A Heart's a Heavy Burden

Steve decided to lay down for an hour in here (this is the guest room, so there is a bed) because he has a headache.

Steve: I don't think it's a caffeine headache...
Me: Are you dehydrated?
Steve: ... I showered earlier.
Me: You are not an amphibian, sorry.

XD

This morning Steve and I were bantering after a discussion*, and he asked me if I even have room for love in my heart. I asked him what he meant. He said my breakdown is as follows:

60% Tiredness
25% Righteous Indignance
15% Annoyance

As he expected, I was indignant at first, but then when looking at the numbers, he's mostly not wrong. Although I guess the caveat is I'm not *angry* most of the time, and I laugh a lot. So it's like, don't take the list as me being a negative person. But stronger emotions come to people's minds first, right? I asked where laughter/joy is on that list, and he said it's embedded within Tired and Annoyed, because being tired is all encompassing, and I have an uncanny ability to be simultaneously annoyed by something but able to still see humor/recover quickly.

*I was telling him about the latest drama in the fiber community - a racist piece of shit with a huge following is releasing a yarn set called "polarizing" and all the colorway names make a mockery of the lived experience of marginalized folx.

So. As it becomes more and more obvious that teaching is probably not a long-term career for me, I've been trying to figure out what I'm interested in doing next. I've only occasionally given myself the illusion that I could do this for the length of a career. I try to be honest with myself when I can, and in being honest, I don't feel like staying in a job more than a few years is really my thing (and if I'm being TOTALLY honest, I think I don't have the attention span or stamina or something). I don't think it's simply a matter that teaching is hard. I'm not thinking about leaving because it's too hard. It IS too much, for sure. For everyone. It's bullshit the expectations of teachers - of which I'm not going to go into because I think we are all aware of the myriad of problems with the teaching profession (at least I sincerely HOPE you don't have your head in the sand about it) - and everyone gets tired of it eventually. But I find myself unhappy, run-down, tired. I have always burned out on my jobs, whether that's retail, mental health, data entry, anything! This is why I feel like I don't have the stamina. There might be an element of not being able to find the best fit (Ben, for example, LOVES the actual actuary job, but maybe not the climate, or the topic of health insurance), but what could really keep my attention forever?

I know that older generations could be wondering why it matters if I really love my job or not. That I should just suck it up and do it because of the benefits - health insurance, summers, pension. Personally I just don't comprehend how *anyone* could do the same thing for 10, 15, 25 years. I can't imagine that ever being the case for me. I think about Jenny Madden all the time. This is her like 28th year teaching. In SAINT! PAUL! how she has had the stamina for dealing with this shit. And she doesn't even have to!!!!! She can retire at ANY TIME and live comfortably for the rest of her life, and she could have retired YEARS ago. It actually boggles my mind. I want to not work at the earliest possible second.

Part of me thinks that I could continue working in schools, but more on the level like Tealie. Providing behavior support to students and teachers, but not being in a classroom teaching. I found a job posting in a nearby city that perfectly matches my skills and expertise with behavior, and I would have considered applying if I didn't need to finish out this year in order to get some of my loans forgiven. This type of job is a possibility for me because I would 100% not need to take work home with me, and I would still get to think on my feet and be adaptable, and the part I love best about teaching - the kids. Right now I don't have the space to connect with students the way I want to, because it feels like the academics need to take priority. I only really deal with teaching (which I enjoy teaching, but only in reinforcing concepts or small groups. I hate planning and developing) and with crises. No middle ground really. I would want to get a position that isn't a step down, like not just a behavior interventionist, more like on the adminstrative end; the higher ups. And I know for a fact you can be in an admin position right after being a teacher - Tealie did it, and so did a couple of teachers here in a couple roles. I think the expectation is to complete some sort of admin license (in most places), but the one job offer I found that was really good and matched me perfectly, it said that a Master's in SpEd qualifies so I wouldn't necessarily NEED more schooling (hopefully, because i'm absolutely not going add more to my student loans). Otherwise I really wish I could find a middle school-age teaching position that works only with small groups on reinforcing and practicing concepts instead of being the primary teacher. I don't think that exists. lol. Or maybe that's a para (other than the horrifyingly low pay for the effort that paras put in, the only other thing I didn't like about being a para was that I didn't have an equal say as the teacher).

