Friday night we had a nice chill evening. The weather warmed up enough, sort of, that I took Charlie on a really long walk after work and talked to my dad on the phone. (It was not “warm” but better than it’s been.)
Then I ran out of time to shower (I never showered in the morning! I had no on camera meetings for work and just was lazy…) and so I ended up putting on a very cozy winter outfit to go out for dinner with Ivan. Luckily restaurant is casual.
We shared a big quesadilla with cheese sauce and guac and rice on the side.
Last week I wrote a post titled “Swim’s over” but I guess technically I lied. HIGH SCHOOL swim season ended for Asher last Saturday, but Monday night he jumped right back in the pool again with his club team.
He practiced all week with them and has the end of season Regionals meet this weekend. Since our team co-hosts, I have to (you know it!) volunteer.
Fortunately, the new volunteer coordinators (well, they’re not so new anymore, but the two women who took over for me when I quit a couple years ago now) put me on the Volunteer Check-In at the Volunteer Table! Perfect. It’s easy (really only a big rush at the beginning when everyone checks in, and then again at the end when everyone turns in their name tags, etc) and allows me to watch the whole meet in peace in between. The hard part about the Volunteer Table would be ALL the work that goes into preparing for the meet, but lucky for me, that’s not my job anymore.
Asher’s age group swam in the p.m. session, so we had to leave home around noon. Asher drove us there- his first time driving on the bigger interstate. It can be super busy but at noon on Saturday luckily was actually pretty quiet. Good first experience. He did well!
I feel like Asher has had WAY less driving experience now 2 months in than Ethan did at this point. But, I guess Ethan got his temps in July, versus Asher’s December. We had a lot more free time with Ethan in the summer to drive. With Asher, I literally feel like he has just driven back and forth to the high school 9,246 times. Haha. He’s been so busy with swim + school that there just hasn’t been a lot of opportunity.
He did have one behind-the-wheel driver’s ed session so far a few weeks ago and he got good feedback. But I feel like he needs a lot more practice yet, obviously. Hopefully now with swim ending and no high school spring sport for him (besides club swim), we should have some more time. And of course, summer will be approaching after that.
The meet itself went great! He got best times in all of his events! He wasn’t sure, since they tapered for High School Conference over 2 weeks ago now, so he thought maybe his taper was stretching too far by this point. I guess not, because he swam really well.
He has 3 more individual events this afternoon + a relay and then he will be on a full break from swim until the beginning of April!! I’m thinking he’ll probably hit the gym to do some weight training in between.
It was a long afternoon- we arrived by 12:30, the meet didn’t actually start until 2:05 p.m, and we didn’t leave for home until 6:20 p.m. We picked up a pizza on the way home and watched Ted Lasso x2 with the boys.
I have not done anything much “productive” this weekend, and probably really won’t. But oh well.
Some of my new year’s habits/goals fell off pretty hard this past week (and I missed several workouts!)… no great excuse really besides just sort of feeling tired and choosing other things a few times. Again, oh well.
However, I do want to regroup this week! Less than one week left in February!
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful that Asher was happy with his swim times yesterday.
GRATEFUL KAE 
It’s nice to have a chill weekend. We did our normal swim, grocery shop, errands rigamarole on Saturday and then spent a bit of time working in the garden trying to get the garden waste bin full for this week’s collection (every 3 weeks). Got the trees trimmed back and a pine planted in the ground. I was hoping to replant all my houseplants today, but it’s really windy and I don’t fancy doing it outside with the soil flying in my face, so next weekend.
I’ve got 2 more teaching days ahead of spring break, and I’m so ready to be done. Teaching feels demoralising these days, it feels terrible to work so hard at prep when 20/70 show up… I’ve broadly kept up with teaching but I’m so incredibly behind on everything else so I’m looking forward to 12 days without travelling to campus. It’s like a ton of tasks that in reality would take me 15 minutes each, but I’ve not actually had the willpower/focus to deliver those 15 minutes.
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Wait, are you saying only 20 out of 70 students show up for the class?! That seems crazy! How do they cover the material then? That seems very concerning and would be incredibly frustrating! Is there any consequence for those who don’t go?
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Yep, I had 6/21 in my seminar group and I suspect attendance will drop even further as assessments are due. Mandatory attendance went away with Covid and it’s gotten so, so bad. I’m trying to have sympathy for students dealing with financial instability or MH issues, but I do think they are compounding the problems by not showing up.
I never have the Sunday scaries but am dreading this week, because its embarassing when attendance is bad? I know I’m not a bad teacher, but it feels like you’ve thrown a party and everyone no shows? And what’s the point of all the work I put into prepping really engaging teaching and in-class activities?
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Asher‘s birthday falls into a tough time of year to really jump into driving. It’s a lot easier to jump into practicing driving in the summer when the road conditions are excellent! So I bet he’ll log lots of hours once we are in a nicer season of the year. I would be super nervous about letting a new driver drive on snowy, icy roads! I mean, I’m nervous to drive them!
Phil came down with a stomach bug on Friday night that has sort of thrown on our weekend off. I really thought we were in the clear since Paul got sick over five days before Phil got taken down. I’m glad it happened on the weekend and while I was around to hold down the fort.
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Go Asher! Sounds like a great meet.
i love that you and Ivan go out for dinner so often, I’d love to go out more often, especially when the kids are older (it used to be one of Al and my fave things to do). I’m curious what did you do when the boys were younger? Take them along or hire a babysitter or just not go out as much?
our weekend was quite busy on Sat with kids party and out for dinner at our neighbours, but super quiet yesterday tidying the house and prepping the week ahead. Just the right balance for me 🙂
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I know I’ve only been reading your blog for a few years, but HOW IS ASHER OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE? This is boggling my mind.
What’s even more boggling is we’re only 2 years away from having a potential teen driver in our house (you can’t get your beginners until 16 in Canada; I feel like at in at least some states you can do some things at 15?).
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You know, if I spent an entire day volunteering at a swim meet, I would say i was good for the weekend. I mean- you do WORK during the week, you deserve a little free time. Congrats to Asher! So swim starts again in April? I guess it’s good to have a little break, but I know he’ll miss it.
Sounds like a really nice weekend overall!
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Do you feel anxious when sitting besides driving kids? I would. Hahaha… I’ve never volunteer at swim meet up, my bad, because I feel my brain wouldn’t work well in that context for some reason. I feel terrible at the time though when other parents are doing things for the meet up.
Asher is growing fast!!! And developing some real muscles of a swimmer.
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