Howdy everyone!

Happy summer/July to everyone, especially my fellow educators who finished their Pandemic School Year. We have all survived! Yay!!!!

But man…it has been a few months.

You ever have one of those phases of life where it feels like it’s just one thing after the other? That’s kind of where we are at this point.

So, let’s do some catching up:

We went back to the school buildings back in March, full-time. Being back in the building was weird initially. In a lot of ways, it felt really nice to have all of my colleagues around again and to hear noise in the building. But, at the same time, we’re all still teaching virtually, so we’re all in the building but, for the most part, all of the kids are still home. So, the building still felt empty and eerie even though the parking lot was full.

The last day for the faculty was on June 16th, but I was one of the staff members that had to stay a bit longer because I also work with our Summer Bridge program (a program to help transition in some of our 9th graders), so I was there for an additional 2 weeks after most people had left. The building was even quieter, almost creepy at times because of how dark and quiet some of it was. I did get the chance to see some of our incoming students in person for the first time in a year and a half, which was SO nice. Seeing them in person was invigorating; it made me feel like I was REALLY doing my job again. And I know I’ve done some semblance of my job for the past year and a half, but not like when I have the kids right in front of me. I look forward to having the students back in the building next year. I just hope we stay the course with this virus so we can keep our full in-person plans that we currently have.

I have a week off now and then I head back to school because I have to take care of scheduling for next year, certify summer graduates and a bunch of other things because…..DRUMROLL…..

I am also my school’s new Counseling Department Chair for this coming school year. Actually, as of July 1st, I’m the Department Chair. So, now I have things I have to plan for next year. I have a leadership retreat in August I have to go to, I have a budget….it’s not alarmingly huge, but I still have to like…figure out what to do with that. But I’m excited; it’ll be a fun challenge for me. I was a department chair at my former school, but it’ll be nice to be one in a school where the administration is supportive and appreciative.

Outside of work stuff; personal life has actually also been busy.

We’ve been working on some things around the house, we’re working on getting our deck and back fence stained and we’re picking out some paint colors to finally replace the HORRIFIC yellow we have in our bathrooms. I don’t know what colors I want to do them, but I’m excited to finally be able to change them!

I’m spending the next week or so at home; mostly because I need to relax after this school year and before I have to head back to school for the most of the rest of the summer. But also because I want to do some stuff around the house that I’ve put off for….ever, at this point.

For those who are on my Instagram, you will know that I was in a car accident about a week ago. I’m fine; my car….not so much.

I was side-swiped by a fire truck…well I was along with three other cars, all of which had varying degrees of damage. I actually thought the damage to my car wasn’t THAT bad….but then I got the repair estimate that was the tune of $5300 in repairs which is mind-boggling. I mean, I get that there are parts of my car that need to be completely replaced, in addition to the wheel, but man….that’s bonkers to me.

The worst part of the accident was I basically just sat there watching it happen. There was only so far over I, and the other cars, could move; and we did. But, I still watched the fire engine come up behind all of us entirely too fast and see them not turn soon enough to not hit us. So, I’m fairly certain I’m going to have some sort of knee-jerk reaction every time I see a fire engine coming up behind me for the, at least, immediate future.

I do have a rental, which isn’t bad. I’m driving a 2020 Buick Encore, which is the small/crossover SUV. It’s nice; I appreciate that it has a remote start, which I DESPERATELY want for my car, but it’s obviously smaller than my SUV…and I miss my car. I am one of those people that just actually really likes the car they drive, so I would like to have it back.

Devon and I did celebrate our third wedding anniversary a couple weeks ago. I actually worked most of the day, which isn’t what I would prefer, but it is what it is. We did actually get the chance to go out to dinner, which we didn’t do last year because of the pandemic (and we’ve had a hankering for Texas Roadhouse for FOREVERS). We still haven’t been able to take a trip like we would prefer for our anniversary, but all things considered, just being able to go out was nice. Maybe if everything stays better we can think about going somewhere next year for our 4 year anniversary.

I actually said to Devon the other night that it feels weird that I’ve known him for 17 years at this point. I mean we know we’ve spent our entire adult lives together in some capacity, but putting a number of years on it seems crazy to me for some reason. I’ve known him longer than most of my students have been alive….yeah…

I appreciate, though, that after 17 years (July 20th will be 8 years together – which also sounds insane) we still actually really enjoy each other’s company, even after a year at home.

And because I know why all of you are REALLY here; here are some recent pics of Krieger. He turned a year old in April and is still crazy. Admittedly, he has calmed down some from his initial crazy kitten phase, but he still has plenty of moments. I also think he’s still growing a bit – his head is a bit bigger than it was a month or so ago. But he is doing well. He had a UTI about a month or so ago that has made us change his food a bit to make sure he doesn’t have them chronically, but he recovered pretty easily. And he still ran zoomies around the house even when he didn’t feel well. #champ

Writing everything out makes it seem like life isn’t as busy as I feel like it is. But I think it’s because the days themselves are busy, but it’s not a dramatic or climactic kind of busy – it’s the normal everyday kind of busy.

There is one big thing that Devon and I are in the process of doing which is pretty major and has basically encompassed the entirety of the past couple of months, but I don’t want to officially say what it is until everything is said and done in a couple of weeks. Yes, I know vague updates are annoying, but I’m also just a crazy person who believes that if you talk about something too early something bad happens – even though that’s damn near impossible at this point in the process….

Regardless, I’ll talk more about that once everything is finalized in a couple of weeks, but that’s also part of why my life has felt so busy and kind of off-kilter for the past couple of months. I’m just hoping we get through all of it with no complications so that we can finally resume life without the extra anxiety that we all currently have.

I hope everyone has had a great couple of months. I’m planning out some things that I want to write about here over the next few months. If there is anything you would like to see/read about, feel free to send me a message or leave a comment here. I’ve always enjoyed having this space as an outlet and a place to share things and I’ve missed that the past few months, so it feels nice to get back to it.