Thanks to all who have responded. I feel like I need to just come read this thread every day to remind me of what I DO have control over!

I've always been so amazed by your diet, @Selkie! Like @Jaybee, I'm interested to hear about your basic plan. Even more, I'm interested to know how you SOURCE all those delicious veggies!

When I was teaching, my colleague in sixth grade would buy misprinted pencils from Amazon for our students. No way could we afford Ticonderoga for them to use, abuse, and lose! 🤣

My sincere condolences

I'm going to try this--not just THINK, DO.

Thanks! I've had a grand total something like 5 different counselors over the years (maybe more!), and because I'm well-versed in mental health *talk* (& I'm very verbal), I think they have all more or less assumed I have it covered. It's not the KNOWING, it's the DOING that I need help with. 😩

I bet his customers have a difference of opinion! 🤣🤣🤣

So true. This reminds me of Julie Bogart's "There's no such thing as an educational emergency."

THANK YOU! I love a list! I'm going to screenshot this. I have been working out (weights, mostly) with a personal trainer two days a week (not enough, but all the budget allows). I can often push through and make myself also take a 2 mi walk with an audiobook, but so far this week I haven't been able to do that. I ALWAYS feel better after my weight training, though.

Thanks, @Rosie_0801. I do find this suggestion helpful! Sometimes I get so in my head that I find it hard to read (& reading is one of the few constants in my life! I mean, I'm a librarian! 🤣). This is a great reminder that making the effort is worthwhile! And I DO need to give Pratchett a try! Which novel do you recommend as a good first experience?

Thank you. I actually read a quote by him yesterday. I will look into this.

This is beautiful. Seriously. What a gift.

Life has been very heavy for me lately. I recognize I have a very depressed/negative outlook. Besides medication (which I have no problem with, as needed), what have you done to see the world and your life more positively? I'd like to hit this from all sides.

Here, hear to the graduation cr@p! I have back-to-back seniors. Why must we have two of everything??

I'd have said we largely fit the stereotype, but in retrospect I should've pulled the plug and sent our eldest to school several years before she went. From the outside, no one would probably have seen the angst, but it was there. I think our relationship suffered because we left it at status quo for too long. All that to say--Not all that glitters is golden.

This is probably a case of **fools rush in**, BUT--having recently taught at a school where I'd say AT LEAST half of the parent contacts I attempted resulted in radio silence (& there were more than a few attempts made!), a well check would not be completely out of line if even the counselor got no response. We had plenty of children whose living situations changed frequently, so even an "up to date" address wasn't necessarily up to date, much less a phone number. Well checks were in order for the child's well-being occasionally because all other attempts at contact resulted in nothing.

I DNF'd both Midnight Library and Lessons in Chemistry. I also don't have a hard time abandoning books!

I DNF'd the Walls book, mostly because it was an unprocessed large print copy from the library where I work and I needed to get it back so someone could actually read it instead of using it as part of the book-stack/decor on the bedside table. 🤣. I think it was a little disappointing to me because Walls' memoirs are SO good and compelling, but her fiction seems under-developed style-wise. I did enjoy the plot but just didn't feel compelled to pick it up. Anne of Avonlea. Swoon.

One of my last memorable experiences as a teacher (I quit in December to be a full time children's librarian, which is what my masters is in) was being yelled at over the phone by an irate parent who was mad at me because her son had cheated and gotten a zero on an assignment. She wanted to blame me for it, thought it 1.) wasn't the first time he had cheated that school year (which I had "given him grace" for) and 2.) wasn't the second time he had ever cheated (he did it the year before, too). I had entered a note in the online gradebook detailing why he had gotten the grade, and she was MAD (& hadn't actually read the note when I entered it 🤷🏻‍♀️). Thankfully, this was a private school and my admin intervened when the irate parent came to the school so that I didn't talk to her face to face. I was shaking when I got off the phone with her. ETA: I finally more or less hung up on the parent after I told her that there was nothing more the phone call could accomplish. I was NOT going to give in and take the crap because her son was a liar and she didn't check her email!

I will say that the challenges abound even as they get older (I have a college freshman and a high school senior right now, in addition to younger children). I am a very relationship-oriented person, and I still have to remind myself (sometimes daily!) that it's not about me. Julie Bogart of Bravewriter has helped me immensely with this part of parenting.

This is wisdom.

This was actually my thought when I saw it earlier--I'm pretty sure I've eaten canned pineapple like this before. Then I began to worry about my own decision making process.

I say good news is good news!

Well, I'm as far from a hockey fan (or really, any kind of sports fan) as can be, I think the video is cute and clever!

Changing jobs--from classroom teacher to public children's librarian--I have enough interactions with kids to keep me happy, I am surrounded by books all day, and I get to help support parents in early literacy, etc. I don't do lesson plans and rarely take home work. I DON'T GRADE PAPERS! I have Babytime today! 😍