And I don't really think it's a matter of my coworkers (the fact that I hate most of the 6th grade team and I don't feel connected to anyone here in particular). Like, it was really nice in some ways to feel so close to colleagues at Parkway and develop these continuing friendships after we've moved on, but in some ways I hated being close to people at Parkway. Lol. It meant I felt obligated to them or I was more sensitive to their criticism. But it also meant that I felt cared for and genuinely appreciated. I dunno. But I don't think going to a different school will change anything. The problems in education/teaching appear to just be consistent problems with the American (and actually, apparently, the Minnesotan) education system. Minnesota still doesn't use common core for math and I think our kdis are even more behind than most other states. Teachers who come here from out of state are appalled at how little our students know. I don't know what factors of the required instruction, poverty levels, immigrant levels, etc. affect it, but it's stressful.

Otherwise I've been really thinking hard about whether there's a way to work in food. Like, micro/urban farming. I'm really into local and organic produce, especially in such a difficult climate like mine. We have the U of MN and other local colleges that dedicate lots of time and effort into developing sustainable practices, and we also have people who've been living here for many generations invested in sustainable living, both white and not. We have a very large Hmong population, and while I don't think most of them are "certified" organic, anyone who's not a reseller typically doesn't appear to use chemicals. We have an indoor produce market in Hmong Village all year round, so obviously someone can do SOMEthing during our long, hard winters. I'm also very into cooking and making delicious food. Not in a restaurant or anything, just... in general. I love learning about food and cooking and think I might want to do something in that vein? My initial plan with that is to do some volunteering or interning this spring or summer locally so that I can learn more and see if anything is a good fit.

I think that Cafetalk - which I have all but abandoned* - wouldn't be a good fit because not only is it still teaching (prep, preparing, planning, creating), it's very individual teaching. I know that a lot of people on there basically teach on a script, and I tried to do that, but it's not in my blood. It's impossible for me not to see the individual needs and tailor instruction. It's like, I literally CAN'T one-size-fits-all my teaching. So I end up putting in a crazy amount of work the more students I get. So it's the same problems I have now with instructional teaching.

Of course, I'm super interested in knitting stuff and Steve asked me recently if I thought I'd start writing patterns. I don't think my brain works that way - I can do charts for images but I don't think I am risk-taking enough to deconstruct the process of making something from scratch. But just like many others, I would like to be my own boss in some capacity. I enjoy podcasts and all that kind of thing. I like writing blogs. However, I know it's an insane amount of work and I have cycles of motivation and depression (I assume all entrepreneurs do to some extent), I'm not like, a picture-taker or social media guru (nor do I have interest in being a promoter/Youtuber/personality). So I don't even know if there's anything in the "entrepreneurial" arena, but it's something that's kind of always in the back of my mind. Right now I'm coming up with nothing with regards to what I could "sell" or "market" but I'm also at work and haven't had a lot of time for thinking. I'm also super curious about those jobs no one thinks about. Kind of a la Dirty jobs, without the extreme dirtiness of it. Like I just listened to a podcast recently where they had a guest who randomly decided to get into the sheep-shearing industry, and how it was nothing like she thought it was but people are super needed. Stuff like that. It's knitting related because wool. I'm realllly on an "old-world, natural" kind of kick. Getting back to the roots, the traditional or hands-on means of production.

