My Real Life

February 10, 2022

50

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 1:51 pm
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It’s been just a little more than 2 years since I’ve posted here, and if I’m honest, for a few years before that, my posts were few and far between.

But I’m still thinking like a writer. When things happen, I’m imagining how I would write it up in a blog post. I’m way too active on Facebook, which is partially how I get my writing out; in little drips and drabs; but let’s be honest…it’s not the same.

Two years ago, I was celebrating turning 48 and I was bemoaning the fact that 2019 was a sucky year for my family. Real Man had lost his job (he remained out of work for almost two years), I had kidney stones that had gotten stuck resulting in the need for a stent to be placed (super fun), and the list went on and on.

The gift of hindsight has me laughing at that post, because if I had only known what was coming three months later, I might not have complained as much.

However, that was then and this is now. And now, dare I say it, we are coming out of a global pandemic and we are okay. I enjoyed the lock down with Real Man and the monkeys and truly cherish the time we spent as a family during the spring of 2020. (I realize the privilege of that statement, as while some of us caught the virus in our house, most of us did not, and we all came out of it okay.)

A lot has happened between then and now, but here I stand at 50 and when I look around me, I find that my life is good.

Yeah, I’m mid-century. Sure, I’m the oldest person on my team by many years. Yes, my glasses prescription has changed drastically in just a year and a half and I just had my hearing checked because I can’t hear a damn thing.

But that’s okay. It’s evidence of life well-lived.

Oldest person on my team? Sure. Because I’ve been teaching for a total of 28 years in a career that I love. How many people get to say such a thing?

My eyes are going bad? Yup. It’s scary for me, but those eyes have read hundreds, if not thousands of books. They’ve looked into the eyes of those I’ve loved, witnessed amazing moments, and seen deeper than what the surface often showed.

Eh? What’s that you say? Speak up! I can’t hear you! Because I’ve rocked out to more wonderful music than I could have ever imagined. I’ve bathed in the sounds of my children’s laughter, heard the held back tears in the voice of a friend, and listened to the silence when I needed to hear my own inner voice.

I walk into the kitchen and forget why I’m there, but I remember every word to every song I loved in the 80’s. I tell colleagues to email me if there’s something they need from me because I’ll forget it the moment I walk away from them. But I will never forget how it felt the first time I held each of my babies. I don’t remember Real Man or ANY of the monkey’s cell phone numbers, but I remember the childhood phone numbers of each of my best friends. And so I buy stock in post-it notes to remember the “right now” things, but I smile at the long-ago memories that are never far from my heart.

Being 50 is okay. It’s better than okay. It’s good. It’s comfortable. It’s fun. It’s me. I don’t mince words. I don’t apologize for myself. I fight for those who need to be fought for. I read too much. I watch too much Netflix. I eat. I laugh loud. I cry hard. I tell people how I feel, because life is too short not to.

I have no idea what the rest of 50 has in store for me. There will undoubtedly be lows and there will definitely be highs. But I’m here for it. And, hopefully, I’m back to share it with all of you.


January 3, 2020

48

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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I’m gonna be honest.

2019 sucked.

Not kinda sucked. Not sorta sucked.

It just, plain old, flat out sucked.

In May, Real Man’s company restructured and eliminated his position.

Six months later, severance just expired and the interviews he’s had so far haven’t panned out.

In summer 2019, I had a kidney stone get stuck, surgery to remove it, and then had a stent inserted while I healed.

In August, Monkey Girl left for college.

Yes, a very, very positive and wonderful thing, but a very, very sad one, as well.

In October, Real Man had to have surgery on his right ear in an effort to remedy Meniere’s Disease, which was causing him extreme vertigo several times a day, rendering him almost completely unable to leave the house or drive anywhere on his own.

The surgery helped the vertigo (mostly), but left him with no hearing in his right ear.

And the day after winter break began, Tiny and I hit the Fast ER which misdiagnosed us both and five days later we wound up at our real doctor finding out that I had bronchitis and he had…the flu.

The two of us spent almost all of the week and a half off on the couch and in bed, and in the end, still weren’t truly 100% when it was time to return to school.

Happy Winter Break!

2019 sucked.

But, I have to admit, there were some bright spots in 2019.

While Real Man being out of work is really pretty terrible, we’ve been able to spend so much time with him.

