 done, wow!! There were at least 2 short chapters in there and I ended up getting about 40 minutes to read on Monday evening, which really helped. I shall continue pushing though! Perhaps I can get to 20? Nice round number since 15 seems too close?

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - impulse post went up yesterday with the "winners" of the French 1 restaurant simulations we did, might repeat for Spanish 2's version on Friday or maybe our second Mexican snack tasting day which is tomorrow?

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - still need to tie everything to standards before they can be "done" (and write more days!)
4: grades - technically complete for the week, though the gradebook says I'm not. I technically have 2 more assignments to grade for 1st hour since I entered 4 this weekend for all the other Spanish 2 sections (why do I do this to myself, ugh)

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - well...so help me gods apparently. Still no progress unless you count looking at it a few times 😂

2. sewing room organization - no more progress yet

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - So apparently the new "metered parking" lots at the university don't take actual cash anymore and it's all done via credit cards on an app. I'm incredibly grumpy about this and think it's a terrible decision, but they didn't ask me, and the parking permits are way too expensive to be worth it to buy one for a single class. There is a free parking lot but it is just under a mile away from campus, so I will only be able to use it on days when I can get there early enough to offset the extra walk. (But maybe it can at least add to my walking totals?) Current total: $172.39

[Everstorm]

Your class sounds pretty intense, but you work really hard.  I am sure you can do it.

 

Hopefully the doctor has good news 🙏 

[kcaleece]

On 1/18/2023 at 1:39 PM, Everstorm said:

Your class sounds pretty intense, but you work really hard.  I am sure you can do it.

 

Hopefully the doctor has good news 🙏 

Thanks! Class has been going well so far but it's only been two lectures and one assignment (though I do have a discussion post due by Tuesday which I haven't done yet). I will say though, I was surprised when we had a group "see how well you can answer these review questions" at the end of week one that I was actually way ahead of a few other students and on par with some of the natives. It definitely doesn't feel like I should have been! And I very much am not when it comes to producing answers - my understanding is excellent, my communication of that understanding is lagging. Which is normal, to be fair to me. And maybe I was just lucky because the topic for these first few weeks is my favorite of the whole semester, so most students will automatically click with their favorite bits. We shall see!

 

Waiting to hear back from my blood draw, cross your fingers my thyroid meds are working. Also we're all a little weirded out that my cycle still hasn't started, but they're not willing to medicate that issue quite yet. Hopefully my body will start functioning again soon.

 

We did manage to put together a new TV stand this weekend though! Our previous one was literally just a bookcase from Big Lots that we turned onto its side. And now, after a few months of consideration and waiting for a good sale, we finally have a TV stand that looks like it belongs to an adult:

We keep on walking through the living room and congratulating each other on how nice the room looks now, so we must have done good!

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 22.5 miles

2: A single yoga workout - not yet...maybe tonight or tomorrow? The child has been asking but it's a busy weekend.

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - 4th recipe done! I was craving pasta so I made a "spinach and sausage pasta" that sounded good. It was but holy heck that was a lot of garlic! I put in the exact amount called for in the recipe and I usually bump them up slightly, but this one will need to be bumped down in the future because it was right on the edge of being way too much.

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 8 days done with none so far, wow!!! I never though I would get that far this early in the challenge.  

3: Partial replacement strategy - Mildly surprised the cravings haven't hit quite yet, but we shall see.

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - still at 260 words but I have rage tonight after dealing with my sister-in-law, so hopefully that will change later tonight

     b. watch 5 videos - 3 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 12/20 done

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - need a plan for the week to come

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - still need to tie everything to standards before they can be "done" (and write more days!)
4: grades - French grades complete, Spanish grades not started

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - well...still no progress

2. sewing room organization - no more progress yet

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - Gas, another day of meter parking, and this morning's coffee run has brought the current total up to $215.79. Thinking about sending in an "extra" $200 payment and starting the count over with the $15.79

[Everstorm]

Yay adulting!  The TV stand looks great

[kcaleece]

On 1/22/2023 at 8:07 PM, Everstorm said:

Yay adulting!  The TV stand looks great

Thanks! My mom gave us a bit of crap because it's MDF put-it-together-yourself stuff from Wayside instead of "proper quality furniture", but that's what you get when we have two working parents with 3 completed MAs between us still making less than my dad did at our age by himself. 🙄

 

Hoping for a snow day tomorrow but not quite holding my breath - we're listed as "1 to 3 inches" which could easily turn into a dusting. Still, one benefit to teaching rural is that we get out really easily for teeny tiny amounts of snow (as my principal loves to say, "you can't plow gravel roads") so...maybe?

