On His Own

Dylan and Jake check the mail outside their newly acquired apartment.

May 21, 2016

It's now been more than five months since Dylan moved out, leaving me with an empty nest after 27 years of raising three children. He and Jake found a place back in early May, just weeks before Dylan's high school graduation, and then they moved out during Memorial Day weekend, two days after graduation.

The guys have an upstairs apartment.

I had to bug them for a week or two before we all got together at their new apartment so I could check it out before they moved in. I was pleased to find that it was very nice and fairly roomy. No funny apartment smell. And the best part is that it's only a couple of miles from my house! Of course, the fact that it's upstairs combined with the fact that my knees have been problematic for the past year means that I don't visit them at their place very often. Luckily, they come over pretty regularly and, of course, I see Dylan working at Walmart often!

Dylan and Jake at the top of their stairs.

Naturally, I brought my camera along when I saw their apartment for the first time. My baby moving into his own place for the first time is, after all, a momentous occasion! So here are some glimpses at Dylan's new home.

They have a view of Rainbow Lake from their parking lot, walking distance away.

They also have a clear view of the old Lakeside Cemetery,

right on the other side of the driveway from their apartment.

Living room, with kitchen on the right.

Living room, with balcony beyond.

Jake and Dylan and the relaxing view from their balcony.

Looking into the kitchen.

There are two bedrooms, but I only took one picture since they're fairly similar.

The bathroom is much roomier than the ones in my house.

June 4, 2016: Time to move out, including this vast collection of shoes!

The fact that the guys moved into their own apartment on May 30th certainly does not mean that they were all moved out of my house on that same date. That took a little longer. You'd think an 18-going-on-19-year-old boy wouldn't have that much to move, but you'd be surprised.

You never realize how much stuff you have until you move!

When Jacob and Danielle got married (June 7, 2014) and Jacob moved into their first place in May 2014, it took months to get all of his big stuff out of my house. As for the small things, I was still finding more of Jacob's belongings here and there for the following two years. In fact, I took a bag containing the last of his things to him when we visited them in Utah this past July. At least, I think it was the last of it!

Drawers for Dylan's desk.

Taking so much time to get everything of Dylan's out of my house simply wasn't an option. I was intent on getting Mark (Dylan's dad and my ex) moved into Dylan's old bedroom as soon as possible so I could have my den back. That meant stripping the bedroom and closet down to bareness before moving Mark and his stuff in. We managed to get it all done that very first week. I found a few of Dylan's loose items here and there in the coming weeks, but nothing since. Success!

Don't forget to take all the stuff from the back of the closet...

June 5, 2016: I furnished the boys' kitchen for their wedding gift.

How their living room looks now, all moved in with some furniture.

Now, five months later, their apartment is lived in and furnished with an eclectic collection of hand-me-down, inherited, and newly-purchased furniture. I nagged Dylan for months to send me pictures of the apartment now that they've got it all set up as they like it. My knees (which are finally starting to improve recently) had gotten far too painful for me to tackle their stairs. He finally sent me these shots a few weeks ago.

Looking from the living room toward the kitchen.

I have to say that I'm very proud of my son. Despite his youth, he's very serious about taking care of his life. They own two cars (both paid for) and pay all their bills on time. They perhaps dine out far more often than their mother thinks is healthy (ahem), but they take care of themselves without leaning on us. And Dylan (Jake, too) is cheerfully willing to help out his dad and me in any way needed, whenever we ask. (As is his sister Sarah, I might add, who quickly came to my rescue when I locked myself out of my house two Fridays ago...)

I love these shelves in the hall, where they keep their books, DVDs, and games.

I'm proud of you both, Dylan and Jake!

Master bedroom.

Second bedroom.

Fall Is Falling

My favorite tree in our neighborhood is this quaking aspen

around the corner from my house. With even the slightest breeze,

each leaf shimmies as if the entire tree is glittering.

It's especially beautiful when the leaves have turned yellow.

