It has certainly been awhile since I’ve written on here. It’s been almost ten months since I’ve written at all! Many, many reasons… but most of them were just temporary road blocks… one after another, after another… I’m sure almost everyone can relate!
I always like to frame situations as a “love” sandwich. Good – tough- good. This term is courtesy of one of my college professors during my teacher education blocks. She said it is always best to start with the good, fill in the hard stuff, and round it back out with good.
Good: My kids were in-person education ALL of the 2020-2021 school year with the exception of 3.5 days. I can’t praise our administration enough for this! They front loaded the school year with an extra five minutes each day in case we had to close for covid. We did NOT have to close, so my kids had every Friday off from the beginning of April until they finished it out in mid-May. No vocal music programs or school assemblies, but if that’s all we had to sacrifice for school activities? No big deal. No teachers, administration, or students perished. Our district did not suffer much teacher turnover after 2020-21 covid year either. Being a former teacher, I pay attention to these things!
Tough: This was an EXTREMELY challenging season for mental health. Mental health of all generations was tested, squeezed, stretched, flambéed, and left exhausted in a heap. I sought professional counseling. Our social workers and school counselors focused on student’s mental health through extra time in classrooms. We had in-depth conversations in our home and asked those harder questions.
Good: Summer activities were back in a completely pre-pandemic, normal style. We’ve dedicated ourselves to baseball March to July, softball May-July, 4H activities and the fair, and a family vacation to Florida. It felt good. We have a boat! What? YES! After boat-watching for multiple years and searching for one for a year, we bought one in February! It’s a pontoon (cue that song by Lady A). Our family has spent many days and evenings out on it since Memorial weekend. We haven’t quite located where the good fishing spots are at our local lake… or maybe it’s just that we don’t know how to read the fish finders? Kids enjoyed tubing with cousins on the 4th weekend. I’ve read a few books while just cruising.
My next post will be more introspective and with pictures. This was just a quickie. I hope you have stayed healthy and full of hope!
— Jen
Laugh.Cry.Giggle.Smile. 