Yoga #SoL20

Step One: condition your body to the idea of yoga by wearing yoga pants consistently for two weeks. Sidenote: Generally Zoom conference calls only display the top half of your body.

Step Two: place yoga mat in plain sight – somewhere it’s easily seen as you pop on your second skin. Sidenote: tripping is a real hazard, place with caution.

Step Three: cue up Cosmic Kids (the Frozen edition) and let a toddler win the “who can do Frozen yoga the longest” contest. Sidenote: this YouTube video is no joke.

Step Four: scroll the Target app looking yoga pants in cheery colors and available for drive-up delivery. Sidenote: no one wants black yoga pants and everyone wants cheery colored yoga pants.

Step Five: commit to 10 minutes of yoga per day…starting tomorrow. Sidenote: I’m not doing yoga tomorrow.

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What's on my desk today?#SoL20

I was sitting at my big desk today and noticed a car screech to a halt in front of my office building. Literally, it screeched to a halt. Moments later, the driver was standing at my building door with flowers. FLOWERS. Flowers for me! I don’t remember the last time someone delivered flowers to me and I couldn’t imagine who sent them. At first, I thought it was a delivery error, but my name was right there on the card. Turns out, one of the fabulous coaches I work with sent them because she’s super thoughtful. She’s also the one who taught me to be a teacher – we worked together for years and for those first two, I clung to her like a cape on a superhero.

Thank you, Friend, for brightening my day. These flowers will sit right next to me on my big desk reminding me of you and the importance of friendship. They’re right next to my thinking cap and my Pilates loop.

The Perils of a Big Desk #SoL20

Big desk perils are a real thing. I’d like to say that the items strewn about it are not mine. I’d like to say that some beretless culprit carelessly cast aside their pilates loop on their way to something very important. But alas, these items are mine; they probably deserve some explanation. Right now I am working to support teachers in my district as we move to distance learning and these are the tools I am using:

 The Pilates loop is how I workout my batwings while on conference calls. It also serves as a really great tool to release some pent-up frustrations. The longer the oval, the more stress I am relieving. There have been some points this week that the circle allllmost became a line. 

The beret is my thinking cap. Obviously I don't wear it all day long because that would be ridiculous, but when I really need to generate ideas, I don it. I also have worn it to Zoom meetings. Sometimes we need a little laugh and a raspberry beret or a green wig (like one of my coworkers recently wore) fits the bill (get it...fits the bill...like on a hat?).

The headphones are to drown out the other conversations in the house. Evidently my husband communicates with a population very hard of hearing and my mother (who lives with us) IS hard of hearing. The added benefit is that when I wear them, the others think I'm on a call and don't talk to me. I wear them most of the day.

I’m really enjoying the big desk life and all the new things I’m learning about myself and this life.

New Office #SoL20

Today I moved into my new office. We used to call it the dining room. What I love about this new office space is the nice view of the street, easy access to the local coffee shop, and one of my favorite eating establishments is within walking distance.

My new desk is quite large; I’ve actually had 12 people sitting around it at once, so I knew it would easily hold all the accouterments from my former office. But on my first day in this new office, I took advantage of the large new desk. For the love of beverages, look at all those vessels of hydration. Each one of them tells a story.

The coffee cup was how I started my day.  Upon crawling out of bed from a fitful sleep, hubs placed it, steaming, in my hands. 

The blue Yeti, filled with water, lemon wedges, and a dash of salt, was consumed alongside the coffee. I know not the ideal hydration format, but these are trying times. I had a run scheduled for today, so those electrolytes were as important as the act of running.

The Pellegrino was my midday pick-me-up. The bubbles make me happy and help propel me through a busy afternoon.

The iced coffee (decaf) was my afternoon treat; it tastes so decadent, but without the guilt.

The pink cup was the ending of another day. Filled with filtered water, this one cleanses and preps me for another tomorrow.

Tomorrow is another opportunity to stay hydrated. Tomorrow is another opportunity to see the silver lining in this new life.

Sacrifices Made #SoL20

Sacrifices are being made daily.

Today it was the flowerbeds.

The mulch was rearranged.
The earthworms rehomed.
The sprouted seedlings yanked from the ground.

But.

The imagination of a two-year-old was sparked as he transported his treasures to other parts of the yard. Sacrifices for happiness.

Oliver, my third grandlove.

Structure #SoL20

Okay, today is actually the first day of extended Spring Break in my district. This morning I woke up and realized I really should be working on something. So I headed to my home office which is actually my kitchen table. I opened my laptop, saw some hilarious memes and gifs on Twitter and poured another cup of coffee. Two hours later I came out of my Twitter hole to find time had passed and I was extremely unproductive. At the same time, I noticed the sidewalk was literally covered up with oak tree fuzzies. Obviously I had to take a break and sweep the walkway; I’m not expecting visitors, but just in case.

