Mom's crazy first week of school

This was an interesting beginning of the school year.  I am helping with volleyball while they look for a third coach.  I won't coach because Kayda's team would have games at the same time as mine and I refuse to miss hers.

The night before school started (Tuesday) I was helping with volleyball.  While waiting for the parent meeting I got a phone call from my principal.  I was a "close contact".  Two of the coworkers I sat with at kick off tested positive for covid.  This turned into "put in for a sub for tomorrow, go do a rapid test, if it's negative come in as soon as possible".  Being super efficient and connected, I was able to get ahold of a rapid test that evening and it came out negative.  So I got to cancel my sub and actually teach the first day.  I feel bad for the teachers that have to miss the first 3-5 days of school.    There actually ended up being 6 teachers out I believe, just at the high school.  I don't know about the other schools.

That wasn't the end of my adventures though... During 6th period of the first day, I was teaching, went to pull down the projector screen and the entire thing came down on my head.  We're talking about 8ft of metal casing and the screen itself.  The entire bracket had come out of the wall.  So now my head and neck hurt.  Yay!  

One of the maintenance staff came in... His response was "I have nothing but bad words".   It's actually one of the heaviest screens they have because it's a wide screen.  The bracket had been put up using the plastic anchors they provide for curtain rods...  This is a good 30+ lbs, plus the force of pulling the screen down.  We checked out the other bracket and it was also half out.  It had been screwed directly into the drywall without even using anchors.  Talk about dangerous!  He came in and fixed it, it would take significant effort to get that thing off the wall again.  He promised that "someone would have to take it down on purpose" and "if it comes down again I'll quit".   Good guy.

  I saw stars, then it was just my neck hurting.  I thought I was fine and would just be sore. Over the next couple of days my head started feeling fuzzy and "full" for lack of a better term, I can't concentrate or think clearly, I am really tired and holy heck my emotions are all over the place.  I finally decided to go to urgent care Friday.  My appointment at my normal one was cancelled because they don't do work related injury. So I went to the one they recommended but because I didn't have record of BOTH of my negative tests from being covid exposed they wouldn't treat me.  I had a picture of one but the other was done at school and they didn't give us our results.  I went home very emotional and frustrated.

Come Saturday I made an appointment for a rapid test so I could go to the urgent care. Just for the urgent care to tell me not to come, to go to the ER instead since they didn't have the diagnostic equipment that night be needed. So I didn't even need the negative test.

So off to the ER I go... Which was almost empty in case you were wondering.  They had me into a room within twenty minutes of walking in.  The doctor came in immediately.  Did some tests, decided imaging wasn't even necessary.  Prescribed me some pain meds for my neck, then walked away.  He didn't listen to all the stuff I was experiencing with my head which was frustrating.   Gave me no suggestions on what I should/shouldn't be doing...I had to ask the nurse that brought me my paperwork if they thought I had a concussion or what was going on.  I have a "mild" concussion since there was no black outs, pupil discrepancies, or vomiting.  

They asked me if I wanted days off.  Wanted, no, being gone as a teacher is miserable.  Hopefully I don't end up needing them.   Now I'll have a couple weeks+ of needing to chill out as much as possible while my brain heals itself.  So irritating.

On top of that, with the governor's vaccination mandate, our calculus teacher and her firefighter husband have decided to leave the state.  This could very well mean they're making HUGE changes to the master schedule and all the students.  Finding a new calculus teacher at this point would be next to impossible.   They need to move things around to get our college certified teacher all the college in the classroom classes.  I'd be really surprised if they chose not to move things around.

On that note... We're seeing estimates as high as 1 in 8 nurses refusing to the vaccination and 1 in 4 emergency responders.  For a state so worried about being able to care for the sick people... They've certainly found a way to make it worse.  Hopefully that is rescinded before we lose a lot of qualified staff in areas that already have shortages.  That applies to education too but the emergency/medical is much more urgent.

We got COVID!!!

