Days 373-379 Patio Dinners and March Madness Games

 The weather was so nice this week.  I definitely have spring fever.  (It was easier to create a week's worth of online content when the only place you could go was your living room.  May is going to be tough.) I also can't believe it is still March.  For real, there are three more days of this month.  April Vacation is late this year so it's feeling extra long and I'm dragging.  Thankfully, the nice weather meant we could eat outside and that's definitely one thing I love to do!

On Tuesday night, we had a ton of time to kill before the UConn game that didn't start until 9:00.  We went out for a walk and ended up walking by the patio at Gran Gusto.  We recently discovered this restaurant and it's just so good.  It reminds me a lot of Casa Portugal in that it feels like your grandparents are cooking a meal from their home country for you.  The food is delicious.  Nothing overly fancy, just perfectly prepared.  The owner is so nice and really cares about his patrons.  

After dinner, we headed home and enjoyed watching my Huskies move on to the next round of the tournament.  This team is so fun to watch and is just out there having fun!

The weather Thursday was phenomenal and the entire city wanted to eat outside.  We ended up having to try a new place because there were no patio reservations anywhere.  We checked out The Dial, a new place in Central Square.  Their back patio is the kind of thing I would have loved pre-pandemic.  It's an interior brick courtyard with Edison bulbs strung around.  There are a combination of high top tables and regular tables and a funky shipping container bar in the corner.  Unfortunately, it was jam packed (to their credit, allowable under current rules) and it made us so nervous the entire meal.  The drinks were great but the food was less than stellar.  The menu was super strange and the food was just ok.  I really hope that as we transition back to "normal" I can handle being around all these people again because it really was not enjoyable.

Like I said, we're deep into March and my kids have been dragging a bit so I decided we needed a fun day so we "went camping."  I love getting to do fun things like this, this year and my kids really loved it.

Friday night was perfect patio weather and we decided to head back to Gran Gusto because it's very and spread out and delicious.  JO got the steak, so well cooked, and I got the clam pasta special, delicious!  The pasta was perfectly al dente!

We woke up on Saturday ready to cheer on our Huskies!  My goodness, they did an amazing job!  Let's keep it up!

On Saturday we also ran some errands in Boston.  We wont' be doing that again for a while.  It was super crowded and so many people not wearing masks and with cases rising again, it's not worth the risk.  It was nice to see the daffodils sprouting up and it was a beautiful day to walk around.

Days 367-372 March Madness Begins

 March Madness is my favorite part of spring.  It feels so strange this year.  I haven't followed the men's season at all and when it came time to fill out my bracket I did a lot of guessing.  It feels weird not to be watching the first day of games at Parlor Sports, which has become a bit of a ritual for me. Having a personal day in March does wonders for your mind because March is like the worst month is school.  Obviously, taking a personal day this year isn't really an option because it would mean my kids would be alone all day and I don't feel right about that.

My week did not start well.  I've been worried about Geno all season.  I'm glad he had his second vaccine dose a few days before this happened.  It's helping him have a mild case and helped prevent him from passing it on to anyone on the team.

My Parlor Sports bartender sent me this nice message after the news came out.

Meanwhile, in the men's tournament....

And in the women's tournament, equity issues abound!

My bracket was looking good for a while.  It didn't last but for one day, I was in first place!

My class had fun celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a "virtual" field trip to Ireland.  One of my students got so inspired that she made us some holiday math problems.  I love, love, love these kids!

We also got to enjoy this Jesse Dee livestream on Thursday night. It was so nice to hear some live music, even if it was through a screen.

And in "we should all care about this" news, our Covid data isn't looking so great.  Wear a mask and stay distanced! 

 

Days 360-366 It's Been One Year (and I got my first shot!)

 This past week marked a year since the world shut down.  I remember walking out of school with my kids on March 12th and I just knew I wasn't going to see them again.  Looking back on that moment I wish I had thought to give them books and supplies to take home but everything was a blur.  I remember driving home and thinking, we don't have a coffee pot. I remember this feeling of waiting for this dark cloud to come down and envelope us.  We ran a few last minute errands, ordered a coffee pot on Amazon, and went to City Girl for a last dinner out.  City Girl is always a place we go to during snow storms to be cozy in Inman and it seemed like the right place to be on that night.  Everyone was somber and scared. When I think back to that weird time I just remember this feeling of chaos.  No one knew anything, no real information was coming out from the White House, and it was a whirlwind.

As I look back on this year, I know I am lucky to be able to say that it was actually one of my best years.  I can't believe how fast paced my life was before the shut down. There were some days that I barely had thirty minutes of free time.  I was multi-tasking all the time, thinking about lessons in the car, etc.  The shut down allowed me to refocus on myself and taking care of myself.  I've loved all the extra time with JO and the kittens.  I loved exploring new places in a quest to find safe ways to enjoy the outdoors.  I've also really loved teaching this year and I've learned a lot of valuable lessons that I will bring with me next year.  This book is absolutely beautiful and it really encapsulates much of how I have felt.

