Week One

We joked that this was a "garbage date:" rolling the trash can out to the street together at sunset last Sunday night. It's the time of year where any solo activity together becomes a date, haha.

We just finished week number one of cross country season and the school year, and it was a shock to the system in several ways:

• Cross country practice changed from morning to afternoon: running in the cool 65-75 degree mornings of summer was way easier than running in the 85-95 degree blaze of school year afternoons. 
• Because I am now at cross country practice until 5:15pm each afternoon, I started cooking dinner in the morning again this week. It felt like I was grinding a lot of gears.
• The school day routine returned, with a few modifications: for the past few years, I have left between 8:30-8:40am to drive Amber to elementary school. Now that she's in middle school, Amber leaves for school at 7:10am with Jeff.
• Early morning seminary starts next week, so that will add another major shock to the system, especially for my sweet high school kids.

Why is all of this "return to normalcy" such a shock to the system? We live the school year schedule for 9.5 months out of every year. That's the majority of the year by a lot! But summer break is such a lovely reset with simpler days, returning to the school year grind takes some getting used to every single year. As peaceful as our quiet house was, I felt a tad bereft when my entire family was gone by 7:30am every day this week. I always deal with feeling left behind and stagnant at this time of year, when my entire family is starting a new year of school and progressing, learning, and growing while I stay at home and do the same ole same ole. 

Every year I have to remind myself that my "same ole same ole" home-work provides my busy family with a reliable, safe, happy place to land and rest after their long days out in The World. My role in creating that home environment is vastly underrated and usually taken for granted, as background supportive roles usually are, even by myself. There is just not much validation or appreciation for my many unseen jobs. My ideals tell me that validation and appreciation are not necessary, and it's kind of lame of me to wish to be appreciated for my nebulous task of "creating a happy clean healthy home." Still, it's annoyingly easy to feel left behind while everyone else in my family Goes Forth and returns with Accomplishments, Rankings, Grades, and Awards. I am SO HAPPY and proud of their accomplishments--this is not a competitive situation at all. I am doing what I do so they can do the amazing things that they do! This time of year just tends to leave me feeling a bit left behind and wrung out, just like my various scarred, migrating, well-used body parts. HAH, that made me laugh. 

With my youngest child now in middle school and my weekdays extended, I thought I'd have more time to...fill in the blank. This summer I started to think about what I might want to do with that extra 90 minutes added onto my day. That extra time seemed massive! Full of possibilities! HAH! My past self of two weeks ago was adorably optimistic. This week I barely had time to come up for air and did not feel like my day had any extra time in it.

Monday, August 24th was the last day of summer break for Jay and Rose. Jeff had to work and Amber had a half day of middle school orientation from 12-3pm. Amber was nervous about going to middle school! She re-did her ponytail in the car as we were pulling up to the school. It about broke my heart watching my sweet Amber walk up to the blob of 6th graders waiting outside the school. Talk about social stress! On Monday night, Amber didn't have a lot to report about the orientation, except that she was not placed in orchestra class, and the whole day was a bit overwhelming and confusing. 

Monday was also the first day of cross country season, so we had our first official practice at 3:15pm. Amber met us at high school cross country practice that afternoon after her 6th grade orientation and ran with the high school team. She is in the top seven on our high school girls team. I wish we could actually have her as part of our varsity girls team! 40 kids came to the first day of cross country practice, and there was only ONE kid whose name I didn't know. That's my best first day ever! I knew more names than Jeff thanks to my time spent coaching middle school track the past four years. The first run in the afternoon heat always hits hard, and we were all wilting by the time we got home at 5:30pm. 

Amber, about to get out of the car to attend middle school orientation! I can see the trepidation in her eyes.

I worked so hard preparing this healthy amazing dinner: I blanched 2 pounds of broccoli and a whole head of red cabbage, cooked the noodles and tossed them with sesame oil and soy sauce, chopped cilantro, cut limes, and made my best-ever double batch of rich creamy peanut coconut sauce to drizzle on top. Rose and I were the only ones who actually ate the cabbage, but it was a satisfying healthy good dinner that everyone loved. It felt good to make food that my entire family was excited to eat.

Every year our school district gives out "golden apple" awards to peer-nominated, district-selected professionals in different categories. Jeff had the most nominations of any single person in the whole district, and he was awarded the Golden Apple for Extracurricular Activities this year! 

