Signs

I started a new job recently. This was a job that I thought was going to be a ton of fun, but also a step up for me responsibility wise. I do before and after school care for elementary aged kids. I'd had fun at the beginning of the year being a traveling site coordinator, because I could be a teacher figure, play with the kids, and had the actual site director to back me up. Once I got my own site however I saw how different things are on the other side. There's a lot more paperwork, which I don't really mind; I have to come up with lesson plans, which again isn't a big deal, it's just time-consuming. There's a lot more administrative things too. I have to talk to parents if their kids are misbehaving. I have to fill out the paperwork if a child gets hurt. I have to track attendance numbers, card any adults I don't know who are taking children out of the program, organize my storage closet, gather supplies for crafts. This is a job where I am supervising kids from 7 to 9 in the morning and then from 3 to 6 in the afternoon; not really a lot of time to do all the things I need to do. The time in between? I can do more work, I can go home, I can go to my other job, I can work out at the community center, but that's about it. I leave for work at 6:15 in the morning and come home around 6:45 in the evening. The long hours don't help with the stress of running a difficult site.

But I have found it's it's especially stressful because the program is licensed through the state. The Department of Job and Family Services has a list of guidelines of how to run the site; ratios, safety procedures, basically what were allowed to do with kids. I have to follow those guidelines, or else my site can lose its license. That's all well and good, and I know why things like this exist; it's because they want to keep kids safe... but sometimes safe is boring. These kids are bored in this program. Especially the older children, who have been in the program since first grade and now they're in fourth or fifth grade and they're sick of playing with all the same toys. They don't want to play any of the games, they basically just want to do what they want to do. I have been trying to play new games and get more supplies for them, but it's really hard when these kids push back at all my "new" rules.  They had no accountability for their actions with the previous site director, nor had any sort of team building. If I had my way I would take them to the creek every day. There's a nice little creek and wooded area out back behind the school. I know a lot of kids probably don't like going out and getting dirty especially because their parents are so against dirt (you know, because dirt is obviously is one of the worst things ever)*, but being in nature is such a different animal than being stuck in a school building for eleven hours every day.  With all the research I have done, it would help them to decompress, destress, and generally make them happier and calmer.  But I can't do this, because it's not safe for me to take forty kids creeking.

So what has The Universe done for me instead?  The Universe has been sending me little animal friends once a week, to help me keep my cool. I'm a firm believer that there are always little signs, straight from God or the Universe or whoever, all around you and that it is up to you to interpret them as they pertain to your life. (I don't know what signs led me to this job, if any, but it was a full-time job and my rational mind said, "Take it!" and looking back I should have waited.  But we must play cards with the hand we're dealt, so there's no real point in complaining.)

The very first week of school back after spring break we found a crawdad climbing up the path to the school doors. I have no idea how a crawdad got out of the creek bed, climbed the short rock shelf back there, crawled across the field and came to our school at 8 o'clock in the morning when it's not even warm enough outside for him to be out.  The kids of course freaked out. They thought it was super duper cool. Crawdads, crayfish, mini lobsters, (whatever you want to call them) are awesome little invertebrates. Whenever my coworker kept trying to touch him he would raise his claws defensively and the kids would freak out and run away and come back. It was hilarious to watch. I had more fun on that day, just in those five minutes that we had a crawdad visitor on the playground, than I had in like the entire time that I have been working this new job.

The second week there was a dead bird outside. A little dark-eyed junco that probably flew into the windows of the door and broke his neck. He was right in the middle of the path and the kids of course screamed and worried about him so we buried him and then washed our hands. This past week (on Earth Day no less) we found a frog in the Gaga pit. (Don't even get me started on the bullcrap that is Gaga). One of the girls in the program stopped the game and yelled, "There's a dead frog in the Gaga pit!" He was underneath the wall between the wood and the concrete. He blended in with the rocks, because he was a little gray tree frog. So we gently poked him out (I did anyway), and picked him up and he kept jumping, and every time he hopped the kids screamed. It was the funniest thing that I think I've ever seen. Kids screaming over a frog a frog no bigger than the tip of my thumb; he was (I'm pretty sure) an Eastern Gray Tree Frog and he had beautiful yellow patches on his legs.  I was trying to explain that he was a tree frog when he jumped and promptly stuck to the side of a Gaga pit, to which one of my kids said, "Oh, that's cool!". I took him out back toward the woody creek area, and let him go on a stack of logs.  He didn't try to escape too much from me when I set him down, just looked at me with his big froggy eyes.