Information from post-illness (August)

We went to Kayda's tournament in Las Vegas got home Wednesday and Friday (the 2nd) Kayda started to feel sick.  She had a headache and a little bit of a cough. I was watching her going hmmm. So I contacted Grandma and Papa G since we were supposed to be headed their way in a few days.  Grandma said they didn't care and just asked if Kayda was feeling better when we were headed their way.  Kayda was feeling better, the headache and tiny cough only lasted a few days.  Carson had one evening where his nose felt stuffed up.  I started getting stuffed up and have cold like symptoms on my way to South Dakota (we got there the 6th).  I was able to work right through it on the projects there.  Daddy had gotten there the day after us (the 7th).  Grandma started showing cold symptoms shortly after we got there. Saturday night (10th) Daddy was knocked out with feeling super tired and feverish.  Dillon started to feel sick the 11th and officially had a fever the 12th.  Meanwhile Papa G started to feel cold like symptoms.  Daddy was extremely tired for about 2 days (sleeping 36 hours straight) though it wiped him out for some time after that.  He didn't have an appetite either.  Dillon's fever lasted about 3 days and he bounced back pretty quickly after that.  Papa G's throat got sore, he thought he had a low grade fever and he had a bit of a cough.  

Daddy lost his sense of taste and smell about 6 days later.  Papa G lost his later too.  We headed home the 16th.  Since everyone was sick we weren't getting anything done really at Grandma and Papa's house and I was kind of anxious to get home.  When we returned, I convinced Daddy to go get tested and sure enough it came out positive.  About then I realized that I couldn't smell anything, and thinking back, I hadn't been able to smell anything for quite some time.  This is ridiculous, and TMI, but I'm pretty self conscious about body odor.  Since we were working outside in the heat I kept sniffing my armpits but they didn't stink.  I remember thinking it was weird and that they should stink, so I'd wash them and put on more deodorant regularly.  I also remembered that Grandma made cookies a few times...and I never smelled them.  I didn't lose my sense of taste but here I am, a month later and I still can't smell.  I didn't smell the bacon or sausage I cooked while camping, or the fajitas people ordered when we went out. I went and got tested but waited too long and it came out negative.  I am 99% sure that COVID went through all seven of us.  Considering we all experienced symptoms, Daddy was positive and we were all living and working in close quarters.  

Guess what.  It wasn't a big deal for most of us.  Now we all have natural immunity for a while.  Though the fear monger-ers are working hard to convince people natural immunity isn't a thing and we should still get the vaccine.  

Daddy let work know that he was sick.  They required he couldn't come back without a negative test.  Which is funny because when he was contacted by the state, because he had a positive test, the CDC, the Department of health, AND the state worker that contacted him said he absolutely should not test again and that he was safe to return to work 10 days after symptoms began.  He tested a couple more times before it came back negative.  We were lucky since it can take up to 3 MONTHS to get a negative test.  He and I had a good laugh about that. 

Hybrid learning

The kids FINALLY got to go back to school.  Granted it was in a "hybrid" environment and required masks, but at least they got to go.  

I went back into the building at the beginning of February. That was a challenge because my kids had to get themselves into their meets and get all their work done without me supervising.  Carson was the one that struggled the most with that.  There was only so much Kayda and Dillon could do since the meet times often overlapped (in the middle of each other at middle school vs elementary).

Carson went back March 8th.  He goes Monday-Thursday mornings. He really enjoys half days with the smaller class size.

I was able to split Kayda and Dillon so someone would always be home. Kayda went in Monday/Wednesday full day, Dillon was Tuesday/Thursday.  They both had meets online on Fridays.  It was a pretty extreme transition from the online only format but they adapted well.  They were all excited to be back!

On the teacher side, online and hybrid learning are insane and inadequate.  The students didn't learn what they needed to online and then we had them 40% of what they usually have.  The time for helping them disappeared and you HAD to move more quickly than you'd like.  The performance and attitudes of the kids went WAY up once they were back at school though.  The number of students that had new accommodations for debilitating anxiety and depression was staggering.  Watching the students struggle to engage with me and even with their peers was heartbreaking.  The parents were frustrated and I felt completely helpless to do what needed to be done to help.  Any intervention time disappeared with hybrid classes.  Considering I never agreed with masks or shutting down schools it was especially difficult to talk with the parents of struggling students.  Quarantine broke the kids and placed a LOT of strain on families causing issues that hadn't existed before.  I actually spent quite a bit of time almost counseling parents.  As a teacher, we're actually left in the dark with students' situations.  We aren't told which kids are dealing with abusive households, which kids are struggling emotionally and mentally at a scale that doesn't have formal intervention, or have extenuating circumstances that impact their learning.  I am so grateful that we'll be going back full time next year.