I am also sad though.  I guess disappointed might be a better word.  I'm disappointed that, as a country, we couldn't pull it together to do the right things.  Someone was recently complaining about the limited entries into stores.  Seriously? That is impacting your life so much that you can't adjust?  With the excitement of vaccines, comes the worries that some states that are opening back up are going to bring down all of the progress by letting variants get out of control.  I really thought when this whole thing started our country would respond the way they did after 9/11.  It was very much the opposite, but I think a lot of that had to do with who was in charge.  Just look at this picture of a restaurant in my neighborhood this week. 

It's fitting that as we approached the one year mark, I got my first dose of the vaccine!  On Monday I headed over to a CVS a few towns over.  I can't say enough great things about the work CVS is doing.  The whole operation was so smooth, although it was a bit odd to get vaccinated in the cosmetics aisle of a CVS.  I started crying when I got my shot. It started hitting me that I could really hug my dad in six weeks time.  Up until now we've done super quick hugs but soon I can give him a giant hug.  (I spent the rest of the week dealing with some side effects- mild cold symptoms, muscle aches, and some sweating/freezing moments.  I also couldn't believe how unbelievably hungry I was.  I guess my body is working hard!)

With the nice weather this week, we tried to get outside as much as possible.  From a picnic in the park...

to a walk around Fresh Pond....

to a patio night on Noir...

and random Christmas Tree spotting

and a patio lunch in Boston (it's nice that it's starting to feel safer in Boston because we've definitely missed visiting)

we definitely felt more excitement this week than we had in a long time.

It was also a great week for our country....

And for my Huskies (fingers crossed they stay Covid free for the tournament)

But a bad week for our state.  I've really been feeling down about how teachers are being vilified. It is not our fault that the country did not do a better job from the get go of making going back to school safely a priority.

Also, instead of looking at the past year as a complete waste, let's think about what actually worked because there were things that worked and kids that thrived and we shouldn't forget about that.

Days 353-359 The One Where I Got a Vaccine Appointment

 This has been a weird week.  My Facebook and Instagram memories are reminding just how unsettling this week was last year. It was the last real week before the world shut down but it was also a week filled with uneasiness.  Grocery stores were empty, you couldn't find cleaning products, and I was having my kids wash their hands so much.  I remember having tickets to the ballet and really going back and forth about if I should go or not.  I ended up going because I felt like it was my last chance to do something before things got worse.  The whole time I was there I was nervous about being around so many people.

Monday was a bad day for us. School and work stress on top of other stress, including states saying they are just going to open everything up, was just all too much so we popped open a bottle of bubbles and "went to Palm Springs" for the night, courtesy of Modernism Week.  (God, I miss Palm Springs.)

On Monday, I also got my 250 class badge from Open Fit!  I am so proud of myself for committing these classes instead of spending even more time on the couch.

On Tuesday, President Biden intervened in the teacher vaccination debate and stated that teachers needed to be vaccinated.  This allowed CVS to make teachers eligible for the vaccination on Wednesday since they are given their doses straight from the Federal Government and not the state.

 

So I woke up on Wednesday to lots of messages that CVS was now accepting teachers for appointments.  Let me tell you, trying to get a vaccination appointment is like trying to win the lottery on purpose.  The Governor later said that teachers would be eligible on 3/11 but I didn't think it was a good idea to wait for the state system.  I woke up at 5:00am on Thursday and could barely read my computer screen through my blurry eyes.  It was saying there were appointments but the CVS site was crashing.  I tried for thirty minutes before falling back to sleep only to be woken up by Rainier around 6:20.  He was hungry so he was hitting me on the head.  I grabbed my computer and refreshed the screen.  Guess what? I got an appointment.  I was typing so fast and everything was blurry so I wasn't convinced it went through until I got the text message confirmation on my phone.  I am so fortunate to have this appointment.  

I spent the next few days working hard to get appointments for friends.  I've become a bit of a vaccine wizard and I'm very happy to share my tips and tricks with others.

The last few days I've seen some of my teacher friends posting that they got their shots and the sense of relief is obvious and deserved.  I am so happy for them.  This week my dad also got his vaccination.  He was so excited. You could hear the relief in his voice.  He's been so strong through all of this but I know he's counting down to when we can "real hug" and so am I.

This weekend we celebrated my birthday by watching the ballet.  I love these virtual experiences.  They are not the same as going to the ballet but it is just so nice to have a moment with art and this one was much needed.

We also took some time to get out and walk around Boston on this sunny Sunday.  We did a little walking tour of Beacon Hill.  We talked about how crazy this summer is going to be.  The city is going to be alive again.  We ended the day with lunch outside at the Smoke Shop.  The pandemic has certainly made us hardier.  Look at us dining outside in 30 degree weather!

As we approach the one year mark I've been having lots of feelings like I'm sure a lot of us are having.  For now I'm focusing on the gifts this last year has given me and thinking about how I can carry the lessons I've learned over to my future return to "normal."  I guess I hope we don't return to the old normal. I hope this whole thing will lead to a "new normal" because "old normal" wasn't great.  A teacher posted this this week and it really resonated with me.