Because I’m a teacher, I’m home in the summers with the kids and I get to have adventures with them and relax and be in that summer mode.

This summer, however, Real Man was able to be with us and enjoy that slowed-down time.

He’s been able to do pick-up and drop-off at school, help with homework, take kids to doctor appointments, and just spend some real, quality time with all of us.

The timing of his need for surgery for the Meniere’s was so perfect, because he would have had to have been out of work with the vertigo anyway, and then the surgery and recovery would have kept him out of work. Time off from work wasn’t anything we needed to worry about. He was able to focus completely on his health and recovery, which was a huge silver lining.

Monkey Girl’s absence has left a huge hole in the family, but she absolutely loves college.

She has made some wonderful friends, she’s enjoying her classes, and has found her “place.”

In 2019, partially as a healthy escape from all the crap we were pushing through, I read.

A lot.

I challenged myself, in January, to participate in Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge.

I decided to try to read 52 books for the year…one a week.

I knew I wouldn’t actually read one a week, but I also knew I’d make up for it in the summer when I was reading one a day on some days.

And I did.

In 2019, I read 69 books and I loved them all.

Okay, almost all of them, but no time reading is ever wasted.

Tiny had a rough year in 2nd grade, but in the fall of 2019, he started 3rd grade and he’s never been so happy in school.

He comes home with stories of friendships and sharing and kindness and tolerance and acceptance and it brings me to tears with gratitude.

And we’ve been shown such kindness this year.

People have been coming out of the woodwork with advice, connections, generosity, and kindness.

Such unbelievable kindness.

So, yeah, 2019 sucked. So many pieces of our lives fell apart, but at the same time, so many other pieces of our lives started to fit together.

And today, I’m 48.

I’m moving ever closer to the big one, but I feel like I’m in a good place to move forward.

I’ve got goals for being 48, and some are trite and expected and others are conceptual and theoretical, but they are my goals and I feel good about them.

Because, at 48, I’ve earned the right to be trite and expected at times, and I’ve earned the right to dream big, and I’ve earned the right to not be judged for either.

I won’t say that 48 and 2020 can’t be worse than 47 and 2019, because, let’s be honest, things can always be worse.

But I’m going to take the lessons we learned in 2019 and bring them with me into this new year and keep my focus on the positive.

Because if I can stay positive, no matter what life tosses at us, I’ve already halfway won the battle.

So, here’s to 48 and here’s to having the strength to push through and the grace to push through with a smile and a grateful heart.

December 18, 2019

The Weight of Our Ice

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 4:32 pm

The world is covered in ice today, and the trees that have stood brown and bare and ugly since the end of November are suddenly sparkling and shining and brilliant.

Everywhere you look, people are sharing photos of their yard, their street, their neighborhood, and captions all relate to the beauty of what the picture shows.

And they aren’t wrong. It is absolutely beautiful.

Yet, as I stood outside, today, looking at the blinding reflections of the sun off of the branches, all around me, the air was full of the sounds of the branches, crackling and groaning under the weight of the ice.

That beauty is heavy and it threatens to bend and break even the strongest of branches that have held their own for hundreds of years.

As I stood out there, looking around, I began thinking about how heavy the metaphorical beauty we wear in public can be and how it so paralleled the weight of the ice on the trees.

The ice is like the facade we show to people. The happy Facebook photos. The silly Instagram posts. The funny tweets. That public face we show to the world where we pretend like everything shines, like we are always smiling; that we are always radiating patience and goodness.

I was thinking how heavy that can be to maintain. The time we spend in figuring out just the right word to make the sentence perfect, or the amount of times we retake a photo until we are satisfied that people will look and approve.

It’s heavy. It’s a heavy weight that can pull down on our minds and hearts and souls until we bend. Until we break under the pressure.

And we might bend. And we might break.

But the hope is that our core…the older, brown, solid wood that hides beneath the gleaming ice…can stay strong. That we can weather the storm and shake off the momentary glitz and glamour, and go back to the true us.

And that we can learn to love our true selves enough to share that with the world

Our knots and decay. Our good and our bad. Our beautiful days and our ugly moments.

That’s the real beauty. Not the fleeting moments that we crafted or had to capture before they were gone. The every day. The ins and outs. The ups and down.

Those things are beautiful because they are relatable. They are the things we all have in common.

They are the human experience and there is nothing more worthy of sharing than that.