Random quarantine shenanigans

The governor shut down schools March 17th and escalated to masks everywhere, restaurants being take out only, stores being closed and an enforced isolation, without work for a lot of people.  We did a lot of things.  We believed the situation was inflated and unreasonable.  Instead of shutting everything down people whose age or whose medical situation (verified by their doctor) put them at extra risk should have been quarantined and the rest of society should have carried on so the virus could eventually be minimized through a type of herd immunity.  So we lived our lives as normally as possible.  I was grateful to be able to spend time with like minded families. We had a couple of friends that chose to actively quarantine.  We invited them so they had the option but they usually didn't come.  Which was fine, it's a personal choice... Or should be at least.

Some things were just projects we needed to do anyway.  Covid closures gave us a lot of time to do them.

We dealt with the giant pile of junk the previous owner left.  It had years of debris and garbage.  It ended up being a burn pile and a trip to the dump.

W pulled out almost 20 bushes in order to change, eliminate or shrink gardens to make it more manageable.  

I transplanted a lot of plants from areas we eliminated gardens and sleeved with other plants too.

We spent time at the river.

Put up the shed we brought with us to help organize the shop.

Got a riding lawn mower and trailer.  With a yard this size, probably almost two acres maintained, it's a necessity.  While we were waiting Daddy tried push mowing the front yard.  After an hour or so, with minimal progress the neighbors (Alan and Denise) took pity on him and offered us use of their lawn mower.  Having our own has benefited us and them.  Theirs was out of commission for a while so they used ours and we like to mow their yard when they're out of town for a while.

We had to move this little greenhouse in order to make room for the shed.  Let's be real.  I am a "little to no maintenance" plant person. There was no way I would EVER use this.  We gave it to friends of ours. After unsuccessfully trying to dismantle it we finally loaded it up in their truck.  It was hilariously redneck driving it to their house.

The kids did a lot of random activities to stay sane.  

While we were waiting to put back together the front gardens (we ripped out almost everything there) the boys decided to use it as a mud bath 

Weeding, adding bark and shrinking gardens turned into redoing the poorly constructed pond.  This included tearing out the nasty grass in the bog pond, digging out probably a couple cubic yards of pea gravel, adding new liner and new pea gravel, adding a variety of bog pond plants and redoing all the rock.  The pond had been so gross you could only see a couple inches down.  The new bog pond had it crystal clear in a week or so.

Carson got a kick out of mowing. Daddy loves to mow, it's very relaxing for him.  I had to tell him firmly he was not allowed to mow any further into the pasture. Every time he mowed he was going further out.  

Since pools became outrageously expensive and there were no water toys available, we created our own slip and slide.

The neighbor, Alan, used his tractor to help me move boulders around so they were more aesthetically appealing. We also moved one to function as a stair on the side of the porch.  He helped us tear out several trees also.

The river with Carson's best friend Kailey.

The river with Leelan and Avry.

"Shop class" with Eric.

We spent a lot of time with Austin, Darcy and their family.  A lot of time.  We usually got together a couple of times a month. One day we went to his parent's house which is right on a small river.  The kids had a great time playing.

More shop class, welding this time.

Despite having online school we ended up with snow days, not because of snow... Because of power outages.  We had four power outages in the fall.  One lasted for three days.  I was so grateful that we had gotten a generator hook up installed and purchased a generator before this happened.  Especially because our well AND septic require power.  I was ridiculously prudent with the power though, just out of habit from growing up.  Turns out the generator is strong enough to run almost our entire house.  We could even turn off a couple of things to run our heat pump or dryer.  I didn't like using the lights though because the generator power isn't "filtered" to stabilize it so they flickered.

A friend organized pick up lacrosse evenings.

The kids really enjoyed the game "among us" and created a live version.