Around Here Week 35: 08/23-29

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this CRAZY minute (our first fall sports games, back to school with full week in-person instruction for both the kids and I, & my birthday, & Covid...ya know; standard 2020.)

photo cred: Greyson

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  423+ (of 1000)

Up 22 hours from last week. The weather is still beautiful and warm and we are so grateful to have shade on the back patio.  Brandon and my dad cleared out all the roof building supplies and organized it in the garage and now it really feels spacious under there. Oh, I love it so much I don't care if it ever gets actually finished - hah! 

Reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This is the first book that Brandon knows all the main characters' names and regularly asks what's happening in the book in our 21 years of being together....because it's beneficial to him too. LOL if you've read the book, you get it. 

Focusing on doing just the next thing. that's all I got right now as we head into a new school year after being home for 6 months.  I still have handmedown attic clothes bins littering the playroom upstairs, and lesson plans that aren't done yet, and bathrooms that need cleaned, and baby Red who is still regularly waking up to eat at 4am each night. Everything is everywhere - nothing more than my mind and heart though (!!) but we're doing this. So it's one foot in front of the other. that's the best I can do. 

Night before school prep with putting together everyone's first day of school signs and reading The Kissing Hand with Violet. And we dug through everyone's drawers/closets and pulled out the nicest thing they each had for a first day of school outfit (LOL pandemic parenting at its finest).

Catching the bus on the first day of school. We have a fifth grader (last year in the elementary school!), a third grader, and a newly minted Kindergartner! We are lucky to get Grey's best friend each morning to catch the bus with us too. Abba joined us in the morning (tradition for the last 3 years) and since my students always arrive one day after our kids start school, I was able to go to my in-service day a little late to see the kids on the bus. They did great and none of them cried! 

Dropping the little boys off at preschool/daycare with Brandon after the first day of school bus. And again - no tears! Rust was so excited to see his teachers and friends again. Red was totally cool about it and we got off on the school year on the rightest foot possible (given the global pandemic, ya know). The only one who cried was me (HAH) on my way to school after getting everyone off and good. I always sob on the first day while sending wishes to them all "do everything we've practiced darlings, I love you" (oh gosh, crying now a little). 

Celebrating my 37th birthday with a big exhale as we got the school year started and everything was okay. gosh, anxiety and feeling like we weren't even close to being ready at all (literally did ZERO back to school shopping) and worrying about how the masks were going to go, and how Violet would do in Kindergarten (!!) and how Rust would do without Vi at preschool, and how Red would do without me at daycare. I'm already pretty emotional around my birthday because I feel so grateful and overwhelmed with this beautifully chaotic life - but I was in overdrive leading up to this one. And yet, it was all okay and my best birthday present was that everyone had a good first day at school and we had dinner together as a family that night all back together again. 

Recognizing how good it is for everyone to have a little piece of something that is just their own. It's hard in a big family to not be lumped in with everyone else (we are "The Studers," it's just the whole group of us as a unit). And that was never more clear than we were all home during coronavirus and couldn't get away from each other. But being back in school and having our own space (classrooms) and our own personalities outside of each other, and our own friends, and our own moments to shine - it was a welcome change after being so starkly reflected off of each other here at home. By Friday night, the kids forgot all about annoying the living poo out of each other and had a kid campout in the living room all huddled together. Home is a sanctuary, but especially when you're not stuck here all the time. 

Fall sporting with our first game of the season. The cheerleaders did a great job cheering, sideline dancing, and with their halftime routine. B's majors won too and Grey was so happy to be back on the field with his teammates. We had a crazy storm hit during practice one night this week, like so much wind and rain that for a second I thought, "Wait...what do I do with these kids if it's a tornado?" Luckily, after getting soaked down to the bone, the weather let up a little bit and all was okay. 

Teaching!! I held a training for my co-workers on Monday to teach them all about Schoology (two sessions from 7:30a-5p!) and then we had two in-service days and our students arrived on Thursday. I was so so so nervous before the kids arrived. Like, my mind racing worrying about sanitizing and masks and kids feeling safe and comfortable and what everyone remembered (or forgot) from last year. We've been out of school for 6 MONTHS!! But it literally took one period and I was like, "wait...did we ever leave?" I mean there is crazy stuff this year (masks, cleaning desks, staggered bells, etc) but still it's the teachers and the kids and the learning and somehow it's also exactly right. It was like all 6 months of time collapsed and it's March 17th, 2020 and there was never a break at all.

Making chicken and gravy over mashed potatoes for the first day of school (tradition). We also had buffalo chicken dip (stuffed zucchini boats for the parents), tacos, and pineapple meatballs over rice. Brandon ordered me take-out sushi on Friday night and we put a candle in it to sing Happy Birthday (actual perfection).