Jumbled Up X

 Here it is, my tenth "Jumbled Up" post since starting this blog thirteen years ago!  Brought to you by the fact that it's February vacation, and despite having quite a few things I'd like to get done this week, I am yet again sick... and here's my red nose to prove it!

Friday night after work and pretty much all day Saturday was spent mostly in bed (I did order groceries on the computer, so there's that!).  I did try to get up and about a bit yesterday and today-- I picked up the groceries in the morning and did a little extra Wal-Mart shopping, and then L had a friend sleep over last night, and we did make-your-own homemade pizza while M was out singing at church.  

This morning I made waffles for all the kiddos, too.  But it seems even those small exertions (plus cleaning up all the dishes etc.) was too much for me, as I have taken a nose dive today and have been back in bed most of the day without even having much brain power to do any of the work-related computer things I had hoped to do.  Decision making seems to be very difficult for me at the moment, and my job requires a lot of that.

So here I am-- M has swept in and taken the bigger girls to dance class and J to a playdate, so I'm on my own to just rest. I can't promise any eloquent writing but I do have a few thoughts in my head and, well, let's just see if I can get them out intelligibly.

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I think part of the reason I'm sick is that I had no less than 8 concerts to conduct at my various schools in the past six weeks.  Organizing a concert of middle schoolers is no small task, and there was a lot of work to be done.  The final concert of the 8 was a combined concert with the high school that involved almost 200 string players in the same room.  All of our own girls participated (except J of course) and it was a very exciting evening for all (although pretty stressful for me leading up to it!  It was a lot to organize!)

I was super proud of all of my students, but especially of C who got up in front of all these people and played a solo!

The other musical accomplishment that makes me super proud lately is L's.  She took on learning a piece that was a big jump up in difficulty for her, and then played the piece in her first-ever live audition for our All District orchestra.  She was extremely nervous for the audition, but went through with it, and was accepted into the festival!  She will join string players from all over our district to play in the festival orchestra in April.  I was so proud of her for tackling this difficult piece in the first place, and then being so brave through the audition process.  In these pandemic times, a live event is so different from things like the pre-recorded concerts and auditions that students have been used to in the past few years.  So much more intimidating!  I can't say enough about her courage to do this!  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures on the audition day but I'm sure I will at the concert!

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One of the other reasons I didn't take any pictures on L's audition day was that it was also a dance competition weekend, so quite busy for the whole family.  I don't need to say much about how proud I am of C and N's dancing this year-- I think these pictures can say everything that's needed.

They're just getting so grown up and beautiful and graceful, and they have such a wonderful group of dance pals.  Couldn't be happier for them!

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And yet, with all of these wonderful events and accomplishments, I find that we're often looking back on our homeschooling days a bit wistfully.  Many great things are happening for our family, yes, but there is a price to being so busy all the time.  I mentioned the stress of my job and with that stress and the perimenopause symptoms that I mentioned, I'm not sleeping well these days.  I don't usually have trouble falling asleep; in fact, my eyes are always closing uncontrollably between 8:30 and 9 PM, but then I typically sleep a few hours and then I'm awake again, and as soon as I'm awake the brain turns on and I can't shut it off.  Most nights I wake up between 2:30 and 3 AM and I'm just starting to drift off again when my alarm goes off around 5:30.  In my menopause book the author calls this "tired but wired"-- an apt description for what I feel almost all the time right now.  I'm certain that's why I have been sick so much this year; I'm just never rested.  I had a bad case of the flu just before Christmas and had to be out a full week and missed one of my concerts and all my Christmas singing gigs.  In the past two weeks N had norovirus and then J came down with strep throat and C as well two days later.  I thought I had strep too with a bad sore throat that persisted most of last week, but I tested negative and since then the sore throat turned in to the worst cold I have had in a while.  I don't mean to go on and on and complain, but I feel like these are signals that probably should not be ignored.

I'm also not thrilled about our diets lately.  I have absolutely zero time to cook and so we tend to do meals that are super fast and easy-- subs, hot dogs, frozen pizza-- just not a lot of time (or energy!) for chopping veggies these days.  And we tend to reach for the comfort of sugary treats more often than we should, as a de-stresser.  It feels wonderful to have had the time to make myself a salad these last two days, but unfortunately I've been a little too sick to fully enjoy it!

The girls are not immune to the stress of school, either.  N's first year of high school has been intense and her teachers have very high expectations.  Her first experience with mid-term exams this January took a LOT out of her.  The other girls all have their troubles with school as well-- stresses and anxieties, as well as sometimes not feeling challenged, or that their time is used ineffectively in the public school setting.  I know that it's easy to look at homeschooling through rose-colored glasses and not remember the parts of it that were difficult.  But we are very much missing the good things and the relaxation of being at home, on our own schedule, with MUCH less stress.

And so our lives right now are a constant state of enjoying our activities, feeling fulfilled, but also feeling the wear and tear of doing all these things, and wondering how much we should keep doing.  For me, a lot of that is tied to how much money I should keep making.  Tough questions.

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Speaking of our diets lately, has anyone else felt the crunch of inflation with regard to grocery buying?  Feeding our family of six was never cheap, but it feels astronomical these days.  Having just ordered groceries this last weekend, and having had to eliminate a few items to meet our budget, I can safely say I'm feeling the burn.

Since being sick I have discovered the Well Your World vegan YouTube channel, and I was super impressed by the video in which this YouTuber takes his viewers down to his basement where he keeps huge five-gallon buckets of every kind of legume and grain you could want, an army of home-canned tomatoes, and gallons and gallons of shelf-stable plant-based milks.  Just FYI, this guy is not just vegan but "SOS-free" (sugar, salt, and oil free).  He doesn't buy any processed or packaged foods and just lives off of all his dry goods while supplementing with fresh produce that he buys occasionally or grows himself.  I was thinking about how much money we could save by eliminating things like processed cereals, granola bars, packaged snacks etc. I think you all know that I have food hoarding tendencies anyway, and the idea of a basement full of dry goods just makes me happy in a weird way.  But not just that-- the idea is that you simplify your cooking as well by just having each meal be a grain, a plant-based protein, and some fresh fruit or veg, all of which you already have on hand and you can just boil up in a few minutes (this guy uses the InstantPot a lot... a purchase which I should maybe consider).  You just add lots of spices and herbs to keep it interesting.  Anyway, it's not just money-saving, but possibly time-saving if we got into a good rotation of meals and practiced cooking this way so it got easier... and it would be wonderful for everyone's health, I'm sure.  The only problem is that my younger girls are quite in the habit of being picky and sure would miss the hot dogs and chicken nuggets.  But perhaps they'd get used to it?  #lifegoals. It's hard, also, to feel like we can make changes like this when our lives are so busy and I have so little brain space to think about cooking and nutrition.  But that's the thing-- I love thinking about cooking and nutrition, and when I don't have the time to do it, I miss it.  So it's a bit sad for me.

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I'll end on a happy note and tell you about all the joy we have been getting from our little boy Jem and how much of a part of the family he is becoming.

He really seems to want to be wherever the family is, and is doing more and more cute little personality things like nibbling on our feet to let us know he's hungry, or following M around wherever he goes.  Pretty cute stuff!  Rabbits are super intelligent, low-maintenance pets... I highly recommend them!

I think that will be all for tonight-- thanks for listening to my jumbled up, probably grammatically incorrect, incoherent stream-of-consciousness.  I'm off to watch another episode of The Crown, the show I love to hate, but that's another blog post for another day.  Ta-ta!