Four weeks ago, when we returned home from our ten days of California vacation, we found that autumn had finally come to town and painted our leaves in fall colors. Officially, fall arrived on September 22nd, more than a week before we left town, but the weather was still fairly warm and the leaves were still pretty much green. During the short time we were gone, that all changed.

The leaves of the oak trees in our front yard turn a golden-brown.

October 12, 2016

Of course, we do live in the White Mountains, surrounded by tall pines that remain green all winter long. No matter how many oaks and aspens and birches turn colors, there are always plenty of evergreens still in the background. Nonetheless, our area is a popular tourist destination when autumn arrives, when the Valley dwellers leave the warm temperatures in the desert to come see the "changing of the leaves." 

The leaves of our neighbor's little tree actually turn to the coveted red.

Our local treescape will never look quite like those amazing fall photos you see from the northeastern states, like Vermont, showing forests cloaked in a brilliant variety of colors. For one thing, there's all that eternal green of our pines. For another, none of our native trees change to those deep oranges and vibrant reds. You do see them occasionally, in town, but typically they were purchased from the local nursery. Even so, our yellows and golds and browns are still beautiful.

How my favorite quaking aspen around the corner looked yesterday.

November 5, 2016

The sad thing about the changing of the leaves is how soon they give up and let go, fluttering to the ground. Here it is, just four weeks later, and the deciduous trees are now mostly naked. Winter is only about six weeks away. This week the temperature is finally dipping into the 30's at night, with a high in the 60's during the afternoon. The snow could begin at any time.

The two oaks in my front yard are bare, too.

Meanwhile, we'll keep enjoying what's left of autumn. There's just something about the crisp mountain air and the smell of wood smoke from the neighbors' wood stoves that inspires anticipation of Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas trees and stockings hung with care. I love this season!

So where did all those leaves go? Right here, covering my yard!

Orange Frog

Our team selfie at the Orange Frog Training on October 28, 2016.

Left to right: Daniel (district office), Mary (me, English), Rocky 

(technology director), Bill (math), and Theresa (orchestra, band, theater).

One of the things I will not miss after retiring is the endless district "training" we've been required to attend the past few years. Don't get me wrong; it's not that I see no value to an occasional training. I've attended many great conferences on topics ranging from special education law to behavior management for teens with oppositional defiant disorder. I always come away with new and usable ideas for my classroom.

However, our recent trainings have been what I call "rah-rah" meetings. Anyone who knows me at all knows I do not have a rah-rah personality. Oh, I can enjoy watching other people get whipped into a frenzy with enthusiasm over almost anything. They make me smile, they lighten the mood, they are fun to watch. It's just not my style.

Our most recent training, last Friday, was The Orange Frog. Provocative name, right? It's based on a parable by Shawn Achor, about an island with four ponds populated by frogs who've all turned green due to a disease known as the Thrall. Then one day a tadpole gets his legs and discovers that as a new frog he--gasp--has an orange spot. This, of course, creates all sorts of chaos on the island, but eventually he accepts his growing orangeness, which is tied to his growing sense of fulfillment, and ultimately the other frogs follow suit. The Thrall is conquered!

The basis for the parable is something called the Happiness Advantage, based on current research about the link between positive psychology and work performance. It was an interesting and even entertaining day. Our presenter from San Diego, Devin, was funny and down-to-earth. He even briefly addressed the needs of introverts like me. Most of these trainings make us non-extroverts feel like there's something wrong with us if we aren't comfortable with cheering and jumping out of our seats or dancing and singing in public.

There were still plenty of groan-worthy moments. Some of the hardest words for us introverts to hear are, "Now go find a partner who's not sitting at your table!" Flashback to the junior high awkwardness when you were the last one chosen for a team. (Thank you, Mike Caruth, for saving me.) Most of Devin's advice and many of the ideas generated by my team had to do with building connections with our colleagues, seeking them out to share energy with each other. Extroverts can't grasp the introverts' reality that spending time with people we don't know too well is draining rather than energizing.