Because the ice? It will be gone tomorrow. But those trees? They’ll last so much longer, and it’s the imperfections in those bare branches where the true beauty lies.


August 23, 2019

Miss You More

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am

We dropped Monkey Girl off at college today.

When I started this blog, Monkey Girl looked like this:

Needless to say, she doesn’t look like that anymore.

She’s 18 and grown and as of today, gone.

Not for good, obviously, but if you’ve gone to college yourself, you know that, while you will come home again, it will never quite be the same.

I miss her.

I went to put a dish in the dishwasher and found that it was full of clean dishes and immediately called out for her to empty it, because that’s been her job for the past ten years. But she’s not here tonight.

I miss the way she would call out “Marco!” when she would get home from work or school to find out where I was in the house. Or, she’d yell it when we were at the store and got separated. I’d yell back “Polo!” and she’d come and find me.

I walked by her room on her way to mine, this afternoon, and realized she had left her light and her fan on. I turned them off and smelled the strawberry scent of the air that is pure Monkey Girl and wondered how long before that scent goes away.

I know that, tonight, she won’t be coming in to lay on my bed when she comes home from work or hanging out with her friends and updating me on her day.

I just miss her presence, tonight.

And I know it will get easier.

I’ll always miss her when she isn’t here, but it won’t always ache.

She’s gonna love college. She is going to make friends and have fun and learn and grow and be independent and is going to do everything that her father and I have raised her to do.

She has already texted that she had made some friends and was enjoying their company and having a good time, and that made me so, so happy to hear.

It’s going to be fine. I’m going to be fine. She’s already fine.

I know I’m being melancholy and dramatic.

But tonight, I’m gonna wallow a little.

Because she was my first baby.

And I miss her.

July 24, 2019

Like a Rolling Stone

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 10:10 am
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I wish this post had to do with me actually being like a rolling stone.

You know…

Gathering no moss.

Or having the moves like Mick Jagger.

Alas, this post is not about either of those things.

Instead it’s about me and my new friend.

Some people call it Sharon.

Some people call it Fred.

Some call it Kid Rock.

I believe someone even called it Blarney.

I just called it a pain in the butt.

Okay, not in the butt…but definitely in the kidney.

Yes, that’s right.

This is a blog post about me and my kidney stone.

Disclaimer: This is NOT a love story.

Disclaimer #2: It’s also a story about me and pee, so read at your own peril.

One fine day, in the end of May, I was reading to Tiny before bedtime and I had a small ache in my lower back.

I kept shifting positions, thinking it was a muscle ache, but after twenty minutes, I realized two things:

  1. Shifting positions wasn’t going to make it go away
  2. Whatever was going on was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life (and long-time readers, here is where I remind you of the c-section I had with no anesthesia)

So, Real Man took me to the ER, a CT scan ensued, and turned out it was a kidney stone.

They sent me home with a sieve to pee in so I could catch the stone, and said it was almost through the ureter and that it shouldn’t be long now.

The doctors at the ER told me that when the stone passed, I should make an appointment with the urologist to have the stone analyzed to find out what I needed to cut from my diet. So, I figured it would pass soon, then I’d make the appointment, and everything would be fine.

I was back to school the next day and all was well until the following Tuesday. I happened to be in a meeting at 2:00 and the pain began and I said “Sorry everyone, but I need to go,” got up, and got home when the worst of it began. Took the medicine and let it dull the pain and put me to sleep.

I was semi-excited because I thought, “This is it! It’s passing out! It will pass today and all will be well!”

Except it didn’t.

The next week or so, I woke up at 4 am with the intense pain. I called out of work and took the medicine and waited at every bathroom break to see that little stone.

Nope.

My nerves started to set in, because I run the 8th grade trip to Washington, DC (which I wrote about in this anthology) and all I could think about was, ‘what if I have one of these days in DC?’

But, thank goodness, I didn’t.

Then we had 8th grade graduation, and I was able to run that without an attack, as well.

At this point, it seemed the stone had passed and I had just missed it. I felt okay…a little bit like I had a constant, mild, urinary tract infection on most days, but it was manageable.

But the next morning, I woke up and the pain was back and it was severe enough that I had Real Man take me to the ER, once again. But this time, there was a super fun bonus of vomiting every twenty minutes.

Kidney stones…they’re a blast.