And Steve too, he's dealing with dissatisfaction with his job as well. I feel bad because I think I'm just generally more vocal and articulate about my needs and issues, and I have a history of jumping from job to job, so I think maybe he tries to suppress his own struggles or has difficulty talking about them because we're often dealing with my changing needs. It's not working for the U as far as I know; I think it's the type of job. He doesn't like to manage people at all, and that's what a lot of his job is - being a middle man, reminding people to do their jobs, reporting on people who AREN'T doing their jobs, and giving presentations and getting feedback. I think he'd much prefer to just work with applications and do analysis. Analyzing things - spreadsheets and data - and making processes more efficient are his specialties. He's not competitive in the workplace and he doesn't like office gossip and venting. So he wants to try to figure out where he should go next. The good news for him is that he currently has a job with a university that will literally allow for him to take a new program, free of charge. And if he can get another bachelor's (if that's the path he chooses) and stick it out a bit longer, he can get a Master's at a super discounted rate. I think he'd be happy going back to school because he loves learning and getting new info. But I don't know if he has a real idea of WHAT he'd like to do. And he didn't go to a traditional university for his undergrad so it'd be a pretty different experience for him. I think if he can get used to the fact that he's now the Old Guy on campus in his classes, that he'll have a good time once he decides on something. I miss seeing the passion on his face and the excitement from taking on new challenges.


*whoops. A couple of my students took some time off and so I did too, and then anxiety first rpevented me from going back and then it's like, I've been really busy most weekends (when my lessons typically are) and so it's not been very feasible to try to open up any lessons. I feel bad, especially because I'd been working with Riria for 3 years and Shinpei for more than one year, but I don't think I can do it right now. Mental health, time, and all.

Today we woke up a little late, and were both frisky right away in the morning so we decided to take advantage of that!

Then we relaxed with coffee before needing to head out to lunch with Steve’s parents and grandpa, who just turned 92. We planned to get to Roseville a little early so we could stop at Half Priced Books. Today was a bust for me, no cheap SK hardcovers, no Murakami I don’t have, no manga that seemed interesting and no humor books that caught my eye. I was feeling flirty with Steve though so I made my trip interesting that way. He ended up finding a DS game he wanted and a manual for a Castlevania game he was missing. Score for Steve! Then we needed to go over to Baker’s Square.

When we first started doing lunches with his grandpa, it was at an Applebee’s, and that sucked. Now we go next door to Baker’s Square, which still sucks, but at least the pie is good. The food itself is bland and mushy. I opted for the in-season peach pecan pie, which is like a cheesecake with peach preserves on it. It was pretty yummy. The conversation was fun this time, everyone appeared to be in good moods and we planned for Steve and maybe me to go up north the weekend of the 19th for four-wheeling. Steve’s parents talked about plans for an RV so they can drive around the country during the cold months. I knit on my second Totoro sock, woo.

Next on our agenda was MilkJam. We had planned to go there since we wouldn’t be far from Minneapolis, but the drive ended up being like 25 minutes anyway. The weather was good and the being with Steve was awesome so I didn’t mind. I parked us a few blocks away, and we were surprised to find that there was like no line... score! We each got waffle cones, me with Cereal Killer and Steve with the mango sticky rice. I loved mine, but also I wanted the mango. I’ll probably get that next time. We walked and ate our cones, and just enjoyed each other’s company.



Finally we headed home. I had thought maybe I’d play ITG, but I was not feeling it at all by the time we got home. Too much sugar for the day, so sleepy and lazy. So I knit on my sock and Steve played his game (which he eventually beat) and we watched The Office. Soon after, Ben started streaming, so we watched him try some Fantastic Beats songs and then some officials. It was a great time. Steph was in the Twitch chat and Dave was chatting with her a bit and maybe I got protective of our Officialz group when she was making comments about officials songs (we all usually communicate via the fb group vs in twitch. I’m working on it, but it’s obvious that Ben is also protective of the four of us (him, Dave, Steve and myself) and our work on Officials. So.