My name tag, workshop materials, and potato soup lunch (provided

by the district) at our group's table in Orange Frog Training.

When our new principal joined our high school last year, he talked about how we "fill our buckets." For him, meeting often to talk about our successes, heaping praise, cheering and clapping, and sharing good news filled his bucket. "Give me some sunshine," he'd say. Meanwhile, he increased his expectations for the staff. He was upfront about it, telling us he wasn't going to ask us to do "this or that"; he was going to ask us to do "this and that." We were to stand in the hall between classes to greet students and "build relationships" (his catchphrase); we were to call at least fifteen parents each month (teachers at the other schools in our district were only required to make five calls); our lunch duties were tripled so that we had lunch duty every other week.

Meanwhile, no one ever asked me what fills my bucket. There's an assumption that we all get energized by the same fun social scenes and upbeat talk. Not so. First of all, social gatherings, from faculty meetings to potlucks, are almost painful for introverts. We enjoy small groups of people we know and trust, or one-on-one conversations in which we can really get to know someone. Empty chit-chat is both awkward and meaningless for us. So standing in the hall and handing out compliments and greetings to students passing by was not going to happen.

Maybe it seems strange that an introvert would even choose to be a teacher. For us, faculty meetings and committees are necessary evils. Phone calls home are hyperventilation-worthy, but we know our duty and call parents when necessary. Setting a quota we must meet feels like a punishment. But within our classrooms...yes, that's where our reward lies. That's where I come alive.

I work hard to create a classroom environment that is safe for both myself and my students. It's within the classroom, not the hall, where I successfully build relationships. Little by little, the kids learn they can trust me, that I'll do whatever it takes to help them be successful, that I'll always stop and listen, that I don't judge or discriminate, that I care about them as human beings. Those are my strengths. I don't need to be their friend. I need to be their teacher. By the end of the first semester, I've shared myself with them and they've opened up and shared with me. Students who never spoke during the first quarter begin to blossom and share their thoughts.

So what exactly fills my bucket? The gift of time. Alone time. I perform best when I have plenty of time to prepare for my classes and plenty of quiet time to reflect and plan. That's what energizes me. Maybe it makes me something of a loner, but guess what? It's okay if my needs are different from everyone else's. However, it seemed for a long while that my time was being stolen from me, that my needs were no longer being considered. Every lunch duty, every passing period spent in the hall, every meeting to share "sunshine," meant minutes and hours in which I wasn't able to prepare for my students' needs or reinvigorate myself.

At the end of the day, we each received our own little orange frog.

I keep mine on the shelf behind my desk.

Thankfully, the demands on my time have been relaxed somewhat recently. Now we can include emails in our parent communications, and our duty list has been revised. With the lessened load, my stress level has dropped and my joy in teaching has been revived. Let me also add that I like and respect every one of my high school colleagues. It's just that there are only a handful to whom I feel close enough to be comfortable in a large social situation. One-on-one is always good with any of my co-workers.

And so I survived another day-long training, enduring the awkward and enjoying the fun and the humorous. And there were some solid, usable ideas to take away in the end. And, in keeping with the Orange Frog message, a big faculty potluck was planned for yesterday afternoon, to build connections and camaraderie. Sigh... 

Our Orange Frog team drops a "Joy Bomb" on Diane at the district office and

meets up with a couple of other colleagues (Rocky was behind the camera).

Left to right: Mary, Judy (English), Theresa, Kay (culinary arts), Diane, Daniel, and Bill.

Twenty-seven

Celebrating Sarah's birthday, three days after the fact!

October 30, 2016

October has been kind of a crazy month. It started with our amazing and fun-filled California vacation, along with its attendant car and health issues, and it has continued in that challenging vein of trying to do too much with too little time while juggling all of life's little problems. And here it is, the very last day of October, Halloween in fact, and I'm only doing my second blog post of the month.

In keeping with everything else in October, my dear daughter turned 27 on October 27th, but our family wasn't able to celebrate with her until yesterday, October 30th. Still, in keeping with the "better late than never" philosophy, we made her belated special day count!

