Resuming the Blogging Life

After many years away from my blog, I've decided to return.  Why?  You might ask.....

Well, the title of my blog says it all.  It was a phrase from my most favorite (yes, I used the superlative form) book in the whole wide world.  It spoke to me as an impressionable sophomore being taught, at that time, by a not-so-aging hippie English teacher (you know who you are, lady, and you were so, so, so influential in this woman's life) who seemed to have Bob Dylan hanging off her lips and the fresh draggings of the Woodstock earth off her bell bottoms.  I thought she could be my sister; she was the ying to my own mother's yang.  Combined with many other influential women of the English Department of Crystal Lake Central High School, who complemented her free spirit thumbing-in-the-face-of-the-man laissez faire teaching of Salinger and Fitzgerald, and even Flowers for Algernon, I learned to care about people.  I learned that language and communication was the way to heal people.

And so here I am again, trying to make this a consistent habit.  I never seem to be good at "habits."  Either the habit gets the best of me, or I don't get the best of it.  I guess it's my prolonged day-dreaming, my ADHD as my critics would define it, that keeps me from consistency.  For me, in my own little world, I just like to try new things.  I get bored.  I get listless.  I get wanderlust.  For everything - sometimes even people.  In any case, I'm trying to get grounded. I'm trying to stick to a few things and get better at them, instead of being a "Jill of all trades."

One thing I think I am really good at is being the catcher in the rye.  I'm so good at it that it's even come to hurt me, to haunt me, and to rule my own existence.  I can't help it.  I was raised by an adult child of an alcoholic and a dry drunk.  I'm not so new at addictive relationships.  Heck, domestic violence was the modus operandi by which I grew up.

So I tried always to be the champion of the underdog, the "mother hen" of everyone.  I don't think I was bossy, but I became so in my later life, in attempts to grasp at control, and in attempts to remain in control of my own life.  Some way, I got pinned with being an angry person, which if anyone truly knew me understood that was just a mask for my wall I put up that was supposed to communicate, "Don't tread on me."

I hope to write about my story, my life and my yearnings here.  And I hope to communicate to heal.  You might read angry ramblings of my disappointments, my failed relationships, my wounds of inner childhood, but you also might read my blabbering of my successes, my aha moments, my winning the war against myself, and the thrill of victory of my own accomplishments.

I'm just a regular person, but I've had some irregular situations happen to me.  Rather than wallow in the bowl of the pits of cherries, I'm taking control and decorating my bowl the way I like it.  Yeah, there might be some pits.  But I'm going to clean them off, paint them with my colors, and make them to shine like the sun and hold them up for everyone to see.

I hope you learn something. I hope I can inspire you.  And I hope that this will continue to heal me in hearing my words.  Hopefully, I'll can really be my own catcher in the rye.

And while I've been "around the [proverbial] block a few times," the Pollyanna me, the Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm me, the me that wants to love and catch everyone, resists using the winning strategy.  Maybe, just maybe, yes, I do still want to keep all of my kings in the back row.  One thing is for sure, I'm not a phoney.  And yes, maybe by telling the Interwebz, I'm not really telling anyone, so I don't start to miss anyone but my true self.

Deals Made With THE Devil

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveler, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could 

To where it bent in the undergrowth.   

The other day (yes, I should have blogged about this earlier, because now, I have like two to three blog posts melding in my head - I can't shut myself up - which the family will tell you is not unusual), I made a deal with myself.

It was like making a deal with the devil.  Seriously.

Those of you who know me personally know that I took a new job this year - a job that I love immensely (well, 3/4 of it), and for a district that I really feel good about.  It's been 15 years since I've been back in the business of publication advising.  I left for three good reasons, and those reasons have been kicking my butt for 19 years (the college aged bitter daughter, the Mama's Boy [and don't get me wrong, I love him dearly], and the PITA).

I loved put in my time at home raising them while they were young.  I loved survived teaching middle school, but I've really missed teaching A) high schoolers, and B) English, and most especially Journalism.  I also reentered the workforce when PITA was almost 4, too quickly, but again, at the right opportunity's knocking.  I've been back to work full-time now for 10 solid years, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it doesn't involve sitting in a rocking chair.