 

Also, hopefully not TMI but I'm actually really excited that my period decided to start by itself (only a week late...) so my next RE appointment is Thursday! Crossing my fingers they will give us the green light to try for a transfer. Also, because I'm an insane person, I had to check - if everything works out perfectly on this attempt, with a successful pregnancy and no delays in the transfer itself, my due date would be the day before my son's 6th birthday, which amuses me greatly!

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 22.7 miles, which is sad but it's technically something?

2: A single yoga workout - not yet...definitely tomorrow if it turns into a snow day though

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - 4th recipe done

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 9 days done with none 

3: Partial replacement strategy - Think I've gotten as much as I'm going to out of this for right now

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - at 452 words out of a goal of 480, getting close

     b. watch 5 videos - 3 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - chapter 12/20 done

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - need a plan for the week to come still, should have posted today but completely forgot. Might still try to put together a quick flatlay of the French snacks we tried today.

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - still need to tie everything to standards before they can be "done" (and write more days!)
4: grades - French and Spanish 2 grades complete, need to knock out Spanish 3 and 4 though

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - well...still no progress

2. sewing room organization - no more progress yet

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - Went with the "extra" $200 payment plan, then spent $28 on Teachers Pay Teachers for a film guide, historical Spanish audio file, and a few readings. Also tonight will be about an extra $2 in parking fees because I'm not walking that far in the rain/snow, which brings my (will be current a few hours from now) total to $45.79

 

[Everstorm]

23 minutes ago, kcaleece said:

Still, one benefit to teaching rural is that we get out really easily for teeny tiny amounts of snow (as my principal loves to say, "you can't plow gravel roads") so...maybe?

Oh, yes.  When I taught in a rural school, we had to close for almost 3 weeks because of a foot of snow that wouldn't melt off.   Making up that much time off was super fun 😒

 

25 minutes ago, kcaleece said:

Crossing my fingers they will give us the green light to try for a transfer.

🤞

 

26 minutes ago, kcaleece said:

1: 35 miles - Current total is 22.7 miles, which is sad but it's technically something?

By my maths, you are only 1.3 miles behind where you should be (24 miles) for this point in the challenge (3.4 weeks) to hit 35 miles.  That's totally doable and not at all sad.  You got this!

[kcaleece]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:25 PM, Everstorm said:

🤞

So the start of the transfer ended up being a tiny bit of drama this week but the short version is that we did (eventually) get the green light!

Longer version: on Thursday, despite 4 full days of pretty solid bleeding, my lining was still way too thick and on top of that, I had not one but two ovarian cysts growing, which is more of a side problem in that the hormones and stuff they have to give me will make those way, way worse even though we don't actually need my ovaries for this part of the process anymore. After several phone calls, my doctor basically told me that there is likely a hormone timing issue happening where something in my brain is releasing the correct hormone but at the wrong time, which is apparently not unusual in 35+ year old women with low ovarian function which I might? have (I have some of the key checkmarks but not quite all), but unfortunately there is not any way to figure out something more specific than that because either the tests literally don't exist yet or it would be logistically next to impossible without being admitted to the hospital - like, multiple blood draws and sonograms every single day for multiple weeks. However, he did note that I have had an issue with irregular period flow for the last few years as well (basically my period flow starts and stops randomly) and while it has gotten quite a bit better with his medical intervention, we have not totally fixed the problem, so he gave me a few more days to see if that would happen again. Thank the gods, I had a quick burst of bleeding on Friday morning and voila! My lining was just thin enough and the cysts were nearly resolved by Saturday afternoon, so today is day #1 for estrogen overloading in hopes of creating a nice, cozy, welcoming environment for a transfer shortly after Valentine's Day!