Sweeping worked up a tummy rumble so I headed to the kitchen to scrounge up lunch. Lunch was followed by watching Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher on YouTube and pondering the state of my notebook. That was followed by a quick Amazon shopping trip in search of a new notebook. Now it’s 3:37 and I realize how unproductive my day has been. I’ve seen the lists of activities people are posting on Twitter and FaceBook and really thought they were for the children. Except I actually am going to need one. I crave the structure of a workday and this willy-nilly work in your yoga pants (to be totally transparent, I just wear them) is not going to work out for me (see what I did there?).

Tonight I plan on doing a brain dump of all the things I need and want to work on and create some sort of structure out of the chaos. I’m pretty sure I have some available time to figure all this out.

Wedding Day! #SoL20

Today is one of my BFF’s daughter’s wedding. I have been looking forward to watching “our” youngest get married for over a year and the day has finally come! With the world in turmoil, it would be easy to get caught up in all the “what ifs” and “maybe nots,” but I refuse to travel down that road.

This morning I will head over the venue to help get the flowers set up, calm some nerves, and serve mimosas. This evening, Husband and I will snuffle (purposeful word choice because sniffle doesn’t seem quite enough and sobbing is overkill) our way through the ceremony, eat more food than we should, and celebrate the union of these two beautiful people.

Am I concerned? Yes, but I’ve loved this bride since the day she was life in her mama’s womb. The wedding is small. We will practice social distancing and dancing (I often dance alone anyway) and revel in the beauty of the moment. Tomorrow will come, but today, we celebrate!

The Good in Today #SoL20

Around 2:00 this afternoon my daughter texted asking if I would go to the grocery store with her. Never one to turn down an invitation from my youngest, I readily agreed. She picked me up and we headed off. Once inside, we were flabbergasted (that’s a underused word, IMO) to find the shelves pretty much bare. Once we got over our initial shock, we started making observations about what people are unwilling to eat during a pandemic. Here are the items we found plenty of when little else was left on neighboring shelves:

• red lentil noodles – literally the ONLY noodle product left on the shelf
• frozen SPAM fries – alone in a frozen food case
• all quinoa-based frozen meals – no one is this desperate yet
• frozen peas – these work well as ice packs
• feta cheese – too smelly?
• La Madeleine Tomato Basil soup – pricey for a jar of soup
• cheddar cheese Babybel cheeses – the original, red-wrapper cheeses were sold out and in their slot, someone placed two packs of frozen corn on the cob: like an offering to the cheese gods
• rhubarb – so much rhubarb on the shelves

Fortunately, the store did have what she needed and we had a good laugh about when we would be desperate enough to eat red lentil noodles. Looking for the good in every day.

Rolling Over #SoL20

It’s such a weird time; it feels like I’m just waiting for what’s next and not in a good way. This morning, I had all I could take. I had to feel some sense of normalcy so I took a quick trip to Sephora. It felt alllllmost normal except that the store was pretty much empty. While browsing the latest SuperGoop sunscreen, my daughter called. “You’ll never guess what happened!” she exclaimed. I could tell by the inflection in her voice that this news was different to the news about the new sanitary measures in her children’s daycare. This was actually something good!

“B rolled over! She did it twice!” she bellowed through the phone. B is my fourth grandlove and doted over by every single human in her world. The fact that she was put down long enough to figure out how to roll over is astonishing. The fact that she did it today is a my miracle. When I watched the roll over video that followed the phone call, I realized that my normally optimistic personality had changed. For the last few weeks, I’ve been walking around like an angry Lucy (from the Peanuts cartoon) just waiting for the next fight. I quit looking at the silver lining and only saw the grey outline.

B’s roll over today changed my perspective and I’ve set a new intention: find the good. Through every setback, there must be something positive and I’m purposefully going to start looking for it.

Old Friends #SoL20

I’m not one to wish away a day. I understand the time we have NOW is precious and I am thankful for every single most moments. This morning was similar to the rest this week except I woke up remembering I’m having dinner with my two besties since junior high tonight. All day long I’ve found myself checking the time. It’s as if my day is driven by how many more hours until I get to see them again.

It seems a little ridiculous because we see each other about once a month, but being with them feels like the end of a long day of work when you come home, unsnap your bra, and slip into your comfiest house dress. The conversation is easy, familiar, and there is no need for pretense.

Tonight’s dinner, holding the unspent promises of the day, was like all our others with conversations moving from one topic to another with the ease of a trained yogi. How I treasure these moments of pure and true friendship.