Sarah's gifts await her attention.

We got a late start since Dylan didn't get off work until 6:00, but then we enjoyed the dinner Sarah had requested: homemade bean and cheese burritos. Then, after enjoying an episode of one of our favorite Sunday evening programs, Once Upon a Time, it was time to open gifts.

Chris watches as his wife opens her gifts.

She began with her presents from Chris. Sarah enjoys coloring in those intricate coloring books that are so popular now, so he gave her a Harry Potter coloring book, along with a Walmart gift card and a bag of candy.

Then she moved on to the bag from her dad, Mark. He gave her a deep-rose, long-sleeved sweater and a beautiful, long-chained necklace with a jet-black pendant, which she loved. 

From Dylan and Jake, Sarah received the book Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children. Sarah and I had gone to see the film version together the previous weekend. When it was over, we looked at each other and both said, "Now I want to read the book!"

As for me, I couldn't find Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children, but I did find a spin-off from the book series, called Tales of the Peculiar. Then I guess Chris and I were thinking alike, because I also got her coloring books. One is based on the upcoming Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which will be in theaters next month (and we can't wait to go see it!). The other is Christmas-themed, which I thought would fill her with Christmas spirit as the holidays approach. 

Sarah with her birthday goodies.

And then it was cake time! I decorated the chocolate-on-chocolate cake she'd requested with glitter gel while she watched. (All it needs is a unicorn...haha!) But when it was time to sing "Happy Birthday," Dylan insisted that we must have candles. He poked around in the cupboard where I keep old candles and other decorations, and he managed to find a "2" and a "7," plus several regular candles, so we stuck them all in the frosting.

Dylan lights the candles before we sing, badly. See the brief video below.

We ended the evening with yummy chocolate cake and two varieties of ice cream, Sarah's favorites, mint chip and cookies & cream. It's always such a pleasure to celebrate the people we love, and Sarah...

WE LOVE YOU!

A Rough Start

Our family, at WorldMark Dolphins Cove Resort in Anaheim...finally!

Danielle, Jacob, Chris, Sarah, Mark, Jake, and Dylan (left to right).

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Our long-awaited 2016 family vacation has finally begun! We are all here in Anaheim, ready for a full week of good times in Southern California. So far, however, our start has been less than auspicious.

Jake, Sarah, and Dylan prepare to gas up Sarah and Chris's Jeep as we

pass through Phoenix on Saturday, headed toward California on I-10.

The problems actually began on Friday. As usual, I'd been planning this trip for months. I had the itinerary printed, the maps ready to go, the packing lists prepared, and a neighbor enlisted to take care of the house and the cat. I had to work until noon, but as soon as parent-teacher conferences ended, I intended to rush home and finish laundry and packing and any other last-minute preparations before we left the mountain to stay the night at my sister's place in Mesa (which would cut three hours off our trip the next morning). Since Chris had to work until 5:30 and therefore we couldn't leave until 6:00, I had several hours to get ready. No stress, right?

Mark fuels up Mary's Traverse in Phoenix on our way out of the Valley.

BUT...I got a call from my son Jacob at 10:30 on Friday morning. He and Danielle had also planned to leave their home in Utah on Friday and spend the night in Las Vegas before  continuing on to Anaheim on Saturday. However, 200 miles from home, their Nissan Sentra (which they'd purchased in January) developed engine problems. They nursed the car along at 45 mph in a 75 mph zone for fifty miles, until they reached the small town of Beaver, Utah. There, a mechanic diagnosed a transmission problem with a price tag of $5,000. Jacob didn't have that much money on hand, obviously, and there are no rental cars in Beaver. The nearest was another fifty-five miles away, in Cedar City. And they didn't have the $600 necessary to pay the cost for a ten-day rental and a $250 deposit.

Gotta love the interesting things you see on the road!

This shack-on-a-truck was at the Flying J truck stop  in Phoenix.