After he finished playing, Steve and I went back to a show and I finally went to bleach my hair so I can dye it lavender for Bethany’s wedding. Steve beat his game and we watched a few more episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. We realized Netflix started us on the last season. I really enjoyed the Dana Carvey episode, and the Kate McKinnon episode even though she was so intense.

We ended the night continuing to watch Seinfeld while I iced my arms. Before that though we talked about the nuances of yoga and did a few postures. I’m super excited for Monday yoga, can’t wait to get back to the stuff I crave.

Last week I was really feeling like I wanted to do something with Steve on Saturday morning. I initially thought Minneapolis Farmer’s market, but we weren’t sure if there’d be time after he got back from garage sale-ing. Then on Thursday or Friday I got the notification that Saturday was the beginning of the East Side PEEP Shawl. PEEP is a thing where 6 of the east side (of the twin cities) shops hold 1 of 6 pieces of a shawl pattern and yarn, and you travel to each shop picking up the pieces. You even get 1/6 of a digital code if you don’t want 6 pieces of paper. Each shop also makes a sample of the shawl, and you can buy that particular color base if that’s the shawl you want to make. I’ve never actually participated, mostly because I’d miss it or wasn’t sure about the final shawl. I thought it was perfect timing for this year though. So instead of farmers market, shawl!

I started in the nearest town, and made a loop. The trip for me is 66 miles, and some people BIKE their route. Crazy!!



I’m so glad I went to my closest shop first, because they cheated and made TWO of the shawls, and their second version didn’t make it onto the picture of samples, and that one was my favorite, so I bought the base color from there. Then I went to Stillwater, which wasn’t that far but took a really long time due to construction, a wedding, and general idiocy of the people in town. Parking was a nightmare but I parallel’d my way in. I did get a great view of the St. Croix river and the weather was gorgeous.


This was cute.

One of the women said she thought my shawl “looks like a StevenBe original.” I told her the pattern was the local yarn shawl but that the yarn did in fact come from StevenBe!



After Stillwater was White Bear Lake. This shop turned out to be near Andy’s old tattoo studio, so parking was easy, though it was Dog Days so still busy, with the added bonus of puppies everywhere. The shop was not a shop I’d ever go to again, with grouchy signs about cell phones (Steve called me while I was in there and I started sweating) and a grouchy old lady running the place.

I talked to Steve while I headed to the next place, an area of Mahtomedi (mah-toe-meed-eye) I’d never been to before and super close to my house. Beautiful backwoods drive. Got lucky with parking. Enjoyed the shop, will go there again. Lots of compliments on the shawl, friendly people, good snack and drink selection (though I didn’t take any, I made a note for the future).

Ben and Sean had been in contact with us about possible hangouts, and after I stopped at home they confirmed they wanted to hang because they were in town for the weekend. I mentioned dragging them to two yarn shops and they were in favor of the detours.

After they picked us up, to Grand ave in St Paul we went! Got my yarn, bantered about the best color on the wall (Steve and I chose the same color - a teal - though I didn’t know his choice prior), and Sean argued the case of a burnt sienna and Ben voted for a navy blue. We determined there was hunger and walked over to Brasa. I’d only been there once before for my grandma’s birthday several years ago but it left a bad taste in my mouth because there are no vegan options and my mom complained about the lack of even vegetarian options (the logo IS a rooster, to be fair). Knowing that I could probably find something to eat as a vegetarian vs vegan, I wasn’t concerned. I chose the one vegetarian sandwich and the group got a bunch of sides in addition. I got the seasonal mango lemonade to drink, and I don’t even like lemonade but this was delicious. I was only able to consume half my sandwich, some plantains and chips, and I was bursting full.

Last yarn stop, 3 Kittens in Mendota. Another cute shop, signed up as interested in a shawl class by an intense old lady who was incredibly interested in a lot about me. She wrote down the name of my shawl and talked to me about the shop expanding. It was another good shop I’d like to take more time in. Sean and I walked around commenting on the yarn before the group headed to our actual destination: Mall of America of course.