I think the universe is telling me that my calling is not working in childcare, because working in childcare is. Fucking. Exhausting.  But doing educational nature programs with kids is so much more fun, because kids can learn and not know they're learning.  The kids in my program aren't there to learn. They're there for school, which is obviously the only place kids can learn,* and they're at the school from seven or eight in the morning until sometimes six o'clock at night. That is a long-ass day for a child. (I know that some parents can't help it and that there are parents who put their kids in this program because they have to work early or later than school hours, which is totally fine. I'm not trying to dog on any parents who put their children in childcare. And thank God we have people who offer these programs because if we didn't there would be nothing for these kids to do there be no help for these parents and there will be a lot more struggling people). My point is this is not the thing that I want to. I want to have nature programs with kids. I want to take kids out in the woods and splash around in the creek and roll down hills, get dirty, duel each other with cat tail puffs and climb trees and basically just learn while having fun, like kids should be doing. I'm pretty sure the universe is sending me animal friends as a sign for that so that I can have my teachable moments with these kids and not feel like I am doing something that is not worthwhile. Because I am. I just have to find the right perspective.

*sarcasm star.  Please read with sarcasm in mind!

Winter Walk

The surest sign of spring is not crocuses popping their friendly heads out of the snow.  It's not leaf buds growing huge on trees.  It's when the quiet solitude of a forest coated in snow becomes loud with the lusty chatter of birdsong.  Yes, the birds are beginning their mating calls and defining their territory even though it's still cold outside!

A chubby robin perched in his tree!

I went into the woods on Friday to look for migrating bird couples.  It's too early, you might think!  But eastern bluebirds actually begin their nesting in early March.  In fact, I saw some last month when I went out into the woods here in Ohio, but some of them don't migrate.  I thought I was looking at an indigo bunting, this bluebird was that vibrant.  Of course I got too excited and forgot to grab my phone for a picture.  Not that I would have been able to snap one anyway.  For some reason, birds don't usually sit still enough for me to take their pictures.

 

Unless, of course, they are duckies!  I found a few sets of mated pairs at the wetlands.  Mallards begin their courtship in the fall and it continues through the winter.  I'm not sure exactly if that means they're completely paired off by the spring breeding season.  I watched one male fly up and chase off another pair.  Or maybe he was trying to mate with the female and they decided to high-tail it out of there.  But these ducks were the only ones that I saw so far.  I am planning to keep checking, just to see how many different types of water fowl I can find before spring.

Can you imagine being a duck in this place?  This is like duckie heaven, even though the water is pretty low.

Nothing like a monochromatic winter walk.

Yep, it snowed here on Friday.  A light dusting, but it made the walk feel magical.  Even though the snow was beginning to melt by this point, there were still some places where it sat, feathery and light.

Snow collected on this bush.  I could actually still see some individual snowflake shapes!

 At least it didn't collect on the walkways.  And it wasn't terribly cold outside.  I mean, it was cold, probably about 33 or 34 degrees Fahrenheit, but that is balmy compared to the fifteen degree average of last winter.

Despite last year's crazy snowfall, I have decided that I really do like snow.  Or at least, if it's going to be cloudy, I would want it to snow (as opposed to rain, or just staying overcast all day).  There's something kind of calming about looking out the window and watching big fat flakes falling on your porch.  And I have to admit, I really admire the monochromatic, chiaroscuro effect that even a light dusting of snow causes.

