I thought I might utilize the 13 format to go over some things that have my psyche torn in two this week. I keep feeling like there’s a pall on my mood; like something kind of annoying or bad may happen soon. Obviously I don’t know that but it still makes me feel sad sometimes. So here are both good and bad things contributing to how I feel lately.

1. (Bad) Overwhelming work stress. Some days, I can barely keep up with the work I have to get accomplished. I have around 85-90 TCC college kids, about 35 SNHU students, 18 prison students, and 13 dual enrolled kids. They are all learning roughly the same concepts and writing similar essays but each institution is slightly different and have protocols I must follow. Keeping up is proving difficult.
2. (Good) This image is making me so happy. I was talking the other day about this new little shelf I got (pic to follow) so I am thinking a lot about decorating and Christmas will be upon us in no time. Too, we’ve thrown around the idea of adding a roof portion to our deck. Our house has a sun room that comes straight out the back of our home and the deck wraps around it, leaving two large areas on either side of said room. On the left, we could add on a covered area and put nice furniture, a TV, etc. This image makes me think about how cozy it could be!

3. (Good) The shelf! What a find at Goodwill! Every now and then I do end up seeing something that is too good to pass up. I think I only paid 15 or 20 for it and it was totally worth it. This thing is in great shape; just needed to be wiped down. Looked like someone had stored it in a garage for a bit but this was exactly what I wanted to fit the space. There’s an outlet there on the left, which is the wall to my under the stairs pantry. Ash loves it because I can put my diffuser somewhere NOT on the counter.

4. (Bad)Kid stress. My middle boy is killing 5th grade. He’s reading, getting all As, and generally excelling. My other two though… Dakota is doing ok but she is not focused and doesn’t seem to care a whole lot about doing well. She’s still young but I want her to at least understand work ethic. My oldest had a bit of a school crisis; he reached that age/grade where he questioned the validity of school a tall (which I get entirely, trust me) but we had to have that come to Jesus talk about finishing strong; doing the work even when you don’t feel like it or even care about the subject. And especially when the teacher is not your favorite. You keep your nose to the grindstone and wait it out.

5. (Good) Yacht rock. OK I know I talk about this all the damned time but when I am in my “office” (i.e. closet) teaching class, I put this station on and I am so happy. It transports me to a beach somewhere or to a calm and safe place in my subconscious. These songs elicit a nostalgia in me I can never truly put to words.

6. (This one is maybe good AND bad?) I need a new phone and a new car. My phone cracked back in April when I fell off my bike and it went with. It still works but the screen is shot and now it’s doing this thing where if it’s hot out, it’ll shut off. And it sometimes does it while charging. I have a Sumsung S8+ and I am thinking of going up to the 10. I don’t want another monthly payment, especially considering I need to get Isaac a phone soon. But I am fed up with this thing. On the note of monthly payments, that’s’ the issue with a new car. OK, I don’t even want a NEW car; just newer. My Honda Element just celebrated his 14th birthday (I know because it came up in my Facebook memories.) I am looking at the Ford Flex. Found a 2017 with only 40k miles so that seems good. It’s all about the interest rate though and I just don’t know what I can get. I shouldn’t have been looking around at prices though because now everyone is texting me! (That’s definitely in the bad category. It’s almost as annoying as those political texts I can’t seem to avoid.) So this one is bad because it brings stress and indecision.

7. (Good) Flag football season. I am in love with this time of year. The kids enjoy playing the sport, it gives them something else to do – and in the case of my boys, they lost Xbox recently so they needed this! – and it’s a nice time of year to be outside. Last night when we went to Isaac’s practice, there was a cool breeze coming across the fields and we were gifted with a beautiful sunset above the tree line.

8. (Bad) This one is super minor but last night, Ash and I were reading through the materials for our neighborhood board member voting. There were roughly 9 people wanting to join so each one had a short bio written either by them or about them – one person clearly wrote it then they tried to amend it to the third person. Anyway, they were all written so poorly! If there’s one person in the HOA who is wording their documents, then they have an issue. So this morning, I sent an inquiry email to them asking if they needed someone to draft and/or edit their official documents so their communication can be professional. I could not believe some of the sentence structure and stupid little errors. And they sent this to over 3000 homes! You might not think the subject of English matters but not learning the basics does matter when you’re trying to communicate. Good Lord.

9. (Bad) Something that keeps resurfacing in my brain is something that I shouldn’t stress about but I do. I worked for a woman at FSU for 13 years. I was her assistant but we mostly worked together and I would consider us friends. I went to her home for her grandson’s birthday multiple times and we always got each other birthday and Christmas gifts. When she retired, we had a nice going away lunch and then she moved to another town. What bothers me though is that I have emailed her multiple times for various reasons and I either get no response or a short, curt reply. I sometimes wonder if she doesn’t want to just put her FSU years behind her for good. A lot of things went sour right there at the end so I definitely don’t blame her. I mean, I left right after she did. But to not answer makes me feel really bad.

10. (Bad) My eating has been straight awful lately! I haven’t been watching my fasting window very well. Sometimes I eat a handful of walnuts at 10 am when I know damn well I drank beer until 8 or 9 the night before. That is not nearly long enough. My body has gotten too used to the 16 hour fast anyway and if I want to kickstart it, I’ll need to buckle down and do 18s. When my husband goes back to work 3 days a week, I know I will use those days as a way to get back to better eating and longer fasting times. In the meantime, I just feel like a fatass.

11. (Good) Though my eating habits suck, my running has gotten better. I have been fairly consistent and you know what else? I’m having some success in treating my plantar fasciitis. In the past, rolling and icing has helped some but the thing is, that issue exacerbates the bone spur in my heel. When the plantar issue isn’t flaring up, the spur isn’t a problem but together, they equal wincing pain on every footfall. But I found this stuff called Uncle Bud’s industrial hemp roll on and I am now a believer in cbd oil. The only thing I am doing differently is putting that on my foot 3-4 times a day. I ran Wednesday and it was so much less painful!

12. (Good) I have started buying for Christmas. I want to get way ahead this year and assess what I have so far and make sure we don’t spend too much. It also brings me a bit of happiness every time I gather a gift.

13. (Good) We watched this special called Brewmaster, all about people who own breweries or are trying to start them OR are trying to become Cicerones, who are the beer equivalent of a sommelier. It was pretty neat and Ash said I’d be good at entertaining the idea of tasting beers and learning how to talk about them. I kind of wish I had time to pursue that, honestly. Maybe if I was still at the other job I’d be free enough. The show did make us motivated and yesterday, we brewed two beers: a nut brown ale and an Irish red. They won’t be ready for 4-6 weeks but we have a pale ale on tap. If these turn out, I think we’ll abandon pales for a bit – ours are never amazing – and focus on the others. We made a brown ale in April that was amazing and then our chocolate milk stout turned out pretty damn good too. Maybe this is just where we excel, be it with our equipment or fermenting or whatnot, we just have success in these realms. I look forward to improving and perfecting these as we make more.