For some reason, 5 star raids on the weekends always start later in the afternoon, but during the week they’re ready to go promptly at 8am. So weird. We got to the mall around 3pm, and after everyone went to the bathroom there was a raid ready to go right by us! We were all able to catch crappy Registeel, and then we sat at a table chatting and Pokémon Go-ing for like an hour. I was talking to Bethany and Haley about wedding stuff and to my cousin Morrigan about food stuff (he wants to lose weight but doesn’t want to try hard at all, mostly it was me confirming that NO KETO and giving suggestions). Eventually we got coffee (and Ben went and got Sean some Very Bad Tea because they screwed up her order) and wandered around the mall. We did stop into Air Traffic for awhile and Ben tried some of the juggling bags and we looked at the various silly puzzles. Soon after, I was feeling soooo tired and suggested we get moseying. I wasn’t trying to end hangouts by any means, but I wasn’t wearing the best walking shoes (converse) and my pinky toes were hurting. Steve reminded me that I needed to pick up my bridesmaid dress, and the lady made me try it on. It fits so much better with the strap shortened by like 2 inches and the hem brought up like 6 inches. The Asian lady said she loved the lace on my waist and said it made my curves look good, Steve and Sean approved, and Ben said it “is a very purple dress”. Hahaha.

When we got to the van, Sean mentioned something about wanting shelving from Ikea, and I was like, “well IKEA just so happens to be RIGHT THERE, wanna go??” And after some discussion about whether Ben’s friend/coworker Dustin was still playing in a magic: the gathering tournament, Ikea it was.

We wandered slowly around the living room and bed section, trying like every single couch and bed and chatting. Steve and Ben apparently talked about ITG and friend stuff (like that Ben wants to stream to ONLY US and why he doesn’t like other people, even other friends, to view the stream), and Sean and I talked a lot about housing desires, locations for living, future plans, and of course, The Compound*.

We cut the IKEA trip short when Dustin announced he was ready for dinner, and Ben drove us to Minneapolis to a place called WSK (World Street Kitchen), another place with basically one thing on the menu I could eat and yet sounded amazing (a crispy tofu dish). I was still somehow incredibly full from earlier even though it was like 9pm, but I suspected it was in part due to the fact that Steve ordered me a large coffee and I drank all of it. We met Dustin and Stacy, who were kind of geeky and maybe not the kind of couple Steve and I generally hang out with, but they grew on me over time for the most part. Mostly it was that Stacy made a few lame comments indicating her disdain and boredom while Dustin played in his tournament, and Steve and I are not the kind of people who participate in disparaging each other’s hobbies and interests and don’t like when people in couples do that. Be with someone you can support!!!! Otherwise, though, the conversation was good.

After we ate, it was noted that we were DEFINITELY getting ice cream, and the place to get ice cream was attached to WSK. It’s called MilkJam. And it is top tier ice cream. They have rotating flavors of amazingness, and the line was out the door. Ben said that the line was pretty short, less than 50 people, probably because it had just finished raining. Because we couldn’t each just try one flavor, Steve and I opted for the “flight of 4” which were smaller scoops to sample. You COULD order a scoop of all the flavors (like 12) for $58. We agreed on all the flavors to try, and in order of favorites: Cereal Killer, Mango Sticky Rice, Thai Tea and Uma Thurman. The cereal one surprised me at how good it was. It was a lightly orangey/milk flavored ice cream with crunchy (NOT stale or soggy) fruity pebbles in it, and I was brought back to my childhood so hard. The mango sticky rice was exactly like it sounded but the rice was firm and delicious. The Uma Thurman was a tart passionfruit something, and it was good, but it wasn’t my favorite. Now. The ice cream was suuuper creamy and yet not so rich it would give you a belly ache, and I definitely wanted SO much more immediately. Sean got the “dark” which was a decadent dark chocolate that tasted like the most perfect brownies you’ve ever eaten (again, smooth and creamy and yet not bellyache creating). I can’t believe I’d never been there or heard of it!!