Tuesday, August 25th was the first day of school! It was our last first day of school with all three kids home, and my heart felt it while I was taking our traditional first day of school pictures. It was also Amber's first day of middle school, so everyone was ready to go at the same time. I took pictures of all three kids together before school, just like we did waaaay back when Jay and Rose were in elementary school and Amber was my mischievous little daily companion. I can't believe Jay is a senior in high school! Rose is a sophomore! Amber is in 6th grade! This year might wreck me. 

I drove Amber to middle school so I could go into the office with her and ask to switch her elective to orchestra. It was hectic in the school, and I felt bad asking the secretaries for help on the busiest first day day, but they took care of it. Amber said she had her new schedule by 3rd period and got to go to orchestra.

All 3 kids said they had good first days of school. Rose was happy to have PE class with her friend Elsie, who is one grade below Rose. Jay has a pretty light schedule this fall, although he does have his senior capstone class this term. Amber is working on getting used to switching classes in middle school. My sweet kids! I can't believe this is our last year with all 3 kids home. I definitely felt a bit teary and emotional as I drove home after leaving Amber at middle school. 

When I got home, I went on a run and did some strength work in the barn afterwards to "drown my sorrows" of the first day of school, haha. It was nice to be able to run in the cool morning again, even after only one afternoon of heat the previous day. The cross country team had an interval workout Tuesday afternoon, so I did my own run in the morning since I would be busy timing and coaching during practice that afternoon. Running soothed my first day of school emotions. 

I vacuumed and made dinner--the mundane tasks that I always do that take time but not brainpower and leave me feeling used up but unsatisfied. I took a 20 minute power nap, since I was still recovering from my low-sleep high-activity trip to Virginia. That nap got me through Tuesday cross country practice. It was 91° and I didn't even run, but I sweated a lot anyways. After dinner on Tuesday night, we had family scripture and then Jeff gave the kids back to school father's blessings. It was sweet and happy. I am thankful for Jeff. He seemed a bit worn out after his first day back teaching, but he gave loving personal blessings to Jay, Rose, and Amber. Tuesday night before I went to bed, I saw that our kitchen sink was clogged. The dishwasher had back-flowed into the sink. Joy. I left it and went to bed.

First day of school pictures!

Jay is a senior! 12th grade.

2014: Jay's first day of kindergarten. 

Excuse me while I go and weep profusely. That R2D2 lunchbox!

Rose is a sophomore. 10th grade.

Amber is a middle schooler! 6th grade.

Ahhhhh After we had requested her schedule change into orchestra class, Amber hugged me and said "love you Mom," and started walking away courageously. She glanced back at me and my heart squeezed! I had to do deep breaths and hold back emotions while I walked back to the car.

How could I not be thinking about 9 years ago...

First day of school picture, August 2017. It was our first school year after we moved to Sunnyside. Jay was in 3rd grade, Rose was in 1st grade, Amber was 2 years old but she had her zebra backpack.

Ok, back to 2026:

I have taken so many pictures of my front flowerbed, but it makes me so happy. The flowers did so well. 

The pumpkins are a bit terrifying with their long reaching arms.

Probably why I'll always have a minivan: it's perfect for transporting 45 water bottles and 2 water jugs to the park for cross country interval workouts. The folding wagon helps too.

Hugging their dad after father's blessings.

On Wednesday I unclogged our kitchen sink with great difficulty and it took all of my patience and goodwill toward man. I had to wait for the hardware store to open, which was annoying because I wanted to get the sink unclogged, but also fine because I used that time well and played the piano for an hour while I waited. I found and bought a 25 foot drain snake, learned how to use it, took apart the pipes under the sink, snaked the drain, put the pipes back together, then turn on the water to test if it worked. It didn't. So I did it all again, except I was more aggressive with the snake and sawed back and forth lots of times, flossing those pipes like crazy. It smelled bad. My aggressive pile flossing worked! I turned the hot water on for a full 15 minutes and it never gurgled back up the drain. Victory! I was so tired of crouching on the kitchen floor for all that time. I scrubbed the cabinet under the sink all clean and put everything away. 