 

Now, it should be noted that there is still one (or maybe two?) more checks to pass before we can try for a transfer, and then the success rate of each transfer is about 50%, so there still might be a long way to go. But considering that if everything had gone to plan from the very beginning, we should have been on transfer #4 by now and this is only #1, we're still super happy to be making progress!

 

No movement restrictions until February 9th, which is great, but the super high dose of estrogen is really upsetting my guts today, like completely doubled over on the couch level cramps. That didn't happen the last time I was on estrogen but this is literally 3x the "normal" dose, so that's probably why. Hopefully I'll figure out some way to make this work, because I am going to be on this until the 9th at bare minimum and there's a good chance I will have to do this again later too...

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 28 miles, which was a pretty solid "catch up" yesterday but I'm about to fall behind again because the next few days are all in the negative wind chills and it's not like I can go for miles on these cramps anyway.

2: A single yoga workout - I did it! YAY! I tried a "beginner" video that was ridiculously too easy, despite the fact I am a beginner, so I did a second video that was just called "connect" and mostly seemed to be core work. It was really tough but good, though it does include some twisting movements that will be restricted after the 9th

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - 4th recipe done

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 11 days done with none, feeling really good about my ability to call this addiction "broken" for now!

3: Partial replacement strategy - Think I've gotten as much as I'm going to out of this for right now

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - at 452 words still but I need to write some for my grad class today so this should go up nicely later today

     b. watch 5 videos - 3 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - thanks to a stupidly long, boring supervision on Friday night, I actually finished the entire book!! Woohoo! 
     d. I did barely start reading a second book, Maya Erikson y el misterio del laberinto - it would be nice to get through the first chapter at minimum? I'm about halfway through now, these chapters are a lot longer than the ones in Gaby perdida y encontrada

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - posted the escargot I brought in on Friday for class, which was super fun for me at least hahaha. Need a plan for next week though.

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - still need to tie everything to standards before they can be "done" (and write more days!)
4: grades - barely done for last week, but I need to start grades for this week now, sigh 😰

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - well...still no progress, my goal was to finish at least the white border today but I don't know if I'll be able to now

2. sewing room organization - no more progress yet

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - A few odds and ends for the food day ($7) plus another tank of gas (lost the receipt, but it's usually around $32) has brought my total to $84.79

[Everstorm]

Nice job catching up on the mileage, even if the next week looks iffy.  And you got the yoga in, too!

 

Sorry the estrogen treatment is so rough right now.  Maybe your body will adapt better as time goes on?  Either way, hopefully it will be worth it.

[kcaleece]

On 1/29/2023 at 4:12 PM, Everstorm said:

Nice job catching up on the mileage, even if the next week looks iffy.  And you got the yoga in, too!

 

Sorry the estrogen treatment is so rough right now.  Maybe your body will adapt better as time goes on?  Either way, hopefully it will be worth it.

Thanks! I'm a little antsy that the cold snap doesn't give me a ton of time for catching up before the end of this challenge, but the larger challenge is a full year so I have a good amount of time for that. The estrogen is already getting a little bit better too. My support group also suggested the same thing you did, that your body gets "used" to having the extra hormone on board after a bit, and it is true that it didn't hit me until about mid-afternoon yesterday (it's split up into 3 doses, so it hit about 2-ish hours after the 2nd dose). I've been good today but due to some issues with our dual-credit enrollment (the local university jacked up a few of my senior's enrollments and they cut off all new enrollments at 5pm today) I took the 2nd dose late. As long as it's vaguely around mid-day, my doctor doesn't care about the exact time, so I'm mostly just tracking to see if I can identify any patterns in the side effects.

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is still 28 miles; I think I'm going to try to get a tiny bit extra logged with the walk from the metered parking lot to my grad class tonight but that won't be much. I just figure the extra like 0.2 miles won't hurt either honestly.

2: A single yoga workout - done, yay!

