Hello, Summer!

Oh, glory hallelujah, it's summer! 

I saw a meme that said, "Teachers don't work only 10 months. Teachers do 12 months of work in 10 months." I am FEELING that right now! The exhaustion is real. 

This year was unusual for a few reasons -- my principal is retiring as of this Thursday and so there is transition to a new principal, which meant lots of work on scheduling earlier than usual, the IEP meeting season for me stretched from March to June (usually it's closer together but I had one of the earlier dates and then the last date for meetings), there was a situation where our assistant principal was no longer in the building in March (and now he will not be back) and so my performance review process got pushed into June, I had the most students with emotional disabilities ever, and this year was supposed to be something resembling "normal" but I don't think "normal" exists. 

That said, I made some really great connections with kids, as evidenced by this photo of me, totally soaked at the 8th grade Luau because several of my students decided to spend their last hurrah time playing cornhole with me and another teacher and then dumping icy water bottles and water balloons on my head (did I mention the heat index was into 100F?).

That's trust and love right there. 

Basically, I feel like today is the first day I have bandwidth. I'm looking forward to having summer plans of... NO PLANS. We're not traveling because Bryce has his research review in July and is in the dissertation stage, with defense in the fall. I am 100% okay with that. (Full disclosure, I signed up for a conference in Ithaca in July with a couple of teacher friends, and there is also a little summer work, but I am NOT SIGNING UP FOR A TON OF STUFF! NOOOOO SIRREEEE BOB!) 

I am coming back to this space to read, to comment, and to try to grapple with all the things that have happened in the past few weeks that I just can't wrap my head around. 

But for now, cheers to summer in all its empty-calendar glory! 

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy! 

Pronatalism and Homebuying

I was at my physical therapy appointment today (in the final stretches of getting my shoulder back to a semblance of normal), and we were talking about the housing market. I'm not sure if this is a global thing, but right now in many parts of the U.S. competition is FIERCE if you are trying to buy a home. Selling a home is amazing, lots of above-asking bidding wars and the like, but if you are trying to buy a home? You are facing up to 30 other offers including cash-only and non-contingent, and so people are devising ways to edge out competition. 

My therapist said that she heard that writing a letter to the seller can be effective, that there are people who have gotten their offers chosen even when not as monetarily attractive because they appeal to the seller's emotions. I could see that -- I started imagining going to open houses and promising a seller I'd take real good care of their garden. 

But, no. 

"In your letter, you can say why you're the best person for the house, like, don't you want to sell to a family?'" 

Wait, having a family makes you a better buyer? Only families deserve houses? What the WHAT? 

I didn't say anything. I don't know her very well and didn't feel like getting into it, but it has burrowed into my subconsciousness because it's just...so....wrong. 

I'm glad that the house we bought is actually not very family friendly. I'm glad that not having kids is actually what this house seems to want. I'm also glad that the people who bought our last house was a nice family and they seem to be really enjoying the house, yard, and neighborhood. But it wasn't BECAUSE they were a family with kids. And it smarted when we came back for the neighborhood 4th of July celebration the following year and a neighbor said, "yeah, it's great to have kids in the neighborhood again, really breathe some life into the house!" Wow, thanks. Just a zombie ghost over here, sucking the life out of the neighborhood with my barrenness. 

Fun Fact: our neighborhood now with our kickass house was actually originally DESIGNED for people without kids, and then they couldn't execute it because you can't discriminate and say "you can't buy here because blahblahblah," so families moved in anyway and challenged the right to say you couldn't have kids and live here. There are so many neighborhoods that are clearly made with families in mind (borderless backyards in developments with 8 billion playsets), I don't really get how you can't have a small neighborhood (read: 2 dead end streets in the middle of nowhere) meant to attract people without children so you can build a community, kind of like a retirement community of sorts. 

But to say "I'm a more desirable offer and more worthy of your house because I have kids/a family?" It didn't sit right with me today. 

Go here to enjoy #Microblog Mondays! 

Negative!

Well, I was out sick all (short) week, and used up literally ALL of my home tests and had a PCR, and I am negative, negative, negative! Huzzah! Thank you for all the crossables! 

Still feel like crap though and my lungs are involved, so not sure what other respiratory ilk I inhaled but I am COVID free. 

I hate the home tests. They make me sneeze every single time, and watching for a second line never got less icky. For once though, I was happy to just have the one control line! 

I think the tree pollen is not helping, either. CLOUDS of it went by this morning, and our black deck furniture is currently sporting green polka dots. 

It is crazy to think there are only 11 days of school left with kids, and 14 total until it is summer. Can't miss any more!