I was proud of myself for unclogging the drain, but I was also proud of myself for pausing first thing in the morning and playing piano for an hour before launching into the drain repair. I needed to wait for the hardware store to open anyways, and I knew I would probably not have the patience or energy to enjoy piano playing after my drain clog project, so I put myself first a little and gave that hour of piano time to myself. I think it helped me not totally lose my mind later. 

While I was out on my hardware store errand, I also mailed Jeff's Osprey backpack in for a free repair. The strap broke this summer, but Osprey is such a good brand, it gives lifetime free repairs on all gear. All we had to do was pay to ship it to Osprey headquarters, and they would repair it and ship it back to us for free. At first the shipping cost came out to $98. The entire pack cost $225! I was supposed to pay nearly half that just to ship it and hopefully get it repaired?? I thought about it a bit and found a smaller box in the post office that I was able to fit the backpack into. It cut the shipping cost in half! $50 still was pretty steep, but at least it was better than $98! 

While I was out, I also stopped at the apartment of one of the sisters I minister to and gave her a shoebox of fresh pears that I picked from our trees that morning. This woman is so hard to read! She just stares at me while I talk. It's a tad disorienting, haha. Each night when I pray and ask what can I do to be more like Jesus Christ over the past few weeks, ministering has always come to my mind, specifically to this woman. I don't know what else to do for/with her, but for now the pears were what I could dream up. It felt good to finally follow through on a prompting, even when it didn't seem super meaningful to the sister involved. 

It was so hot at XC practice on Wednesday: 95°. We had to modify our run since heat protocol kicks in at 95 degrees. Bleh. Even though we were wilted from the hot cross country practice, Jeff and I had a little at home date while the kids were all at the church on Wednesday night. I missed him! I was gone for 4 days last week, then he went back to work full time this week. It was good to spend time together.

I begged the kids not to use the sink before school on Tuesday, but Jay accidentally dumped his water bottle in it while the pipes were out--thankfully I had that towel under the pipes to catch drips! It soaked up his water bottle dump. 

Snaking the drain the first time. Blahhhh are plumbers ever truly happy? I don't think I could be happy if I were a plumber.

Crunched up on the hard floor with the drain snake. Also, that bruise on my thigh is from lugging hurdles across our driveway during a summer cross country practice two weeks ago. The hurdles banged my leg so hard, it took nearly two weeks for the bruise to surface.

Sink water running, no water rising: success!

On Thursday, (Aug 27th), my friends and I started our weekly lifting together again. I named our lifting group text "IronFriends" back when we started lifting together on Thursdays almost two years ago. The last time we lifted together was on June 11th! We were all too busy during the summer to lift together. None of us lifted much this summer (I did bodyweight stuff, but no actual weights), so it was interesting getting back at it. We did a 50/50 split between talking and lifting. It's good to have good friends, especially during coaching seasons when most of my social interaction each day is with teenagers. I love the teenagers on the team, but I think having built-in friend time of my own is a good balance for me. 

I did all of mine and Jeff's laundry on Thursday AND folded all it. I didn't measure the black beans when I soaked them the night before, so they grew and then when I cooked them with butternut squash and spices, I ended up with a massive stew pot of black beans and squash. I pureed them with my immersion blender, and it turned out way runnier than expected, so instead of black bean butternut burritos, we had black bean soup on rice for dinner. Well, everyone else chose to have leftover peanut noodles except me. I gave them the option to have leftovers if they wanted, and they all loved the peanut sauce I made on Monday so much, I couldn't fault them. I had the beans and rice. It was good. Just not sure how we're ever going to finish it all. I think I made a gallon of beans! 

There was an eclipse on Thursday night! Phones really can't take good pictures of the moon, but it was pretty cool to watch the eclipse with my eyes.

Friday was our 24 hour relay Grizzlython fundraiser! I did a separate post about that! It was exhausting but still a huge net positive for team building, family involvement in cross country, and for fundraising.

Jay and several of the kids from our ward who are on the cross country team all went to a stake activity in Yakima on Saturday night. They left two hours after our 24 hour relay ended. It was a 16 and older game night where girls ask the guys. There was no staying home--one of Jay's friends had asked him to go! Thankfully she drove a minivan full of kids the 45 minutes to the stake center. Jay said he slept in the car on the way there and back! I did not even hear Jay come home.

Early morning seminary starts on Monday...

Jay, cruising along during his first leg of the relay.

Jay with his friends, ready to go to the western themed stake activity.