I’d like to take a moment here and insert a love letter (which I know I said this post wasn’t, but this is a love letter to nurses.

Dear Nurses, You rock my world. 

Over the past two months, you have made me comfortable, less scared, been attentive and kind, and are just wonderful, amazing people. 

I have heard you deal calmly and rationally with irrational people in rooms around mine in the ER. 

I have heard you see through the nonsense of someone who was clearly just trying to get you to give them pain meds in the room across from mine in the ER and let them down gently. 

I’ve watched you clean up everything you can imagine, while telling patients that it’s okay, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, and helping them maintain their dignity in their least dignified moments. 

Nurses are the absolute best, and while I’ve always known this, I have to say that this experience was a wonderful reminder of that, and I couldn’t be prouder that it is the calling that Monkey Girl has chosen to follow. 

So, Nurses…thank you.

I should mention that this was also the day of Monkey Girl’s high school graduation, because of course it was.

The ER did another CT scan and when they came to give me the results, I said, “It’s gotta be another stone, right?” because after a full month of this, I assumed that I probably had passed the first stone and missed it and had been creating and passing others in the meantime.

So, imagine my surprise when the doctor told me that the initial stone hadn’t moved at all.

Not one iota in a month.

They wanted to admit me, but a) there was no way I was missing Monkey Girl’s high school graduation that night and b) the urologist couldn’t do the surgery for awhile anyway.

So, Real Man took my medicated self home and to graduation and I got to watch that amazing girl graduate.

And then went home and went to bed for two days.

I followed up with my urologist, and at that appointment, he asked why I hadn’t come in earlier. I told him that the ER docs had initially said to make the appointment when the stone passed. He said that sometimes that is the way to go, but because the stone was larger than they thought, that is probably why I received that inaccurate advice.

He drew me some charts and said that the stone had originally been mismeasured at 4 mm, but was really 5-6 mm (which is nothing…I’ve read stories of much bigger stones…but a ureter is only 3-4 mm wide) and that, in the past month, the stone hadn’t moved one bit. Not at all.

It shifted, occasionally, and when it shifted and totally closed off the path through the ureter, that’s when I had the ridiculous pain. The general discomfort I felt the rest of the time was because it shifted again and was letting a small bit of urine pass. But in terms of movement, it hadn’t gone anywhere.

And, of course, now it had been in that position, irritating the ureter, for month, and the ureter had swelled around it, keeping it in that position. It had to come out. The danger is, apparently, that when your kidney sends urine to your bladder, when it can’t pass, a few things can happen. One is sepsis, which is, obviously, not fantastic.

The other is that your kidney gets signals that there is nowhere to go and over time, it stops producing urine, and that is irreversible. Not optimal.

So keeping the stone in and crossing our fingers wasn’t going to work.

So, we scheduled the surgery.

As I write this, the surgery was yesterday. All went well. They went in, found the stone, broke it into pieces, pulled them out, and put in a stent that runs from my kidney down through my ureter into my bladder, and that stays in for a week.

The stent is no joke, folks. Next week can’t come fast enough for me.

But the stone is out and this, too, shall pass, and when the urologist tells me what I need to avoid in my diet so this doesn’t happen again, you can be sure that I steer as clear of whatever it is as possible until my dying day.

(It’s salt…I know it’s gonna be salt…I love my salt)

I write this post as a warning to anyone that gets a kidney stone.

Follow up and make an appointment with your urologist THE NEXT DAY.

Earlier and they might have been able to blast up the pieces of the stone with shock waves and then I could have passed the pieces and not had to have gone through the surgery.

I’ll be fine. I’ve got my family (Real Man has been a rock star through all of this), my books, and my Netflix while I heal, but a lot of time, pain, and misery could have been avoided if I had just made that appointment immediately, and that’s why I share this with you.

Make those doctor appointments, for whatever ails you. Demand to be seen. Don’t think you are being dramatic or that you don’t want to bother anyone or that it will just go away on its own. Because, most likely, it won’t.

Take care of you.

You’re worth it.


July 22, 2019

The Egg and I

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 4:38 pm
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Last week, Erin shot me a text with a link to this article, and said “Someday?”

I clicked on the link and read the article and was completely taken in, initially by the mention of Betty MacDonald and the “Mrs. Piggle Wiggle” books.