Sometimes (okay - a lot of the times), I question my stamina as to why I ever left the professional industry of journalism in the first place in order to teach (see reasons in the 3rd paragraph again) and my reasons for even wanting to be a mother (was I good at nurturing?  Many times, I don't think so; certainly, the college aged bitter one tells me that daily when I don't allow her to stay out all night, drink beer excessively in front of me, or play that nasty Nikki Minaj stuff endlessly through the house).  Really, I feel comfortable playing around with words, writing to make a point, exposing things by asking a ton of questions - why did I leave journalism again?

"Then took the other, as just as fair, 

And having perhaps the better claim, 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 

Though as for that the passing there 

Had worn them really about the same....

So last year, when my predecessor retired, I quickly made the decision (and I mean within seconds of hearing the news) to return to the high school.  After living through my 20s and 30s and now rounding out the 40s, I've learned that what is meant to be will be, and what isn't meant to be will not happen, and you live with either consequence.  I was happy at the middle school.  I had esteem in that position, and I enjoyed the students and the clientele.  I could deal with either decision.

I've certainly learned in my "old" age that your life is your life.  Hoping, wishing, praying (most times), and manipulating situations doesn't just "make" things happen.  You have to indicate your wishes, kick in that desire and ambition, prove yourself, and then settle when something doesn't work out your way, in the name of fate.  I've really learned to accept fate.  Not that I don't keep trying to change it, mind you.

But that's the purpose of this post really.  Tempting and changing fate.  I guess I've been pretty good at that my entire life.

"And both that morning equally lay 

In leaves no step had trodden black. 

Oh, I kept the first for another day! 

Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 

I doubted if I should ever come back...

But this year, even with the job I love, and the desire to prove my worth, I just entered the school year with the attitude that my life was sacrificed to this job, of being other kids' parent, of selflessly giving of yourself, your time, your energy, your wit and humor, of being "on" 24 hours a day, it seems, that if I give all I have to give to this one aspect of my life, there will be no Jill, no human left to give to anyone else.

My three kids and the husband probably would say so.  My whole family would probably say so.  It was time I didn't say so.

So on Tuesday, the day after everyone in the household returned to work from the holiday festivities, I should have poured myself into my backlogged grading (and I have a boatload, believe me).  I should have knocked out a lot of things - laundry, cleaning this cluttered mess I call an office and a house, but instead, I heard the outdoors calling me.  Plus, I also heard several other little voices of guilt calling me - called Christmas cookies, and a whole lot of other little nagging souls telling me I'd better get out there and run.

Besides that, I really had not stuck to my routine the week prior because I was trying to clean up my classroom, turn in 35 pages to the yearbook printer, and help a dozen students pass Personal Finance because they aren't really ready for that kind of class as a sophomore (don't get me started on this personal philosophy - that's a whole ANOTHER blog post)!

For those of you who know me professionally, you know I absolutely hate to grade.  I'm on the constant search for true authentic assessment techniques that really help me get a wholistic evaluation of a kid rather than a snapshot in time that you might interpret as your kid being a failure or on top of his world at that moment.

This causes me major stress in my professional life so much so that I change my methodology mid-stream grading or while I am teaching so that I redesign EVERY assessment and sometimes throw the baby out with the bathwater.  I spend so much time agonizing over how each score will look reported and how it will reflect on the student performance, and if this assessment truly reflects what the kid knows, what I've taught, and what is essential, that I perfectionistically (yes, I just made up a word) stop productivity in its tracks.

So once I have stacks and stacks of paper backed up, and I sit down and begin to look at it in perspective, I come up with a better way - a more thorough way - I dunno - a totally new way of looking at it, which I try to wrap my head around and then report in a grade-like fashion.

Thus, this causes me to be untimely in feedback, and of course, totally backlogged.

And therein lies some of the cause of my previous weight gain and stress and just giving my life over to this job.

This year, I decided no, I wasn't going to do that.  However, since I can't shut my brain off from thinking, and I know my first year in any new position or new school is a learning, listening, looking year - and that I would make mistakes and have to redo my assessment system anyway, I didn't stress about getting all the grades done that I should have.  And now, I'm left with an insurmountable amount of grading (that I still want to rethink, but don't have the physical time to anymore) to complete.