Finally it was time to go, and Ben and Sean dropped us off. We weren’t ready to give up on the day though, so I worked on my current sock (using the Mei/Satsuki from Totoro colorway by Canon Hand Dyes) and he played some more Yakuza Kiwami. He’s made a lot of progress and is definitely getting close to the end. We finally called it around 12:30 and hit the hay.

*The Compound is a gigantic homestead that the four of us invented for our Ideal Housing Needs. It’s small enough that we live in the same area and can hang out all we want, but big enough where we can have our individual privacy and aren’t expected to spend all our time together. The idea is that with four of us, we can afford exactly what we want without breaking the budget, and because we’ve already tested (several times) smaller living together scenarios and they’ve been successes, we think we could actually be viable housemates.

My morning was spent much the same as yesterday morning, so I’ll skip over that, but I did need to wait for the new TV to arrive and sign for it and direct the guys to where to put it. That went off without a hitch, and then I asked Steve if he wanted me to come out for some Jamba lunch and walking, and he of course agreed enthusiastically. Before that, I RACED to the park to catch a random wild Lickitung, mwahahaha.

I started to leave, then when I was trying to take a Pokémon gym I realized it was colder than I anticipated and was threatening rain, so I went back home to get my windbreaker, and then I stopped for gas and tried to do a 3-star raid but was unsuccessful solo (I got really close though). Then! Onwards to the University. We got Jamba and I stopped to pee because I learned my lesson from last week and didn’t want to ruin my own day.

After that we started wandering around campus, and Steve asked me my plans and I told him I planned to grocery shop. He then made a comment to me about not spending a lot of money and that I purposely buy the more expensive of a product because I think money equals quality, and I interpreted the tone as attacking, so we got into a tiff about it. This looked mostly like tense silent with brief word exchanges, and after like 10 minutes of me seething in my autism and his own feelings on the matter, we were able to discuss our points - Steve doesn’t want me to spend a million dollars shopping and reminded me that we had developed a weekly budget several months ago (which I obviously forgot about). Since I do all the shopping and cooking, it’s very upsetting to feel like he genuinely believes I buy the most expensive thing on purpose, when in all honesty I don’t look at price basically ever and go off of what I want - whether that is ingredient list or the item of produce or whatever. A specific example of this is wanting 100% buckwheat soba and not flour/buckwheat soba. In the end I agreed to stick to the original budget, now that I was reminded and remember it, and he expressed his appreciating of the fact that I want us to eat good food and do the making of the things. The rest of our walk was back to normal, good and fun.

After he had to go back to work (boooo) I headed to the Wedge. I was able to find most of the things on the list that I wanted, but still needed a few things from Whole Foods. I drove to Woodbury and got the last few items I needed before heading home.

Once back home, I set about making lunches for the rest of the week, which didn’t take long as I was using a Rawvana recipes. I love her recipes because they are delicious and usually 5 ingredients or less. The food always has a lot of flavor and strikes home the beauty of using only a few ingredients. The problem I have with her recipes is that she expects you to consume 200-300 calories for a meal, which is ridiculously unhealthy. I think she tries to balance this out with salads and fruit as snacks, but it still works out to like 1100-1300 calories per day, which does not work for me and certainly doesn’t work for Steve. So I usually end up either doubling the recipe, or taking a recipe that says it serves 4 and making it serve 2. That sort of thing.

After the food was done and dinner was had (if you guessed fried egg Sammies and rice, you’d be right!), I played Hearthstone all night, finally beating the Witchwood solo adventure and playing some constructed. Steve okayed Shadow of the Colossus and Nick was playing Demon’s Souls. A good night.