Image result for mrs piggle wiggle original cover

Oh, how I loved those books when I was a kid.

If you aren’t familiar with them, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle had all these crazy cures for parents who would come to them with problems about their kids.

Like, for the kid who interrupted all the time, she gave the parents a powder to blow in his face that rendered him mute every time he tried to interrupt. Or, if I remember correctly, a kid who refused to bathe suddenly was growing radishes out of the dirt on their arms and legs.

They are books that were written in the 40’s and I had the original hardcovers, (I’m a bookie…that’s a big deal to me), but they were all ruined when my parents moved when I was in college, along with all of my records and albums. (Leak in the moving truck during an overnight rainstorm. Good times.)

Even today, when I am at a garage sale, I try to find the original hardcovers of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, but to no avail. I’ve never been able to find one, and I’m not spending the money on eBay, etc.

Anyway, when I realized that it was a book-lovers pilgrimage to where Betty MacDonald wrote those books, I was intrigued. I told Erin I was a definite yes to the “Someday” (which we both know will never actually happen) but also told her that I was going to see if the library had the book “The Egg and I,” which was discussed in the article.

“The Egg and I” was the book that introduced the popular characters of Ma and Pa Kettle, and was the inspiration for a movie of the same name starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray (which I now also must get from the library).

The library did, indeed, have the book, and from the looks of it, it hadn’t been taken out since 1940.

I started reading it yesterday and it is utterly delightful.

Utterly. Delightful.

It’s not going to be everyone’s taste.

When Monkey Girl was little, I tried to get her to read the original Nancy Drew books (which I also try to find original versions of at garage sales to replace my collection) but she felt that they were too “old timey” for her to relate to and she wasn’t interested.

This is definitely a bit old timey, but at the same time, it’s not.

Her descriptions are absolutely captivating. She personifies almost everything on the Pacific Northwest farm, and it becomes this living breathing entity, and no longer just a setting.

She’s funny and smart as she writes. I giggled at some of her descriptions of the conversations with her neighbors and the situations she got herself into.

I devoured the Little House on the Prairie books as a child, and again, as an adult. Something very much appeals to me about farm life, rural living, and living off the land. Perhaps it comes from my grandmother who grew up on a farm in Orwell, Ohio during the Depression. I love books set in those times or the pioneer days, and this book spoke to that part of me.

It’s not my normal reading fare. I’m actually right in the middle of a series of young adult vampire books, which I’m reading faster than I can get to the library, and when those are done, I have a few Stephen King that are waiting for me. My tastes in books are generally all over the place, but I tend to stay away from the biography.

(Except for Eric Clapton’s biography. That was phenomenal.)

I’m glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone and picked up this book. Turns out she wrote a few other biographical books, as well, and I plan on plowing through those when I finish with this one, as well.

The purpose of this post isn’t necessarily a book review, although I suppose it could serve as one, but it’s more of a reminder to step outside the familiar every now and then. You may be wonderfully surprised.

May 20, 2019

Dystopia

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 4:07 pm

I’m not sure what it is about a good dystopian story that grabs me.

Whether I’m reading it or watching it, the stories always make me stop and think.

Maybe I love them because they let me think that, as bad as things are here, in the real world, they aren’t THAT bad.

I know part of me is attracted to the idea of having to be creative to get by. Saving money, making do with what you have, etc. 

I also love books about the depression, so that speaks to that piece of it for me.

Regardless of why, the books that I tend to devour the fastest are those about a post-apocalyptic world. Or a world that is like ours, just different in some intangible way.

I do the majority of my dystopian reading and watching in the summer. It just feels like the right time for it.

I just read the “The Selection” trilogy in two days. I picked up the next two books in the sequel series this morning and will read those as soon as humanly possible.

One of my favorite YA dystopian series was the “Life as We Knew It” series. Loved books one through three. Wanted to throw book four out the window.

When I finished reading them, I was ridiculed by my friends because I immediately put together an apocalypse bin in the basement with some canned goods, a first aid kit, and a few other items, in case the moon accidentally did get hit out of orbit by a passing meteor.

On Netflix, I loved “The Rain,” and “The 100,” “3%,” and am currently obsessed with “The Society.”

So, anyway, with a month and a half left of school, I am looking down the barrel of two months of sitting at the town pool, hiding my face in a book so my students don’t have to be embarrassed that their teacher is ten feet away from them at the community pool.

