Thanks LaMa! Yes, packing again is not fun. I think I also got cabin fever, and J has been very stressed and I couldn't get away from all the stress. K I think gets affected by me being depressed and she gets depressed, too. Yesterday we did a lot of nice things together we love, and we are both feeling better. She has not gotten enough sleep for several weeks and finally got a break from homework so we could do some nice things together. This week will be better!
Marsia's Diary
- Thread starter Marsia
- Start date
Cate
Long term member
Oh, honey. You have had such a topsy turvy time of it over the last few years. I would imagine the 3 of you would be feeling stressed about all the changes. Moving is incredibly stressful. I find even thinking about it just overwhelms me.
In 3 weeks' time, you have a chance to make a new life for yourself. Please don't feel that you have to get everything just perfect in your new place. You really do need to find the time to do things for yourself that you love & that you know are good for you.
In 3 weeks' time, you have a chance to make a new life for yourself. Please don't feel that you have to get everything just perfect in your new place. You really do need to find the time to do things for yourself that you love & that you know are good for you.
Thanks so much Cate and LaMa! You are right, I will be so much happier after we move, and we all took the time out to talk to each other and things are a lot better. K was trying not to show she was stressed, which always makes me feel like I am losing her because she won't talk with me when that happens. I talked with her about it, and she thought she was helping by bottling up her feelings. J thought I was mad at him and kept talking to me like I was going to pick on him, which stressed me out, so I explained that I got stressed because of having to be in the same room as him while he's on the phone all day dealing with finances for the new house. He is doing that in the other room now, so I don't have a musak-filled day with him periodically swearing at the automated phone tree recording. So I am back to packing, which feels much better than trying to do taxes on a tiny ottoman where everything falls off. I even found catnip I dried from our old garden, so Lumi is happy and relaxed now, too.
One nice thing is that the school guidance counselor is going to meet with K and her friends who are all A students, but are getting from A- to D in the chemistry class. The girl who is getting a D is near genius and has a grandfather who was a high school chemistry teacher, so there is no way she doesn't know the material inside out. I can only imagine that if the A students are getting grades like this, what is happening with the rest of the poor class. So they are staging a mini-revolution and are all going to the guidance counselor for help with the teacher. That made me happy that I helped K organize that.
I don't know how much exercise and weight loss I am going to do over the next few weeks. I think I might just focus on not eating crap and keeping my meals in an 8 hour window and relatively small. Though I am not so stressed over everyone else being stressed, we are still moving across the country with a cat and a lot of stuff that we are not sure will all fit in the moving van. And then I am leaving J and K here to cook and clean for themselves and to clean out the apt. by themselves. The up-side is that maybe they'll appreciate my cooking and cleaning more after this!
One nice thing is that the school guidance counselor is going to meet with K and her friends who are all A students, but are getting from A- to D in the chemistry class. The girl who is getting a D is near genius and has a grandfather who was a high school chemistry teacher, so there is no way she doesn't know the material inside out. I can only imagine that if the A students are getting grades like this, what is happening with the rest of the poor class. So they are staging a mini-revolution and are all going to the guidance counselor for help with the teacher. That made me happy that I helped K organize that.
I don't know how much exercise and weight loss I am going to do over the next few weeks. I think I might just focus on not eating crap and keeping my meals in an 8 hour window and relatively small. Though I am not so stressed over everyone else being stressed, we are still moving across the country with a cat and a lot of stuff that we are not sure will all fit in the moving van. And then I am leaving J and K here to cook and clean for themselves and to clean out the apt. by themselves. The up-side is that maybe they'll appreciate my cooking and cleaning more after this!
Llama
Well-known member
That made me smile: very smart people with very smart ancestors are perfectly capable of messing up in a subject they ought to be good at. But if all the students who normally do well are doing badly in one specific subject that's definitely an anomaly that needs looking at. And if there was a legit problem you'd expect the teacher to signal there's something wrong and they're worried about this little group. The fact that they didn't means you're very likely right to support the kids in their little rebellion.
We can hope!Just to play devil's advocate a bit on the chemistry class thing - how do you get a D if you know the course inside out? I mean, I feel like chemistry is not like English, where there is no 'answer', so to speak. If you give a test and ask what is the chemical symbol for carbon, surely you either get it right or you don't? Anyway, there's probably nuances to this situation that I don't understand, but I would say further investigation is needed.
I think it's good that you are leaving your husband and daughter to figure it out for themselves. That's important - you are not the slave of the family! My perception is that you take on all the tasks for yourself, and feel guilty if they are not done 'perfectly'.
Sometimes I ask myself the question - do I find this situation stressful or am I just finding it stressful because everyone around me is telling me that it should be? When you break it down, you are just moving boxes from a room into a car and driving off into the sunset, saving yourself a whole pile of money to boot.
I know that's a simplified way of looking at it, but maybe simple is what you need right now.