Even though the sky is gray, I don't feel down.  The brightness of the snow helps to keep my mood uplifted.  It may be just the fun nostalgia of a day playing in the snow, it may be because I like to imagine what the world looked like ten thousand years ago, with its snow blanketed forests.  It may be because the snow reminds me of solitude and reminds me to center myself. As long as I don't feel gross and depressed, I'm okay with snow.

Three robins chilling in this tree... probably posing for mates.

Also, as long as there are cute birdies to watch, I feel better.  The house finches that came to visit my porch feeder are back again this year, so I am making sure to keep their feeder well stocked with black oil sunflower seeds.  I will try to get a picture of them this year.  Hopefully they are nesting nearby; since they only eat seeds, even when breeding, I'll have to make sure they are kept well stocked this spring.

Because the happy bird songs made me feel so peaceful, I'm going to leave you with a video that I took.  Don't watch it, but listen to all the different bird sounds.  I managed to catch a red bellied woodpecker's kwirr call on it!  I heard his call (it's one of like, the ten that I can actually identify by sound) and immediately got on my phone to find the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Red Bellied Woodpecker page, which has all the bird sounds and calls on it.  I played that on repeat a couple dozen times and got him to come in pretty close!  Then he caught on that it was just a recording and stopped calling.  But at least I now know that I can call in woodpeckers during the day just like I can call in owls on a night hike!

Losing Eight Pounds in 5 Days?!

I found a "cleanse" featuring parsley, lemon and water which claims to reduce belly fat by 8 pounds in 5 days.  I decided that I want to debunk this, just to see what happens! 

Not that I need to.  I mean, I'm pretty dang sexy.  I just want to see what happens.  I'm one of those lucky (lucky?!) women who gains weight in her thighs and rear instead of around her middle.  I always have a gap at the back of my pants at the waist even when the zipper refuses to budge because apparently if women have a sizable derriere, it must mean that we are fat everywhere.  Amirite, ladies?

In order to attempt to be scientific, I am not changing my exercise habits, nor am I changing what I eat.  The instructions didn't say to!

Started: Sunday February 28

Looking good from the front!

Trifle belly! <3

Weight Saturday night: 200.2 pounds

(weight Sunday morning: 196.8 pounds, which just goes to show you how much my weigh can fluctuate just over night)

Waist inches: 32.5

Day 1: Directions aren't very clear.  Says to drink it on an empty stomach, but how long do I have to wait to eat afterwards?  My Vitamix didn't exactly puree the parsley either, and I was left with floating chunks that tasted like... well, like grass.  I gulped it down.  I guess there are worse ways to start your morning!

Day 2: Figured out that my Vitamix can pulverize the parsley if I turn it up to 5 or 6.  Cool!  I had a cup that is pond-water green.  It tasted better than it looked.  Kind of like a citrus grass.  Not unpleasant though; just different.  I don't even need any sugar!  I felt kind of blah today, but I'm thinking it's because I didn't really eat much for breakfast (as usual) and waited until almost 1 to eat.

Day 3:  Feeling pretty great today, despite the fact that I have been going to the bathroom more than normal.  I have a feeling this is all my "water weight" coming off.  I haven't been drinking much water lately though.  Not that I ever really drink a lot of water.  Nausea is kicking in hard though.  I'm not sure if this is because I haven't been eating much for breakfast or not.

Day 4: Intestinal distress.  Ugggh, I feel awful.  I could barely choke down the parsley drink this morning.  I thought I was going to puke it up.  Decided that this morning would be my last.  I didn't want to risk more intestinal distress, and I was sick of feeling nauseated all the time.

Thursday Morning:

A little bit of bloat gone...

Looks the same to me!

Waist inches: 32 

 Weight: 198.6

Technically I gained two pounds from my weight on Saturday.  But I lost a half an inch from my waist.  Perhaps there was a bit of overnight bloat gone, but definitely not eight pounds of belly fat.

So all told, this did not work for me.  Maybe if I had been working out and watching what I eat, I would have had better luck.  I mean, I get pretty good results from just 20 minutes a day of working out for two weeks.  Better than this drink.