That means I have time. Time to read. 

And time to watch, as, instead of listening to music, some days, while I work on the yard and the “garden” I have Netflix playing on my phone. 

So, suggestions, please.

While the majority of the dystopian fiction I’ve read is young adult, I’m not entirely tied to it being only for teens. Adult dystopia can work, as well.

I need titles, friends.

Of books or shows I need to see that are dystopian in nature. Books I can get from the library. Shows or movies have to be available from Netflix or free on Amazon, as I don’t have Hulu.

Feed me, people!!!

April 18, 2019

She’s to Blame

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 10:40 am

Yes, in keeping with the theme of the latest anthology I have contributed to, “Will Work for Apples,” this is a post about teachers, but really just about one teacher, in particular.

Mrs. Carol Tribus, life-changer.

I was a good student in school. Not a great student, but a good one.

I definitely had the brains, I just didn’t always choose to apply them in an academic way.

I was the kid who teachers would say “If she would just use her powers for good and not evil, there’s no telling what she would be capable of.”

Studying was just not my jam, and I spent more time trying to get out of it than I did actually doing it.

I had good teachers, growing up.

Teachers who were fun, who were challenging, who were engaging.

I had a really solid educational background, I just didn’t choose to be everything I could be with it.

My biggest downfall, however, was math.

I get math. I love math. I am INTO math.

I just don’t have the kind of math mind where I can do it all in my head, or I can see the problem and then immediately see the answer.

It takes me a minute, and I need to write it down.

Because of this, my math grades were usually B’s, instead of A’s.

Respectable grades, no doubt, but not where they could have been if everything wasn’t always based on how fast you could get it done.

And then 8th grade Algebra rolled around and I wound up sitting right behind Michaela and I spent the entire year passing notes and drawings to Michaela and talking, instead of following the copious notes that Mr. Rutkowski was writing on the board in his unmistakeable, all caps, handwriting.

I earned a C that year, in Algebra and my parents said no way was this going on my permanent record, and that I would have to retake the course as a freshman.

I was not pleased, but what choice did I have? In those days, the parents made the rules, not the kids (in our house, the parents still make the rules, but I know way too many homes where the opposite is true) and so off to Algebra I went for the second year in a row.

Enter Mrs. Tribus.

Mrs. Tribus started off our class on the first day of school by calling out a long, rambling math problem that we would have to solve in our heads.

Fantastic. Exactly the thing that I struggle with, and this is how day one begins?

Turns out, that was how every day began in her class.

“5 plus 7 times 3 minus 20 divided by 8”

And hands would go up and kids would be shouting out answers with glee.

And I would sit there. Silent.

Some days, they would be short problems, like that one. Sometimes they would go on for a full minute before she would stop and call for an answer.

A few weeks in, she kept me after class for a second and said that she noticed I never participated in that part of class.

“Yeah, I’m not good at math. This is my second time taking this course, and I still don’t get it. I can’t do the math in my head like that,” is what I told her.

She told me that it was too early in life to decide I wasn’t good at something and gave me some tips about how to do those types of problems in my head. Visualize them on the paper, think of your ready math facts, etc. She said that the next day, she was calling on me for the answer whether my hand was up or not, because she knew I knew the answer.

I literally didn’t sleep that night, worrying about the stupid math problem at the beginning of class. I played sick in the morning, but my Mom was a teacher, and so if there was no vomit actually coming out of my mouth, I was going to school.

I had her class at the end of the day, and it was all I could think about.

Note…teacher’s bring their own experiences to their classrooms…I never poo-poo or say a student’s anxiety about an upcoming assessment or lesson is silly. It’s real. I know of what I speak.

When we got to class, everyone was ready for the problem, and I was terrified. I missed the first few numbers that she called out, so I definitely didn’t know the answer. I think she saw the panic on my face, because she suddenly stopped and said “Hang on, I lost my place. Let me start again.”

This time I was ready, and I followed and kept the numbers straight and by the end, had the answer. I knew it was a soft ball question, not as hard as the ones we had worked up to at that point, but I didn’t care. I knew the answer.

I raised my hand and she called on me and I confidently said the answer. And I was right.

It may seem like a small thing, but I can’t even begin to tell you the difference it made for me.