So rather than procrastinate - which I also do quite well, thank you - I decided to make a deal with myself, and that devil of grading.  I did pretty well Tuesday.  Let's not go to the rest of the days of the week so far, although I'm about to invoke that soul selling deal-making again today.

I told myself if I finished one set of Personal Finance tests (the ones I had been working on for SOOO long), I could go out and run the Al Foster trail.  And so I set a time limit.  I said at 1:45, if I had finished the tests, I would get dressed and go.

That I did.  And I'm not sorry, and I'm not feeling guilty.  I need to NOT give up on my personal goals this year, or I will be all-consumed, swallowed whole, by this job.  And at 46, it just can't happen, or I will cease to exist.

I tried to make the same deal with myself yesterday, Wednesday, but I put too many things in my basket - going to finish the last of my Christmas shopping (yes, you heard me) and solving my Creative Memories Studio login issue finally (problems I've had since September) AND trying to attend a crop all day yesterday, PLUS, shower and ready myself for my first Fleet Feet social group run (another post later - tomorrow).

"I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- 

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference."

In typical Jill-fashion, I try to do too much all at once (including getting this blog post finished).  And it gets the best of me.

This year, I'm not letting it get to me.  If I get complaints, I get complaints.  I'm going as fast as I can.  And I'm not sacrificing my life, my running, my sanity, and my love of the outdoors.

I loved being out on the Al Foster Tuesday.  And today, I'm going to love being out at Creve Coeur Lake when I get my patoot out there.

Soon, I might just not be able to run.  I don't want any regrets.  I love teaching, I love my students, and I love the parents where I work, but I also have to love myself.  Nature is my spirituality, running is my solace, and if I neglect that to get higher productivity, then what is it all worth?

For this diabetic runner in her mid 40s, it's not worth coming out on top of the heap professionally anymore.  I don't want to be untrue to my students, but I also can no longer be untrue to my self either.

Happy running, you devil!

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep." 

~ Robert Frost

The Running Saga Continues

So, remember yesterday, when I said I would have to do the Christmas Virtual 5K in two parts, since yesterday's Christmas Eve Frostbite Series short course race was only 2M.

Well, who could have asked for a more perfect Christmas Day to run in?  My computer said 48 degrees when we left, but my car said 52, and my body definitely said it was 60s.

I had spied this route driving in and out of Fenton, and I decided that it would be a perfect day to try it, although, when I went to Fleet Feet in Fenton to get Boy #2 (PITA) a jacket to go with his tights and gloves, I discussed this route with the sales guy there, and my husband thought it was Simpson Park, but the sales guy said no, but couldn't remember it.

Even though, the route was a little different than I had planned it in my mind, as I thought that there would be trails the entire route on the river side of the road, if I just parked my car under the Route 30 bridge over the Meramec and then ran all the way up past under the Hwy 44 bridge over the Meramec and into this "park."

A lot of the route, we had to run the side of the road, but it being Christmas Day, traffic was light and people were merry.  No running anyone off the side of the road like in other routes I've experienced (my usual up Summit Road route).

When I say we, I mean the PITA boy.  For Christmas, Santa brought him a new MacBook Pro laptop, mostly out of his commiseration for PITA's parents, who are driven crazy nightly by the Skyping late-night hours of PITA and his server-running-entrepreneurial shenanigans that are conducted on the family Mac Mini on the kitchen desk.

Yes, before you say something, I realize that we should not allow our young freshman to entertain online guests in his room, but he is our last, and we made that fateful mistake with our other two.  What the heck - why not pay for therapy for all three - even it out and make it fair playing field for all of them.

Most of all, it will really keep my husband's sanity on production late nights for the publications, and we actually might get to reclaim the 60" big screen television that is now host to trashy television and Lord knows what late night sessions go on there, since we often find PITA, and sometimes his Jack Sprat-wife big brother, asleep on the sectional we had to buy so there was an appropriate amount of lounging-around space for all the big people in the family.

Anyway....I digress.  But the genius thing I did as a parent this Christmas morning was to tell him he could not set up this computer until he came out and ran 6 miles with me on this route.  I tried to tell him that Dad did not want me running this route alone, and that it would be good for him, and that we had quality Mom-Son outdoors time, but I really didn't have to twist his arm much.