I think it's good that you are leaving your husband and daughter to figure it out for themselves. That's important - you are not the slave of the family! My perception is that you take on all the tasks for yourself, and feel guilty if they are not done 'perfectly'.
Sometimes I ask myself the question - do I find this situation stressful or am I just finding it stressful because everyone around me is telling me that it should be? When you break it down, you are just moving boxes from a room into a car and driving off into the sunset, saving yourself a whole pile of money to boot.
I know that's a simplified way of looking at it, but maybe simple is what you need right now.Ugh, sorry I didn't explain well. For the test K got a D+, that was the second highest grade in the class. The kids who generally aren't A students are getting grades like 17/100 on other tests. As far as I can tell, the teacher is pretty odd, and his tests are vague/and or trick questions or things he didn't cover and the text didn't cover. K's genius friend scored near perfectly on the standardized test for college, and she's 3 years away from going to college. So I don't think it's her. I think there is about to be an entire class where maybe half the kids fail his class, and I felt like I really needed to inform the principal (who blew me off) but luckily the guidance counselor took me seriously. He knows that K got a perfect score in the class last semester (when the regular teacher was there - this guy is a fill-in because the good teacher who everyone loved left) so it is probably the teacher's grading.
Anyway, I agree with LaMa and Em about it being good for J and K to have to cook and clean for themselves. I am secretly hoping they notice what a massive pain it is to clean a tiny apt. where everything gets dirty instantly because you are in the same tiny space all the time.
You have me pegged exactly! Being the only child of a hoarder made me feel ashamed of my house when it was messy growing up, and it's a hard habit to break, but the new house has massive amounts of storage and big bedrooms, so we can hide all our stuff in our rooms and have a nice minimal public space, which will be easy to clean. I am so looking forward to that!
That's such a nice thing you pointed out! Thank you! I think I get carried away with all the paperwork going through for the house sale, all the things to consider like getting help for moving the 500 pound art printing press, towing the car, ... But it is just stuff, and if we don't get it figured out this load, J's brothers are helping with the next batch of stuff when J and K move to join me at the end of the school year.Sometimes I ask myself the question - do I find this situation stressful or am I just finding it stressful because everyone around me is telling me that it should be? When you break it down, you are just moving boxes from a room into a car and driving off into the sunset, saving yourself a whole pile of money to boot.
This feels much better! Thanks Cate!
Well, last month I lost K's phone in the ocean, and this month I lost my driver's license, so I am going to get a new one tomorrow. I will be glad when I am happily painting the walls in our new house and I have calmed down and have a memory again. I do need to meditate every day if I can because wow, am I scattered!
Took a lovely walk at dusk by the ocean last night with K. Tonight we are getting back from meeting a notary at a cafe for house paperwork, so I only got a little exercise today. I figured out a bunch of stuff about possible colleges for K in the Charleston area and emailed a few people there. Oops, this is so long. I'll sign off for now. Not a terrible food day, but probably a little over calories. I'll get some meditation in tonight.
Llama
Well-known member
Take care of yourself and I'm sure the rest will fall in place with time.
I'm glad to hear the counselor listened To you: in my school a new teacher whose students got notably lower grades than they had been getting would've got some serious side-eye from their colleagues and probably a stern talking to from their superiors.
I'm glad to hear the counselor listened To you: in my school a new teacher whose students got notably lower grades than they had been getting would've got some serious side-eye from their colleagues and probably a stern talking to from their superiors.
Thanks LaMa and Cate! I may give that teacher a stern talking to. The more I hear about how he teaches, the more steam comes out of my ears. Things like he has never once mentioned the textbook, but it turns out that is where his trick questions are coming from. I won't go on about it. It makes me cranky.
Today I went to get a replacement driver's license, and thank goodness for local government. It all went smoothly and the woman was so nice. On the other hand, I have some outstanding paperwork with the federal government and the office I need to see is still closed, their phone system does not work, and they are way past overdue in processing my paperwork and there is absolutely no way to check on it or talk to anyone. I've gone there 3 times and been stymied by the security guard who is very unhelpful. They are supposed to open again next month, hopefully. So going to get paperwork and having a helpful person at the department of motor vehicles was just so satisfying.
I took apart K's loft bed today and polished and wrapped it for a nice family. Now I have a huge space to put boxes in, so the rest of the packing should go super quickly. I didn't weigh myself. I need to start doing that again. I feel very bloated and round. But I am slowly getting down to the amount of food I should be eating and I am meditating, so I feel better about things! Only about 2 weeks to go!
Today I went to get a replacement driver's license, and thank goodness for local government. It all went smoothly and the woman was so nice. On the other hand, I have some outstanding paperwork with the federal government and the office I need to see is still closed, their phone system does not work, and they are way past overdue in processing my paperwork and there is absolutely no way to check on it or talk to anyone. I've gone there 3 times and been stymied by the security guard who is very unhelpful. They are supposed to open again next month, hopefully. So going to get paperwork and having a helpful person at the department of motor vehicles was just so satisfying.
