Status?

My soul is a bit heavy with disappointment as I look back at how little I have written this school year, this new year. It's one of the many things that I didn't take the time out of the busy-ness that is life to do. A regret. The school year started rolling and the To-Do's started snowballing, and then most anything that wasn't the "Next Immediate Thing Needing My Attention" fell to the wayside. Writing was certainly on that list. I am not going to be a martyr and proclaim that I gave so much of by time-blood-sweat-tears-soul to community service that I did not have one.breathing.moment for myself. That would be a lie. I read plenty (some good books that I also regret not blogging about). I watched plenty of my Reality Junk TV ("Total Divas" - a new fave). But when it came to anything that required creative energy, such as writing- or crafting- it just didn't happen.

I'm not being very "creative" today either, I am afraid. "Status" is a word embedded in our family culture. I am sure its origin roots to Jason's military background. But a text simply stating "Status?" (although irritating it may be at times) can translate to a great many questions and requests for information depending on the current time and activity, such as "Where are you?" "What are we doing next?" "How long until you are home?" or even, "Are you picking up Benjamin or do I need to grab him?"

Status too is, of course, a socially trending term due to the constant cries for its updates every time we log onto FaceBook (and some people on my newsfeed take that way too literally- updating their every.single,status, that is). So, as a fast-forward overview of the past few months, I have cheated creativity by culminating some Facebook pics and statuses that summarize the time sucks that have been my life.

Family can be a generalized term in today's society. I have my "school family" and "Relay family" and "Key Club family." There are those I have walked away from, both created family units over time and those that were genetic/biological. I only point this out to say that I purposely did not include the updates that related to the boys, because I wanted to save family reflections for another day... although these pics and blurbs do represent the many definitions of "family" in my life.


UPDATE STATUS:
Ah-mazing Kickoff for the 2014 Keys 4a Cure Relay for Life team. Laughs, tears, cupcakes, dance mobs. I am so very thankful to be at a place in life that I am inspired every single day.

Baltimore has been good to us! We swept the awards & are ready to head home. Thank you to all my Key Club alumni that helped build this legacy, Thank you to my Key Club parents that share your children's lives with me, and Thank You to Mr. McHenry who made endless round trips to craft stores & Wal-Mart & the school, and who opened our home to our second family week after week and night after night to make all this possible!

My favorite! Key Club teaches Leaders to fly, metaphorically... and literally!

 

Sometimes a Picture is worth... 10,000 words

 

This is what a Cure looks like! Getting the youth involved in Relay will evolve into a legacy of Cancer Fighting Super Heroes that will Finish the Fight!!! Queso, Chips & Relay Planning on the menu today!

 

Just starting to sort through Relay pics and this is my favorite right now by far... This encapsulates everything that is SoCo Relay "After Midnight!"

 

You just won Super Bowl, now what are you going to do? Go to Disney World!... You just finished Relaying, now what are you going to do? Grade Greek Mythology research papers!

 

Thankful for my well-stocked Key Club schwag closet that I could pull a coffee cup from. Thankful for school board gifted Keurigs right about now. Going to be a late school night ahead to make up for all the late Relay nights behind me.

Opened my laptop tonight and found a pile of letters from my Key Club Seniors (+1). Grrrr, dang these kids making me get all crybaby-faced before graduation!

 

Just a few snapshots. Memories. This doesn't, of course, begin to event step into the shadow of all that my kids are or all that they do to keep me busy. Since though, I believe it is inappropriate to friend students and am highly reserved in posting their pics on my Facebook page, here are just a few snapshots- that don't at all allude to depth of memories this year has been. 

 

Unfortunately my latest Update, sans photo (because a selfie just wasn't happening) was:

Is there such a thing as a Summer Flu? I feel horribly sick.

Friday was the last "official" work day of the school year. If all our work was done on Friday, in lieu of coming in Saturday for graduation, we did not have to return for Monday, what the calendar denoted as the "last work day." It is not unusual for me to fall behind on the day-to-day's, but between having lots of miniscule financial details to figure out for Relay (my team of 50 kids really "nickels and dimes" their way to $10k in 4 months) and feeling ill, I got nothing done... and SO much ahead of me tomorrow. I went to bed as soon as I got home early Friday afternoon and carved myself out of the sheets Saturday morning for graduation. I am so thankful to have another teacher offer to cover my "door station" for graduation morning and I slept in the Nurse's Office right up until it was time to march in. In retrospect, I should have just called out. I missed a graduation party that was important to me and thought I would be on the mend today, two days later... instead, I just have a slew of new symptoms that have me wishing I was just feeling flu-like and sleeping the day away again instead.

This is a rather ominous start to summer. A Summer "In Limbo" as usual this time of year, as I wait to learn if there are enough students enrolled in my summer school class to delay the break from school for another month.

