Author: Andrea

I absolutely love living near Lake Michigan. Our apartment is right on the lake shore and it is so amazing to see the lake every day.

Living on the edge of a big body of water like this one gives us a spectacular view of the horizon and especially amazing sunrise views (the lake is in the East for us).

One thing I never realized until I saw the lake every day is the incredible array of colors that the waters take on. Some days the lake is one shade of blue, on others it is green or turquoise or brown or some combination of layers of each of these colors. I have never lived in a place that made me stop and take it all in as often as I do here.

I am so glad we made the decision to move to this apartment last year. As Spring and Summer approach, I am getting excited to go outside more often and enjoy our balcony.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

On Monday, April 12th we will need to go to the school building for work. Since last March, my husband and I have been working from home (well, except for over summer break). In the school district where we work, we were able to make remote work plans and work from home during virtual instruction. That is all about to end.

Except for a few days here and there, when I have reported to the school building for special work days, we have put together a pretty great routine. The best part of working from home has been the way that our regular routines, like doing laundry or cooking lunch, have fit so nicely into our work days.

Eating lunch every day together is such a nice part of my day that I am going to really miss. Being able to chat in between classes and during prep times has also been so great. I wonder what we can do to keep some of this feeling of checking in with each other when we are in separate places.

I am not really too worried about going to the school building. Luckily, we both will be fully vaccinated by the time we are back in the building. I think it will be nice to actually meet many of my new colleagues for the first time in person. And, it will be nice to be around kids again. (Even if the plan is crazy riddled with holes and will be crazy to implement well)

What makes me nervous right now are the small details that I need to figure out. After so many days in the routine of working from home, I have my morning routine figured out. Now, I need to start from scratch and figure in travel time. And getting breakfast and lunch ready to take with me. And putting on actual pants and actual shoes.

It was really nice to have a stretch of time in which we could have the luxury of working from home. Now, it’s time to get working on those routines!

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Echo de menos a sevilla. Nosotros teníamos planes el verano pasado para ir a visitar a mis suegros en españa. Obviamente con el pandemic en el mundo, no pudimos ir. Ahora no sabemos cuando vamos a poder visitar a sevilla. A mi no me gusta.

Probablemente vamos a ir para la Navidad. Hemos pensando en ir durante el verano, pero la vacuna allí en españa está muy retrasado. Mi suegro que tiene 80 años, finalmente va a poder ir para una cita en dos semanas. A ver cuando va a poder vacunar mi suegra. Nosotros tambíen tenemos miedo de viajar en avión durante tantas horas encerrados, especialmente con los variantes que están por allí.

Estoy pensando en la ciudad también. Sevilla es una ciudad encantadora. Quiero estar allí para pasear y visitar los lugares bonitos y comer la comida deliciosa.

Hasta pronto sevilla mia. Estaré allí lo antes posible.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Received second dose
Twelve hours later it hit me
Slept all day and night

Fatigue and achy
body did not want to move
Chills and night sweats too

Phew! Better today
Fever broke, not so achy
That was fast, thank god.

I did get to do my normal online work day today. Definitely still have fatigue, but I think that is now my autoimmune response to the immune system reaction to the shot. So happy to have the vaccine and to know I will be fully immunized before having to go back to work in the school building on April 12th.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Second dose Monday. Ouch. Chills. Tired.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

March is MS Awareness month.

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in September of 2013. It was a really scary and weird set of circumstances that led me to the ER and then to admission into the hospital that Fall, and ultimately to a diagnosis.

For me, the flare up that time was tingling and numb feet and legs. I could not walk straight and ended up in the hospital. Probably I was admitted so that they could take care of the work-up and get a neurologist to look at my case and talk to me.

After diagnosis, I researched and learned all about the disease. In MS, the myelin sheath, which is a protective layer around nerve cells, begins to disintegrate. The absence of this protection causes nerves to act up. This can happen to nerves anywhere in your body, which is why there are so many different symptoms and why it affects each person differently.

I figured out through my research that a few unexplained weird times in my life were probably other flare ups that had happened. Like the few months that I had really weird things happening with my vision and my eyes. I thought it was a weird side effect of some medicine I took. It actually was Optic Neuritis, which might have been triggered by taking that medicine.

Having MS can be scary. You never know what tomorrow will bring. For me, the idea that my cognitive functions might be affected at some point is the scariest. However, I was able to start a medication right away that seems to be working to keep my disease under control.

I have symptoms like fatigue, heat intolerance, digestive issues, sometimes mood swings, sometimes tingling or pain in different parts of my body, but I am usually free from relapses that impede my daily functions. For this I am thankful.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Earlier this month, I started a reading journal. I watched quite a few bullet journaling videos with reading journal set-ups and then I jumped in. I actually am pretty darn proud of some of the doodling I did to set it up. Who knew I could actually draw books and bookshelves so well?

While watching those videos, I ran across a couple people who mentioned the 2021 PopSugar reading challenge. I have seen the challenge in the past, but didn’t really pay attention. My reading usually has a kind of organic flow to it, as I hear about certain books or get recommendations, I add them to my list.