Ben and Sean asked if we wanted to go with them to Mall of America to do some raids and walk around, and that they had Mike in tow as well, and of course we agreed happily. I wanted to spend the day walking around the mall with Steve today anyway! I gave Sean the weaving supplies back, showed her my scarves, and we talked about how amazing the colors ended up working together. We tried to do a legendary raid by ourselves, but we just barely couldn’t do it. If we had one more person it would have been perfect. Oh well! We decided to wait until the mall to try again. It was raining pretty hard, but we must have driven out of the rain cloud when we actually got to the mall.

Since it’s still a weekend, of course the mall was packed. Sooo many people. The good about this is more likelihood of people to do raids with. The bad part is always needing to be distinguished others. Lol. First thing: food. I was quite hungry by the time we got to the mall, and suggested BurgerBurger. It’s like our go-to place now for food at the mall. It’s just so good and meets the requirements for both Steve and myself. Sean got food at Chipotle and brought it back. I ordered an impossible burger with onions and a side of fries. It was so delicious. The fries in particular were amazing. I ate slightly too much, but I didn’t completely overdo it. As a result though I was full for quite awhile after.

We did a ton of walking around, spun lots of stops, dealt with issues of too many items, complained about the trading system, and did two raids. I only was able to catch one Regice, and it’s not very good, but at least I got one. Roselia’s are also more likely to be shiny, and I caught three. Eventually everyone had at least one, yay!

When we decided to leave, I realized I was super tired. Like, the food and the walking and the excitement really tuckered me out! So when Steve and I got home I requested a nap watching GDQ VODs. And it was a gooood nap. I slept so well. After I woke up, Steve suggested we watch some of the runs we missed that we wanted to catch. I suggested the Mario block, and that ended up being really good. It also made me want to run Super Mario World again, and Steve mentioned that Noah wanted to try to learn co-op Mario Bros. 3 together. We ordered a pizza and that was tasty. We also finished the Pokémon Blue/Yellow run.

I noticed that this year, there were a lot of runs that weren’t “official” - for example, the run failed or the rules were violated, and everyone was so gracious about it. Like they’re not taking them as super serious as years past. Which I love. Like, a marathon run is NOT supposed to be a world-record run. It’s cool if it happens, but it’s supposed to be more of an opportunity to talk about and show off all the hard work these runners put in. For example, on the finale, Puwexil forgot to grab a character in Final Fantasy 6, thereby nullifying the 100% run. Or in the race between mitchflower and grandpoobear, if they had different attitudes, the run would have been an awkward disaster instead of a cute display of comraderie and enjoyment. But because they were able to think on their feet and Mitch knew that Poobear didn’t fuck up his game on purpose (twice), they were able to find a way to make the race fun. Like, it’s okay to make mistakes and no one’s gonna hate you for it. It really made this year feel like the best event yet. Plus, the room was packed. A lot of people were there consistently, and the hype in the room was infectious. :D

When it got too late, we came upstairs to fall asleep finishing the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 48 tracks run (which was amazing, by the way. She is really good at Mario Kart). It was such an ideal night.

This week is SGDQ, Summer Games Done Quick. GDQ does two charity 24/7 marathons per year, where people speed run games to earn money for Prevent Cancer Foundation (January) and Doctors Without Borders (June). SGDQ typically raises about $1 million USD, and AGDQ raises up to $2 million USD. This year they’re also going to do another one in the fall, but I haven’t researched it yet so I’m not sure what that’s for. Steve and I stared watching Games Done Quick in January 2013, and we’ve made it tradition to watch them all since.

Beginning with probably the last month of school, our house began to experience an increasing decline in its upkeep. I go through cycles of organization and slobbery, and it usually slowly builds up until it basically looks like Steve and I live in a state of squalor. Clothes end up everywhere, laundry doesnt get done, and when it DOES get done, it sits in baskets gaining wrinkles and soon it becomes impossible to remember which clothes are clean and which are dirty. Dishes begin to pile up, both in the sink and around the house (particularly our coffee and tea mugs)... my shoes end up all over the house, because usually I feel like I can’t stop on the landing, and instead wear my shoes to whichever room of the house I’m going to sit down in. It’s a terrible habit that I should fix. Mail ends up all over the place, yarn and projects are in randomly spots, cat food all over the floor........ you get the idea.