Spring Break 2013

 

Spring Break is upon us - three days down, six days to go (weekends included, of course, because I want it to sound like as long of a stretch as possible). I have tried so hard to stick to my resolution of not being one of those people counting down to the summer or next break... or even praising the arrival of Friday. I don't want to wish my life away, and I try to encourage others (namely, co-teachers) to not do so either.

 

That being said, I am very thankful for the timeliness of this Spring Break. This semester has just rushed by; the whole school year has been a blur. And while the days are quickly passing, the tasks on my "To Do" list are not. So much going on... always so much going on. I should be a list maker, but the idea of a "To Do" list stresses me out; once started, I don't know when it could end.

 

Still though, such a list may not be a bad idea for this Spring Break to help me prioritize my goals for all this "free time." Oh yes, that is sarcasm - to the immeasurable degree. I am thankful for the timing of this break not to get away from work, but to give me a little extra time to catch up on all my work- at school, at home, and with Relay.

 

 

Save for a couple of loads of laundry, I have spent the greater part of my day from early morning until late night, planning a party. Exactly two months from today, about a thousand of my closest friends will gather at the high school's football field to Celebrate, Remember, and Fight Back.

Time is such an antagonist to me. It just slips right through my hands, like trying to grab a fistful of sand. I swear, it seems some days, like the more time I have the less I can get done. In a typical month, I can get the final details together to prepare for a Relay meeting in the small window of time between school and Relay.Today, with the whole day stretched before me, and having spent that whole day working on Relay, I was still scurrying at the last minute to pull things together and felt unprepared going into the meeting. This, in part, comes from my deficit of always feeling "I could have done more."

Of course, given the more free day, I did squeeze in a couple of abnormal Relay errands, such as running to Wal-Mart for meeting snacks (popcorn and soda for Disney movie trivia) and meeting with my former-Key Clubber-turned-Relay Committee Member for lunch to discuss fundraising and overnight activities. That former Key Clubber, who I affectionately dubbed "Radar" for his ability to know what I needed before I asked, actually paid for my lunch today. He adamantly refused to allow me to pay for it.

Oh, it is sad to see my kids growing up some days (but other days there are perks ;)

Relay for Life 2009

Last Saturday was the Relay for Life in our community. The K-Club had a team for the second year. Last year we raised less than a thousand dollars. I found out about the different contests on the day of Relay and I spent too much time, money & stress on those and lost focus on the whole experience... especially when it became obvious that the games were all just politics anyway with no "real" winners.

This year I went into Relay season with the attitude that our primary goal was to raise as much money as we could and not allow myself to get stressed about any of it. I did pretty good with that goal, for the most part- except for a couple of weak moments in the final hours. The team raised almost $3,000. We had the yard sale/ car wash plus did an in-school collection and the team members raised money on their own.

The theme of this year's Relay was "The USS Cure." We kept it simple using a tropical theme and I asked team members to bring any items they had to help decorate. NO one brought in ANYTHING. So, late Friday I gathered things from the Dollar Store and Wal-Mart. However, once pulling out all the decorations from last year's homecoming that I saved plus having some stuff Julie added to the cause, the only thing I even opened up that we bought was a tablecloth. The trick now is to make myself get around to taking the other items back. So... wasted money and stress.

During the Relay, we participated in some games, avoided others. But then, we were personally asked to make a team for the "Not so New" to Relay game. Justin and I teamed up and quite possibly could have won. We were given 5 (I think) questions about Relay, but then instead of guessing if we knew what the other person said, they instead, judged if our answers matched. I got a little tiffed, but managed to keep it in perspective.

I blog this now, so hopefully I will look back next year at Relay time and remember how right I was to focus on fundraising and not decorating or competing... and stick to that purpose even a little more next year. It's a good way to end the year. I am surprised that we raised so much in basically three weeks. I had to carry the brunt of the work, like with most things, but I am okay with that and am keeping my expectations realistic with the teens.

One of the team members alerted me there was a pic of Justin & me playing the game on the local newspaper website. I am surprisingly not allowing myself to be traumatized by this.

There is a lot of emotion wrapped up in the Relay experience. I really cheated myself out of most of it. The Survivor Lap, this year and last, made me teary-eyed. I think the most devastating this about cancer is its nondiscrimination. Sure, there are risk factors for certain cancers- like smokers are more likely to develop lung cancers. But for most, there aren't. Anyone can and does get it. The number and proximity of those people is jarring. Second to that, I think the way in which cancer is more outstanding than other diseases is the visible, physical battle it has with its victims. It's a war. A shaved head. A chest with a scar where there once was a breast. The uncertainty of a life-span. The coming out of remission when you think the battle has been won.