Save yourself and your taste buds.  This diuretic just isn't worth it.

Authenticity

As you may or may not know, I am striving to become my most authentic self (I mean, that's why I have this blog!).  To me, this means knowing who I am, the things I stand for, and being myself without fear of judgment from others.

I am slowly coming to know myself through this process, which is crazy because I've lived in my own body, in my own head, for nearly thirty-one years.  You'd think that I would know myself pretty well by now, and in some ways I do.  I know my favorite foods are my favorites mostly because of texture and not flavor (it's why I prefer Rice Chex above all others, or rice krispy treats, or rice crackers).  I know that I don't mind doing dishes.  I know that I love cats.  But those are basic things about me, things that my friends find out relatively easily.

I've had to do a lot of soul-searching since college.  I'm not the kind of person who can learn life lessons from other people.  I usually have to get out there and try something before I see it's not for me.  Like in 8th grade, when I played softball.  I was good at judging when to try to swing for the ball, but I was useless at everything else.  Most of the time I just sat in the outfield, watching the game.  I couldn't throw.  I hated running.  I didn't want to learn the rules.  I just wanted to have fun.  That attitude stayed with me through high school and my early college years.  I liked learning, but I wanted to only learn things I was interested in, which meant my grades suffered terribly.  I couldn't find anything that I was desperate to learn about, which led me to bounce around in different classes in different majors.  If something didn't take my fancy right away, I gave up on potentially switching to that major.  I felt stuck in my spiritual life too; I gave up practicing Catholicism as soon as I could, but never really found anything that I liked better.  I felt lost, in need of a guide.

Little did I know that I am the perfect guide for me.

We are all the perfect guides for ourselves.  Only you know what can make you feel good (by good, I don't just mean a temporary endorphin rush, I mean something that makes you feel thrilled to be alive, makes you feel in love with your life, makes you feel like acting more positively).  Only you know what makes you feel alive.  Maybe it's music.  Maybe it's sports.  If you like it, do it.  If you don't like it, don't do it.  To me, that is what being authentic is all about; one is true to oneself.  You are living without fear of judgement (or at least with the idea that others' judgements of your actions are reflections of them, not you).  I think this is the hardest thing for people to do nowadays.  To live authentically is to invite judgement into your life, especially with the internet. 

Slowly I started to find classes and friends that made me feel good.  And not just good in an immediate kind of way.  Good in a long-term, positive influence kind of way.  I found others who accepted me without forcing me to behave in a certain way.  I could finally admit that I really enjoyed listening to Britney Spears without the fear of being rejected.  I could laugh and get really excited without feeling like no one understood.  I discovered classes that I was completely in love with (medieval history, poetry, and language).  Slowly I came to know more about myself.

This emotional and spiritual journey is exactly like peeling back an onion.  I really think that people develop layers in order to hide their true selves from others because they have had their true selves rejected time and time again.  If only we can stop others from seeing our inner layer, maybe we can stop ourselves from getting hurt.  But knives can slice deeply, so we keep building up our defenses.  Eventually there are so many layers that we are lost from who we once were, separated and alone.  We want someone, anyone to understand us, but who better than our very own selves?

You are so capable of loving yourself, of being enough just for you.  I think this is the greatest secret in life, the secret that no one ever talks about because no one ever really knows.  If you love yourself, if you slowly start to peel back the painful layers, you can expose something wonderful, something bright that others had no idea existed.

Rainy Daze

Whew.  I sort of fell of the face of the earth there for a little while.  Did I warn you that would happen?  Winter tends to hit me pretty hard, and my fall was actually pretty busy (playing Mario Kart and Super Mario 3D world on the new Wii... among actual work) this past year.  Ah well.  It's coming to close on February and it's time I dragged my butt out from its squirrely hibernation.  I can feel spring on the way, and it's making me super restless, especially on days like today.

Rainy days feel sleepy and slower than the bright sunny ones, and are perfect for curling up on the couch with a blanket, a book and a bottle (erm, I mean glass) of wine.  Some people like rainy days.  I am not one of those people.