I spent the next several hours online and on the phone, trying to help them find a solution to their dilemma. There was nothing they could do for their car right now, so they needed a safe place to leave it for the next ten days, one that wasn't charging them. And since they've gotten rid of their credit cards and had brought limited cash, they couldn't rent a car, even if there'd been a rental company in Beaver. I considered making the 7-hour drive to pick them up, but where would they stay until I got there, probably around 2:00 a.m.? I was really stressing over their safety, as well as the frustration of every option we explored leading to a block wall. I cried a lot.

After fueling up, this was our breakfast stop in Phoenix at 9:00 a.m.

In the end, I sent them some money for the deposit and they nursed the Sentra along for fifty-five miles more, to Cedar City, where an Enterprise car rental was located. Then they learned that Enterprise doesn't take cash. And that Jacob's bank does not exist in Cedar City, so he couldn't load the cash I'd sent onto his debit card. Then they tried loading the money onto a prepaid card, but it was declined, just at the time Enterprise was closing. Time was running out. I cried some more.

Just in the nick of time, they learned that the man who'd loaded their card didn't know how to run the machine. Someone else stepped in and loaded their money on a new card, correctly this time. The man at Enterprise stayed open late for them, and he upgraded their little economy car to a Jeep Renegade at no extra charge, for all their trouble. So often, there is a blessing at the trial's end. They were finally able to drive on to Las Vegas for the night.

Mark, Chris, Dylan, Jake, and Sarah breakfasting at Jack in the Box.

Meanwhile, it was well after 3:00 before I was able to start on the packing and other chores I'd intended to tackle by 1:00. Consequently, our 6:00 departure was delayed until 7:30. It was 11:00 by the time we'd reached the Valley, dropped off Dylan and Jake at Jake's mom's apartment, and pulled up in front of Karla's place.

Despite the late hour, we enjoyed a good long visit. The kids drifted off one by one, but Karla and I stayed up talking until 3:15! I felt we connected on a level we hadn't been able to enjoy in many years. Then I slept pretty well on her couch and woke up just before 7:00. We drove away at 7:30 while Karla's family slept on.

A tire tech changes out my tire in Quartzsite, Arizona.

Although the previous day had been so horribly stressful, the new day looked promising and we were all excited to finally reach our destination. Everything went well until we were about forty miles out of Phoenix. We came upon a stretch of construction that slowed us to stop-and-go, and we noticed that my car was rocking slightly from side to side. I figured that it was caused by the condition of the road and ignored it. However, as we left the construction zone behind and sped along, the car began to shake. Again, I'm thinking, "They need to fix these roads!" Then we hit a section of highway that had clearly been improved recently and it should have been smooth sailing, but by now my car was shimmying so badly that my hands and arms were tingling and going numb. Something was clearly wrong.

I hadn't planned to stop until we reached Ehrenberg, the last stop at the Arizona-California border on the Colorado River, but it seemed clear we couldn't wait that long to check out the problem. We stopped in Quartzsite, seventeen miles before Ehrenberg, and discovered that my right rear tire had split. It hadn't gone flat, thankfully, but the split was so wide and deep that the cables inside the tire were clearly visible. It was after 11:00 on a Saturday and I was worried we wouldn't find an open tire place in such a small town, but we got lucky. Near the highway was a tire company that was preparing to close down for the day, but their tech willingly helped us out. The over-sized, expensive tires on my car are an unusual size (installed by the former owners) that many smaller tire places don't even carry, including this garage in Quartzsite, but the tech did change out our damaged tire for the spare "donut." He warned us not to drive faster than 55 mph, but said it would get us where we needed to go. The nearest city that carried my size tire was in Palm Springs, California, a full two hours away, even if we could have driven the 80 mph I'd been driving up to this point.

Mark, Sarah, and Chris at our lunch stop at Wendy's in Ehrenberg, 

just before crossing the border into California around 1:30.