I didn’t always raise my hand, and I didn’t always get the answers right. But I tried. And I used her methods and tips and tricks, and it started to come a little easier to me. I started to enjoy math again, and started to look forward to the end of the day.

When I had questions, I would ask for help, and she would show me that I was on the right track, just needed a shift in my thinking.

When I would get back a test that I had done well on she would write “I”m so proud of you!” and if I didn’t do as well, she would write “See me” and she would show me what I had done wrong so that I could do it better next time.

Throughout the year, my confidence built, and I remembered everything I had always loved about math. By the end of the year, I found myself turning around and helping the kid behind me when he was stuck, or leaning over to whisper how to solve a problem to the girl across the row.

I got my math groove back. And I earned an A in the course.

For the next two years, I had a different teacher, as I took Algebra II and Geometry. Totally different kind of math, and I earned a B. This, too, was an excellent teacher, but spacial things like Geometry and where to put the furniture in a room, are just not my thing.

Example A: Every room in my house.

Senior year, I took Trigonometry and wound up with Mrs. Tribus as my teacher again. And as we learned foreign words like sine and cosine and tangent, I rocked it.

And when I didn’t, she helped and guided and gave me confidence.

She asked me to help kids who were struggling, and I did.

And my best friend and two cute boys were in that class, and although we chatted and passed notes and giggled, we also learned. We learned all of it.

Toward the middle of the year, Mrs. Tribus asked me to stay after class and asked what I was planning on studying in college. I told her that I was going as a vocal and piano performance major and she said that was wonderful, but wondered if I would consider at least minoring in math.

Excuse me?

Like, make math a main course of study in college?

I said that it honestly hadn’t crossed my mind, and she told me that I had a wonderful math mind and that she actually saw me as a math teacher in the future.

What?

Me? A math teacher?

She was adamant about it, and I said I would consider it.

I ended up with an A in Trigonometry, that year, and went to college and majored in Music and minored in Education. After freshman year, I started to think about what I could really do with a music degree and switched to music education. Because once she put that idea about teaching in my ear, I couldn’t shake it.

Then, I began to see music programs being cut all over Ohio, where I was in college, and self-preservation won out and I switched to history education, and never looked back.

But, math never left me.

In my first teaching job, it was a residential school and I taught all subjects to a group of high school girls.

My favorite thing to teach them?

Math.

In my first long-term teaching position, I taught social studies, but then got moved to science and taught that for five years. My favorite topic to teach in science? Chemical equations, because, math.

I have now been teaching history for almost more years than I can count (okay, I CAN count them, because I rock at math), but when someone leaves an Algebra worksheet in the copier, while my copies are running, I complete the worksheet. I love to help with math homework, until I can’t, because math is super different today than it was when we were in school.

But the teaching? That’s all her.

Yes, yes, I come from a long line of teachers.

But I never thought of it as something I could do, or even as something I wanted to do. Until Mrs. Tribus said it was who I was. It was what she saw in me.

And you know what? She was right.

It 100% is who I am.

I love my job. I love the students, I love the subject, I love the people with whom I work. I love the moments, every day, where someone gets it. Where someone tries. Where someone fails, but they pick themselves up to do it again. I love everything about teaching.

And I truly believe that I was led to this profession by Mrs. Tribus, so this is my public thank you to her.

I’ve thanked her before.

When Kim and I graduated, we gave her a picture frame that said “The Wind Beneath Our Wings” because she inspired us both so greatly. Mrs. Tribus was invited to, and came to, my wedding. We play Words With Friends against each other (when I remember to open the app). I teach with her niece in the same school where I earned that C in Algebra, which propelled me into her class and her into my life.

So, yes, I’ve thanked her before.

But I’m not sure you can ever really thank a teacher who makes a difference in your life enough.

So, thank you, Mrs. Tribus. And just know, that my story is most likely one of a hundred stories of students whose lives you changed for the better.

April 16, 2019

I Wrote a Little Something and Someone Published It!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 9:17 am

At 47 years old, there are quite a few things that I can say with utter certainty.

I don’t like coffee.

I do like super hero movies.

I will not eat liver (even with fava beans and a nice chianti).

I’m devastated by the near-end of Game of Thrones.

I love teaching 8th grade.

Oh, my friends, 8th grade is my niche.

I love those kids, their quirks, their drama, their chaos.

And so, I wrote a little something about how much I enjoy 8th grade, and someone liked it enough to put it in an anthology about teaching.