I mean, I sure do like curling up on the couch to read.  If I had a fireplace, I'd like it even more!  But rain means only one thing to me; cloudy skies.  Where is my sunshine?  Rainy days toss me into a torporific depression.  I can usually get myself moving if it's dark outside and if I have strong enough coffee (which, thanks to my tenure at a coffee chain, I know how to make perfectly strong coffee).  When it starts to get lighter out, and all there is is a gray ceiling, I sink into a gray despair the exact color of the clouds, and cannot be roused from it easily.

Yesterday was a glorious day of sunshine and happiness, fifty-degree weather and playing outside with kids.  I had a great day yesterday.

This might seem like a metaphor, and though it is not exactly one, I can still use it as one.  See,  February kind of marks a special time for me.  It has been one year (ish) since I decided to quit my job at said coffee chain.  It has been one year of self-discovery, of learning to listen to my inner voice, and attempting to be truly me.  As you may or may not know, I decided to begin a gratitude journal in January of last year.  Each night, I would write down ten things that I was grateful for, either from the day or exactly in that moment.  Some things were silly and simple, like "piles of warm blankets" and "my cats purring next to me" and "grateful I don't have to wake up at 4am!"  I was trying to rewire my brain.  I had become stuck in a spiral of negativity and self-hate, and I was ready for a change.

It wasn't always easy.  Growth is one of the hardest and most painful things to do.  There are certain aspects that keep coming back around; I thought I had dealt with that issue (my self-worth), that it was solved and tucked away neatly into the corner of my mind.  I'd be glad and grateful and happy and relaxed.  Everything was perfect, and I knew that I was never going to feel bad ever again.  Then I'd get angry or hurt or feel lacking and all the neatly bundled issues would tumble off their shelves and I'd have to sort them out again.  While this gets tedious and frustrating at times, I have noticed that the more I have to put them back in place, the more I find that my issues are becoming more manageable.

It hasn't been a slow, steady upward momentum from last year either.  I grew in starts and stops (mental, emotional, and spiritual growth is just as exhausting as physical growth)  I am still capable of feeling just as rotten, just as angry.  But I have noticed that those negative periods don't last as long.  I have found ways of dealing with my emotions constructively.  Most of this is only doing things that I feel necessary (ie, showering, working, feeding my cats) or things that I really want to do.  For example, when I left my job today, I decided to come home and write a blog post.  I really, really wanted to do this.  And I feel a whole lot better even now than I did before I started writing.

Back to the rainy day metaphor.  I have a lot of good days (sunny ones) which are punctuated by some negative ones (rainy days).  But, (are you ready for some cheesy pie?) I have come to find out that while the clouds block the sun from me on the rainy days, the sun is still always there, smiling down at me from above the clouds.  All it takes is getting into the proper mindset.

Self Love

Do you love yourself?  Unconditionally?  Even when you're a spaz or when you make a terrible mistake or when you hurt someone's feelings?

How many of us can truthfully answer yes?

This is the journey that I am on right now.  A spiritual teacher suggested it.  She said the best thing that any of us can do is to practice self-love for an entire year.  Constantly ask yourself "what would someone who loves herself do?" when faced with decisions.  I decided to start on the fall equinox, which was almost six months ago.

How's it going? I am still struggling a little to get my intuition working.  Right now it feels like my ego and my inner child are two squabbling children who don't know how to share the flingin, flangin chalk.  It is exhausting trying to re-parent myself, to monitor my internal mood, to try to just do things that make me happy.  My ego has been screaming out for so long that my inner child has just stopped trying.

I think it's working, though.

I have so much more confidence than I did at the beginning of 2015. I'm starting to believe that I am worthwhile, that I actually deserve to be happy.  I know that I have a long way to go still, to becoming the person that I deserve to be, but I honestly cannot believe how far I have already come since January, when I decided to practice positive thinking and gratitude.  I can't even believe how far I have come since 2012, or even 2010.