A lot of the timing of my reading in the last couple years has had to do with hold lists at the library. After having to purge hundreds of books when we sold our house, I am perfectly content not accruing another collection.

In an aside, let me just send a little love into the universe for The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (and her Netflix series). Now, the books that grace my bookshelves are treasures that bring me joy. They are not guilt trips of all the books I meant to be reading or might re-read someday.

But, I digress. This year, I decided, would be a year that I take on a fun challenge and look for books to read according to the categories. I loved making the pages in my reading journal where I am keeping track of the challenge. It is fun to think about which category some of the books I am reading might fall into. But the best part is the Facebook group. I love seeing so many posts about amazing books that people are reading. It sometimes gets annoying to see how literal people are with completing the challenge, but I love the literary discourse there.

Will I finish the challenge this year? Maybe. Do I care if a book that I am reading “counts” for one of the categories? Not so much. Is it a fun experiment that is bringing me joy? Absolutely.

Now, I am off to read. May you find little pleasures that bring you joy in your life!

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Yesterday, my 11-year-old puppy had surgery. It was a pretty small procedure in the scheme of things. She had a growth removed. The growth was on the outside of her skin so it was not super involved to remove it. However, it was a procedure that involved putting her under.

I had to drop her off at 9am and then we waited until we heard from the vet later in the day. He called at about noon to let us know that everything went okay and that we could pick her up anytime between 3-5pm.

We chose to go closer to 3pm. We probably should have waited until later. Carmela was so groggy and disoriented still. It was difficult to see.

What was really amazing to see was how my other dog just figured out that he needed to settle down and not be crazy. Usually, when they have been apart for any length of time, they both go nuts and get excited and start playing immediately when they see each other. Kiko just knew that this was not going to be a time when that happened.

He was so cute sniffing and trying to slowly approach Carmela. She has some stitches on the inside of her back leg, so jumping and running are out. Yesterday, stairs were just really too much work for her. So, I stayed on our main floor to sleep. I didn’t want her to try to get up the stairs by herself in the middle of the night. Between my two dogs wanting space on the only couch and just overall being concerned about Carmela, I did not get a ton of sleep. Most of the night I slept sitting up between the two dogs. Luckily, I was able to wake my husband up around 4am for him to take a turn. I slept hard for a good two hours and woke up ready for the day.

Today, my Carmela is doing much better. We still have to keep the cone on her to keep her from licking and she is still taking pain meds. But, overall, she is doing better. Now, to pray that the biopsy comes back with good news that we removed everything or that it was benign.

I am giving thanks for the amazing opportunity to be a dog-mom. Even if it means some stress and worrying and sleepless nights along the way.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Sometimes I overwhelm myself. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that often I overwhelm myself. This time, I am referring to my writing.

A couple months ago, I decided that it was time to take up writing again. Or more accurately, it was time to make writing a routine again. So, I signed up for Time to Write, with TeachWrite, and I started building a routine around writing. So far, so good.

Then, I was reminded in our sessions of many things that I used to do that I love doing. And then I started browsing on the Erin Condren website, probably because of a VIP email, and bought a few journals. I browsed on Amazon too, and bought a few more journals. There was a notebook that I was writing in, plus my planner and my teacher planner. I dug out my sentence-a-day journal and don’t forget the tracker for my nutrition and exercise information. I also decided that I wanted to work on handlettering, so I bought a workbook for that. And pretty soon, I landed squarely in the land of overwhelm.

I now am a little bit lost in that world. It stems from the perfectionsim in me. I think I am seeking out the perfect, most amazing way to be a daily writer.

It needs to be simpler. But I love all my different journals. So I am schlepping a tote bag around my house with me. The morning routine is to write in my planner and then to write morning pages in the notebook. At least that is established.

For everything else, there will be a time and a place for them. I just don’t know when or where yet. I love the idea of each guided journal I have. One of them may have the map out of Overwhelm, but for now I might enjoy being a little lost.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

I try not to let anxiety take me over. Today it won. I just have so many thoughts swirling and whirling in my head.

There were movers coming with some hand-me-down furniture, which meant moving some of our stuff out of the way so they could maneuver. I was nervous about it. (But it turned out fine)

Tomorrow my 11-year-old dog has a surgical procedure to remove a malignant growth on her leg. I know it is pointless to worry about things that I cannot control, but this dog is our baby…we have had her since she was two months old. I know I have to be getting ready for it, but I don’t want to face it any time soon. My fingers are crossed that when this growth is sent in, the edges are clean in the biopsy and we are done with it.

Yesterday, our district administration shared their plan for re-opening the school buildings. The plan has staff coming back much sooner than what had previously been published in the timeline for returning. And it brings up so many questions and I am just a big ball of anxious thoughts.

Oh well, I don’t often wallow in these types of thoughts and I won’t continue to do so. Tomorrow is a new day. I may need a good cry or a good run, but I will be okay.

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.