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - 4th recipe done

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 11 days done with none

3: Partial replacement strategy - Think I've gotten as much as I'm going to out of this for right now

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - at 559 words out of a goal of 620, not too horribly far behind but I do need to get a bit more churned out here

     b. watch 5 videos - 4 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - Done 
     d. Maya Erikson y el misterio del laberinto - on page 10; chapter 2 starts on...I think page 18? (I don't have the book with me right now, will check later)

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - currently planning on posting the cooking days at the end of the week (tortillas in Spanish 2 on Friday and crêpe in French 1 on Thursday)

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - almost entirely done, just need to add standards
4: grades - Spanish 2 done; Spanish 3, 4, and French 1 are left to get done though

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - still no progress

2. sewing room organization - no more progress yet

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - $30.36 for roasted grasshoppers plus $10.76 for a French book and $13 for a little kid birthday party gift has brought my total to $138.91

[kcaleece]

So! A few quick updates on life:

 

My grad class is going pretty well. I did better during the first two weeks, honestly, just because I had more background knowledge/context for that portion of this unit. But I'm still hanging in there pretty well! My first two assignments are done but the big ones to wrap up the unit are over the next two weeks, so I'm still a little nervous. I'll feel better if I get all the way through this first unit and do well.

 

The classes I teach have been crazy for the last few days. French 1 made crêpes to celebrate La Chandeleur yesterday and Spanish 2 made tortillas today to wrap up their food unit. Both were exercises in "fun but only somewhat controlled chaos" especially since I handed them both the ingredients, a recipe in their target language, and turned them loose. But it was super fun since not only could they all manage it (eventually!) but I also brought in culturally appropriate toppings and fillings that are more unusual here in the States, like roasted grasshoppers and cooked cactus. I was super proud of them that so many people were willing to try at least a bite, especially since they're very much stereotypical rural kids who tend to say things like "why did you name your kid (a super traditional Hispanic name - think like José or Miguel, that level of super classic Spanish boy name)? That's like, not a normal human name." and when I brought in a wheel of brie earlier this semester, they literally gagged, spit it into the trash can, and accused me of trying to give them food poisoning with "such weird stuff, that can't possibly be a real food" 🙄 Spanish 3 is fast forwarding through the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship, which is getting me into a tiny bit of hot water with admin because they're afraid I'm getting "too political" (just wait until they see my Afrolatinos in Cuba unit at the end of the year...) and Spanish 4 has been preparing for today's TV watch party: an entire Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode (about a trip to see a doctor, which is our unit theme) but without subtitles, which is a fairly major step up from our previous cartoon watching, where they had subtitles to help support what they were hearing. This also involves me arguing with IT about why Disney Plus should be unblocked temporarily and having to explain to admin why I'm letting seniors watch Mickey Mouse as an assignment...

 

 

Challenge update:

Quest One: Movement

1: 35 miles - Current total is 29.2 miles thanks to light traffic buying me an extra few minutes before class yesterday, so I treated myself to a slightly longer walk to buy a hot chocolate at the campus coffee shop. Today is questionable though because I have to get my new driver's license after work...🤞

2: A single yoga workout - done, yay!

 

Quest Two: Nutrition

1: Cook twice - 4th recipe done

2: Keep cutting down the Diet Coke - 1 per day with 11 days done with none

3: Partial replacement strategy - Think I've gotten as much as I'm going to out of this for right now

 

Quest Three: Work/Languages

1: Spanish work:
     a. 20+ word daily journal - at 559 words out of a goal of 660, need to get this knocked out

     b. watch 5 videos - 4 videos done
     c. Gaby perdida y encontrada - Done 
     d. Maya Erikson y el misterio del laberinto - first chapter done, yay!

2: Continue weekly Instagram posts - cooking days posted

3: Spanish 2 Unit 4 - almost entirely done, just need to add standards
4: grades - Spanish 2 and 4 done; Spanish 3 and French 1 are left

 

Quest Four: Home/Hobbies

1. log cabin quilt top - still no progress

2. sewing room organization - no more progress yet

3. patch sweatpants - no progress after pre-washing the fleece

4. credit card - another $40 for cooking supplies and $33 for gas has brought my total to $211.91 😑

[Everstorm]

I am surprised administration would kick a fuss over Mickey Mouse.  My French/Spanish instructor in high school also showed cartoons (I recall Beauty and the Beast and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, specifically).  And that was before your students were born 😆 It’s an immersion thing.