I took apart K's loft bed today and polished and wrapped it for a nice family. Now I have a huge space to put boxes in, so the rest of the packing should go super quickly. I didn't weigh myself. I need to start doing that again. I feel very bloated and round. But I am slowly getting down to the amount of food I should be eating and I am meditating, so I feel better about things! Only about 2 weeks to go!
2 weeks to go Thanks Cate and LaMa! I woke up to your happy encouragement. Nice start to a day!! J and I fell asleep on the couch watching videos last night. We're feeling optimistic and really good about going on to a new life!! Not hungry this morning, so just having a tea with coconut milk. It's been alternately hot and foggy and chilly. I opened all the windows and let the chilly fog in last night and it feels all fresh this morning in here. 2 more weeks!
Hi all! Yes, Cate, K can have her own big room with a big walk-in closet (we each get a room like that) and there is a room on the balcony overlooking the living room that we'll make into a music room. It is above the great room and you can look down into it. She'll also get a small finished room in the basement that has a wall of glass bricks for outdoor light that could be a practice room. She doesn't like to practice in front of people, though she's fearless when she performs.
It was nice falling asleep on the couch with J. I have been so tired. The cat has been on hyper-daylight savings time, and awakens 2 hours earlier and pesters me to help her to drink out of the tub. Sometimes she doesn't realize that it's still the middle of the night when she does that. We had lived in the woods where there wasn't ambient city light, and now she has trouble telling that it's not time to walk up yet, I think. So this morning I put her in Ks room and shut the door and went back to sleep. I haven't had an entire night's sleep in a few weeks. I also stayed up until 3 am proofing K's big project that was a massive beaurocratic write-up of her website she made. It seriously looked like the massive bundle of paperwork you need to fill out to get an arts grant. I can't believe they put kids through all that instead of just having them write what steps they did to complete the project and what they learned.
The night before last we went to see some friends for dinner and I'd usually make a dessert, but that counter oven doesn't regulate temperature very well, and baked goods taste good, but their texture is weird. So we stopped by this decadent bakery and got a key lime pie. It was phenomenal, and worth the extra calories. I want to get to the point where I can indulge in something like that occasionally and cut out other high calorie stuff so I'll have the freedom to do that maybe once every month or so.
Mondays I generally clean the whole house and make lots of food for the week. I made a big batch of baked yams and made a nice cilantro-yogurt dressing to put on top of them. It came out nice and fresh tasting. And the house is nice now and ready for my final round of packing. I am hoping to finish up this week and have the next week to garden for S.
I haven't been eating great, but I am not as heavy as I thought, either. I am not going to stress over it. I realized that moving from California is a huge thing for me. I was born here, but raised on the east coast. I always told myself that I was from California (which as a child had mythical memories of Yosemite and the ocean and the roads in San Francisco being so steep it looked like you'd drive off the hill into the ocean below). It was a "somewhere over the rainbow" place that I moved back to in my 20s and loved every minute of until recently. It's very hard to realize this won't be home anymore. So I am giving myself some slack about food for a few weeks.
It was nice falling asleep on the couch with J. I have been so tired. The cat has been on hyper-daylight savings time, and awakens 2 hours earlier and pesters me to help her to drink out of the tub. Sometimes she doesn't realize that it's still the middle of the night when she does that. We had lived in the woods where there wasn't ambient city light, and now she has trouble telling that it's not time to walk up yet, I think. So this morning I put her in Ks room and shut the door and went back to sleep. I haven't had an entire night's sleep in a few weeks. I also stayed up until 3 am proofing K's big project that was a massive beaurocratic write-up of her website she made. It seriously looked like the massive bundle of paperwork you need to fill out to get an arts grant. I can't believe they put kids through all that instead of just having them write what steps they did to complete the project and what they learned.
The night before last we went to see some friends for dinner and I'd usually make a dessert, but that counter oven doesn't regulate temperature very well, and baked goods taste good, but their texture is weird. So we stopped by this decadent bakery and got a key lime pie. It was phenomenal, and worth the extra calories. I want to get to the point where I can indulge in something like that occasionally and cut out other high calorie stuff so I'll have the freedom to do that maybe once every month or so.
Mondays I generally clean the whole house and make lots of food for the week. I made a big batch of baked yams and made a nice cilantro-yogurt dressing to put on top of them. It came out nice and fresh tasting. And the house is nice now and ready for my final round of packing. I am hoping to finish up this week and have the next week to garden for S.
I haven't been eating great, but I am not as heavy as I thought, either. I am not going to stress over it. I realized that moving from California is a huge thing for me. I was born here, but raised on the east coast. I always told myself that I was from California (which as a child had mythical memories of Yosemite and the ocean and the roads in San Francisco being so steep it looked like you'd drive off the hill into the ocean below). It was a "somewhere over the rainbow" place that I moved back to in my 20s and loved every minute of until recently. It's very hard to realize this won't be home anymore. So I am giving myself some slack about food for a few weeks.