That is until we got 2 miles out past the 44 bridge, and he said, "How much longer?"  I, having my headphones in and blasting my customarily loud 70s and 80s music, thought he said, "I need to pee on a log."  And I told him to go right ahead.  He looked at me like I was whack, and of course, he continued ahead of me all the way through. When we first started, he was poking me, poking me, poking me (not in the Facebook sense of the word either - like literally and physically).  And this is where I started to question my genius parenting skills.

We went behind the Soccer Park and up to Unger Park, the name of which we had all forgotten, which turned out to be a real treasure of a tucked away nature preserve.  It was me and PITA, and some dude, who told PITA it was the only place he could be alone, and appeared to Mom to be imbibing on some adult beverage out of a steel Thermal water bottle.  But he left us alone, to our own devices, and I made a mental note to come back and explore this park.  At that point, we were 3 miles out, and I needed to honestly tell PITA it was time to turn back or he'd really start to hate me, but that place was cool, and if it's nice, I'm actually thinking of going back tomorrow to run just a mile farther than we did today.

At about 3.5 miles, PITA stops to say he's dehydrated and that we both should take a break.  I give him some water and electrolyte stuff I always carry on an hour long run or more.  He guzzles it, and says, "Well, if you're not stopping, I'm going."  He mutters something about me training for this and him not.

We finally make it back to civilization, and now we're joined by another female runner, who is way bundled up inappropriately, and a couple couples walking big dogs.  He walks slowly over the footbridge to the car, stretches, and notes that he has blisters on his toes.

And then says, "Now are ya happy?  Can I just go home and use my computer now?"

Still got in a recovery paced long-ish run on Christmas, with my son, and completed the Virtual 5K, maybe not with the fastest time, but the certainly with the best partner.

Yes, PITA, Mom's happy!

Too busy driving to get gas!

Do you ever feel like this? I remember doing this myself in my gifted education classroom to demonstrate to the kiddos the necessity of doing FIRST THINGS FIRST - making your priorities. We could translate this into homework, projects, assignments, sports and extracurricular activities as well, but somehow I always got lost in translation.

For the past school year, I was no longer teaching the 7 Habits to my 7th graders, and I missed having Franklin's words of wisdom remind me to "sharpen my saw."

And I felt like a salmon swimming upstream.

Add the little things that I never expected, such as caring for Wally while he was in the hospital, and helping my mother-in-law survive the after-effect of losing her life partner of 54 years, and diabetes control thrown in to my lap, and I didn't handle it as gracefully as this high-powered business woman made judgments as she thought out loud.

This video, shared by another colleague on Facebook, really was shared with me at a poignant time. I've been lounging around, feeling sorry for myself, thinking about catching up on all I've missed throughout the school year, as I often do, but just to extreme this summer.

My house is falling down around me, as it's been one of those little pebbles I tried to take care of first. My health is also falling down around me, as I tried to put out fires that came to me first, rather than fitting it in first which is what I should have been doing.

For anyone who has experienced burnout, this video will definitely set you on the straight and narrow path.

Whether or not I can master this philosophy, I don't know. But I'm sure willing to give it a try and go back to Covey's words of wisdom that I extolled to my own students.

How about yourself? What are your big rocks? What are the little pebbles that are getting in the way of you prioritizing your First Things First?

Still Chugging Away at 43things

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Self-Improving Healthy Extrovert

Biggest Loser - "D" Style

I'm participating in a weight loss/lifestyle management contest with Landileigh and other fellow diabetics.

Wanna join?

Click on the title of this entry or the graphic to go to Landileigh's page for more information!

I need to get back to blogging.....

So....all my friends seem to be using their blog for good. They blog about their families, blog pictures of their kids, their travels....and me, I just putter.

So...I'm making a commitment to blog more.

And I need to use my 43things account more. I got so much done - however, I don't want to be just sitting at my computer 42 hours a day (as if I had that much time).

Let's see how this foray into writing may go.....

The ADHD Podcaster

So dealing with an ADHD child or teen or two can be pretty frustrating. Here's a link I found that might help!
The ADHD Podcaster

The Daily Grind

The Daily Grind

I'm crossing this one off....

Need to remember next year to start very early again. AND - order three color ink cartridges and 2 photo color cartridges!

See more progress on: Send out Christmas cards in 2005