The best thing I ever did was get out of a toxic relationship.  Not a romantic relationship, although that had its major issues as well, but a friendship.  Something that can be even harder to get out of than a boyfriend/girlfriend situation.

I think part of the healing for me is not pretending that I am some sort of saint or martyr for putting up with bullshit.  It was not fair of her to treat me the way that she did, but I also was not supremely innocent.  The biggest step that I made in my healing was to forgive myself for reacting the way that I did, to realize that I hurt feelings too, to realize that yes, I allowed it to happen. I needed to take ownership of that in order to be free.

I saw her, recently, at a mutual friend's wedding.  I had made such a huge deal about it in my brain, but Miss Toxicity didn't even come over to say hello to me.  She didn't acknowledge my presence. Yes, I was nervous, and yes I was worried, but I wasn't going to make a big deal about it. I got more worried about dressing up to go see my best friend the next day than I did about that wedding, because I realized that I don't care what Miss Toxicity thinks anymore.  And that is the most self loving thing that I could do.

Encouragement

I work with kids.  I have for a really long time.  While I do not have a formal education in early childhood education, I have learned some things through experience, through observation, and through research online.

I had an art program last night; my favorite program out of all that I have ever done. A friend and former co-worker came up with the idea for this program, so I can't take all the credit, but this program is brilliant.  Basically, gather a bunch of art supplies.  Like, anything.  Odds, ends, leftovers, whatever.  Set them out and let the kids have at it.  They can create whatever they want.

For some children, this can be daunting.  They are so used to being given instructions on how to do something that when I tell them they can make whatever they like, they look at me like, "What am I going to do?"  I give suggestions, sometimes, but a lot of the time, after the initial shock, they get right down to it.

Kids are super creative, be they two or ten.  They can use their imaginations like a pro, turn an old dowel rod into a wand, or a stirring spoon, or even a fishing pole (or a thousand other, more creative things).  The kids who come to this art mix program love it.  They always have a good time and head home with tons of smiles.  I love watching them try to work out the process of how they're going to achieve building that construction paper house, or make that foam Christmas tree stand up.  Sometimes they get frustrated, but there's nothing like the look on their faces when they finally figure out how to do something, when something works perfectly.

I get frustrated as an educator when children are in the process of learning, fail to do something, get upset, and then the parents rush in to make whatever the child wants, perfectly.  Granted, this normally happens with very young children (toddlers, preschoolers) rather than with school-age kids, but there are signs that this happens in these kids' everyday lives (they ask me constantly to help them glue something, or wrap presents, or say, "I'm not good at this").  I understand why parents do help; no one wants to see their child get upset, frustrated, throw a tantrum, etc.  But sometimes that blocks the learning process.  Sometimes we have to fail in order to see how not to do something.

A lot of the time I like to take a step back, especially with the older kids (6 years and up) and just watch.  If they ask me directly for help, I will talk them through, but in general I like to give minimal assistance.  They learn so much more than they would if I were there doing it for them.  Example; last night, a little girl built a house out of construction paper.  Another little girl came up and asked me if I could show her how to do it.  I told her the first little girl was a better teacher than I, because she was the one who actually made it!  One little boy wanted help wrapping up his creation (like a present) and said I had to help because he "wasn't good enough."  I told him I'd help hold the paper, but he had to figure out how to wrap, because how else was he going to get better than to practice?

I encouraged them along the way; there were so many creative pieces made from foam cutouts, construction paper, yarn, pine cones, boxes and beads.  Every time I saw a creative use of materials, I would say, "I see you being creative!"  Even if the final product wasn't perfect, or anything like I could make, why should I point out the flaws?  I would rather encourage these kids to keep going.  Demanding adult-standard perfection can be extremely daunting to a seven-year old (I definitely have experience with this... from the seven-year-old's point of view).

Now, I'm not saying that one should just leave children to flounder, by any means.  If they are really struggling, help is obviously needed, but don't go and fold the paper for them.  Try to talk them through the process, or show them an example of how it's done.  And always encourage.