And so we left Quartzsite and continued on our way. We stopped in Ehrenberg, as planned, to eat lunch at Wendy's and to fill up our tanks. I knew that as soon as we crossed the state line into California, gas prices would jump up at least 25 cents per gallon.

Jake and Dylan mimic Mark's usual "look-up-my-nostrils " pose.

Dylan took this picture of me, just to prove I was there...

The drive from Ehrenberg to Palm Springs felt like the longest drive in history. After staying up so late and getting less than four hours of sleep, I felt myself getting dangerously close to nodding off at the wheel. Eventually, I pulled over and had Sarah drive my car for the last hour before we reached Palm Springs. By then it was after 3:30. For us, the two-hour drive had taken more than three hours. Aargh!

Crossing the Colorado River, looking north.

The state line sign at the center of the bridge.

California's entry point. Until now, Jake had never been in California.

On the other side of the port of entry: "Welcome to California"

The tire store in Palm Springs was supposed to be open until 5:00 despite being a Saturday, and--thank goodness--it was. They had the tires I needed and jumped right on it as soon as we arrived, quickly getting my car into a bay and two new rear tires installed.

Finally, two new rear tires at America's Tires in Palm Springs, CA.

Cost: more than $470. This is becoming an expensive trip!

The techs at Americas's tires (apparently the California version of Arizona's tire chain, Discount Tires) told me that my two front tires looked almost brand-new, but both of the back tires needed replacing. I already knew this, of course. In fact, I'd made an appointment with my garage at home to replace my tires one week earlier. These tires are expensive, but I was supposed to get a big check for teaching on my prep hour, so I was going to use the extra money on tires. Then, two days before the payout, we were informed by the district that the bonus was going to be paid out differently and we'd have to wait longer. So much for new tires before the trip. Not only did the bad tire inconvenience us on our first day of vacation, but I had to pay about $40 more per tire in California than I'd have paid in Arizona!

Chris, Dylan, and Jake wait patiently for the tires to be installed.

On the other side of Palm Springs, we drive through the amazing "forest"

of propeller-driven windmills that power the town.

Sometime after 4:00 (when we should have been checking into our resort), we were finally on our way in a car that once again handled beautifully and moved smoothly. By the time we hit the 91 Freeway, the rush-hour traffic was horrendous and the going was slow, but we finally rolled into our resort right at 6:00, three hours later than I'd planned. Still, as they say, better late than never.

Traffic on the 91 Freeway through the Riverside area was bumper-to-bumper.

Very slow going and scary with the sun in our eyes.

When we finally exited at Orangewood Ave in Anaheim toward our resort,

we passed Angel Stadium as it filled up with fans for a big event.

Our vacation home at last! Our 3-bedroom unit is at the top of these stairs.

Jacob and Danielle had been waiting for us for more than two hours when we finally got there. In fact, when he asked about our reservation, the desk staff told Jacob that they had no reservation for me. They even double-checked. That was a shock, when Jacob called to tell me about it! I was thinking, "Oh, no! Not another problem!" Fortunately, I save everything. I was able to have Jacob check my emails and show the office staff my confirmation email, verifying that I did indeed have a 3-bedroom unit reserved for this week.

The view from our balcony.

It was such a relief to get settled into the condo and finally focus on the fun plans we'd made for the coming week. After such a rough start, things can only improve. Right?

The view from our balcony. I prefer the WorldMark Dolphins Cove resort 

over the Worldmark Anaheim resort, where we stayed two years ago.

Both are nice, but the Anaheim is more like a high-rise hotel.

Dolphins Cove is more my style, homey and lushly landscaped.

The living room of our condo. Notice the Hidden Mickey above the couch!

The door to the balcony at the other side of the living room.

I love this dolphin and sea turtle figure on the TV stand.

The name of this resort is WorldMark Dolphins Cove.

Kitchen and dining area.

Sarah and Chris's bedroom. Later that first night, we had the beds bridged.

Jacob and Danielle's bedroom.

My bedroom.

Mark grills steaks for our first night's dinner.