Remember how much you all enjoyed the first anthology I was a part of?

I Just Want to Pee Alone?

(If this is news to you, go ahead and click the link and buy the book…you won’t regret it)

Well, Will Work for Apples is put together by the same brilliant mind that brought you IJWTPA.

It’s a collection of 39 essays about teaching and teachers.

It is written by parents, by educators, by homeschoolers, and by people whose lives were changed by that one teacher who believed in them.

Some of the stories are heartwarming, and some are hilarious.

My particular essay is about my love for 8th grade and some of the unforeseen issues we’ve run into on our 8th grade trip to D.C. It’s a testament to 8th graders who just roll with the punches and make the best out of every situation.

I sincerely hope you buy it, read it, review it, and tell people about it.

Amazon

Nook

Kobo

iTunes

March 9, 2019

LEGO: A Story of Love and Hate

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
Tags: ,

I’m not gonna lie.

Tiny loves his computer. 

He loves Roblox and Minecraft.

And he loves the iPad. 

He loves Pixel Art and Soccer Kick and any game that requires him to figure out how to get liquid in a cup or how to knock down bricks by shooting a ball out of a cannon.

He loves his screen time.

We intersperse his screen time with countless games of Uno and Battleship and Sorry! and Codebreaker, and he plays soccer and has asked to play tennis and get signed up for hockey again, but make no mistake, the little dude loves his screen time.

But, recently, Tiny turned 8, and for his birthday, he received a small, Lego Minecraft building set.

He immediately wanted to put it together, and spent the entire evening doing so. 

When he was finished, he showed us the result with pride and asked if he could go to Walmart the next morning and use his gift card on another Lego set.

So, the next morning, off we went and he bought another set and spent the day putting that one together and showing it off.

That night, at bedtime, he remembered that he still had a large gift card from Christmas and asked if he could use it the next day to buy a “challenging” Lego set.

So, the next morning, back to Walmart and he bought himself a large set.

For two days, he worked on that Lego set, and when he was done, he was beaming.

While we had been at Walmart, we had purchased a generic Lego set board, for him to attach all of his creations so they don’t get knocked over and ruined, and we attached everything to the board and brought it up to his room.

Thrilled and excited, he said “Do I have more gift cards?”

No, he didn’t, but I had been putting aside money for my next girl’s weekend, and suddenly realized that he hadn’t been looking at a screen for 4 days.

Hadn’t even mentioned it.

So, I said, “You don’t, but I do, so we can get one more set.”

Back to Walmart we went (thanks, Walmart!) and picked up yet another challenging set and off to work he went.

While he worked, I emailed a friend who is an incredible bargain hunter and asked her to keep her eyes open for Lego deals.

Almost immediately she wrote back with a Lego set that had been $70 and was marked down to $20. I had her grab it for me.

By the time Tiny had finished all of them, it had been almost a full week that he hadn’t even made a move toward a computer or a screen.

The kid loves his screen, but man, the kid also loves his Legos.

The problem is this:

  1. He loves a Lego set. He’s not yet a master builder where he feels comfortable getting a bunch of random Legos (which we have in droves from his brothers) and building something out of them. If you’ve seen the first Lego movie, he’s Emmett at the beginning of the film. He loves the building, but he’s just not to the creative level yet.
  2. Lego sets are mad expensive. I would love to keep this kid in Lego sets forever, simply because it’s good, constructive work. But who can possibly afford that? Baby Monkey, who is now 13 and no longer a baby, would absolutely love the Lego Death Star. But the Lego Death Star is hundreds of dollars and I’ve got a family of six to feed. Death Star ain’t happening. Dear Lego, Please make your sets more affordable. I can’t imagine it costs you that much to produce them, and I know you are selling millions of them. Help a mother out! Thanks, Love, Amy

So, I know everyone hates Legos because of the steppage factor. And yes, I’ve stepped on more than my share of Legos over the course of the past 18 years of parenting kids who love Legos.

But I also love them so much. I loved when Monkey Girl, Monkey in the Middle and Baby Monkey used to create things with their bins full of random Legos, and I love watching Tiny diligently follow the instructions to create his “masterpieces.”

But Lego…dude, you’re killing me. Make the Legos more affordable. I’ll buy them all, but only if I don’t have to mortgage my house to do so.

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