To combat this, I usually take a room at a time. When I decided to clean and organize, I CLEAN and ORGANIZE. Having grown up in Paul’s Cleaning Bootcamp TM, I tend to approach cleaning in a militant kind of way. I think this also helps explain why I avoid cleaning: when I clean, I am compelled to do it extremely thoroughly. I can’t half-ass it, or it’s not even clean and I wasted my time. So. I started with the kitchen, because a messy kitchen keeps me out of it. I deep cleaned both the coffee maker and the teapot, and now both run so smoothly. I reorganized the counters - they now have a lot of space. I moved the tea bag holders around and found new locations for the cooking utensils and noodles. I swept the kitchen, took out the trash, and did all the dishes. There honestly weren’t too many dishes, as we have a dishwasher, but many dishes failed to get clean because the wait to rinse them was too long. So I washed everything by hand and put it away. I also made some food, yay!

Noah and I have kept in touch about our food and exercise habits, as he experienced a rough week last week emotionally, which caused him to hate on himself a lot and try to sabotage, but he continues to lose weight, and has stayed under 300 pounds. I’m supporting him as best I can at jumping back on the wagon, and managing myself as well. Because of excuses and reasons, I didn’t do yoga for 2 weeks. In order to get that discount in the fall I need to attend 7 classes per month this summer, which means... I need to get in 5 classes this week. Perfect, honestly. Even though I’m cutting it down to the wire, I like the motivation to HAVE to go. To add in a layer of accountability, I signed up for classes for the first time since joining my studio. I have avoided booking classes and instead preferring to just show up, just in case I get lazy or something comes up. I’m the kind of person who typically does worse when people are watching, because the anxiety of letting people down becomes too great and I self-sabotage to the highest degree. If I outright fail people it will feel less bad than if I try and fail right???

Today’s class was Twilight flow, which is different depending on the instructor. Brandi is a woman I’ve emailed with, but never had a class with. I like Twilight class on Monday because that means I can go game shopping, and then go to class at 8pm. Steve, Nick and I went (haven’t seen Tyler in like a month, too busy being Stepdad of the Year) to LevelUp, but no games of note. We ate before we went, to hopefully allow me to digest before yoga. That was unsuccessful, and I spent the entire class feeling like my quesadilla was in my throat.

I loved Brandi’s class. She has a good energy, had really good words for us, and wasn’t as woo-woo as the other instructors. She’s still relatively new to the studio, so she was more hands-on and took the time to give little massages on our backs halfway through, and on our faces and shoulders at the end of class. Hannah used to do that, but then she stopped.

Since this is a class I’ve never been to, the people in there were all new to me. This means that I got several compliments on my hair and tattoos, both of which I am unaware of during yoga. Yoga is the only time in my life that I can tune everything else out and focus solely on my breathing and postures, so it’s really funny to remember that not only am I seeing other people, but they see me too. When I was walking out, a Mom commented on my hair and mentioned that her 10-year-old daughter asked for highlights and she was really nervous but bought her a semi-permanent dye. She relaxed into the conversation considerably when I told her I teach middle school, and I gave her some suggestions and tips (she surprisingly didn’t know that you can dye hair with kool-aid, which is the most common way I’ve seen younger kids get color in their hair), and she freaked out a little about her son turning 13 - I assured her 7th and 8th grade are so the best. So I guess I have a new Monday friend. Yay!

When I got home, Steve and Nick were watching SGDQ, and I played Hearthstone and talked to Ben Holland. Hopefully he’s coming over this weekend! I beat all of the bosses of the current solo adventure except 1, and I think I keep getting bad card choices because she is like everyone’s fave. Steve said something about how so many of our friends can’t get past early bosses, so I should be kinder to myself because I’m actually pretty decent at Hearthstone. Lol.