Love Letter

Dear CMS Family,

(I seem to be writing a lot of letters via this blog these days.)

I just left most of you at the calling hours for one of our colleagues.

Did I really just type that?

During this time, I hugged all of you; we stated our shock that we were even there; you said you "heard the news" and offered your congratulations; and then we guffawed at how much shorter my new commute will be, as though making this move to a new district was a no-brainer.

Did we really just talk about that at a funeral?

(And for my non CMS readers, I accepted a position at another school district.)

I walked out to my car with one of you, saw some former students on the way, and got into my car.

As I merged on to Ronald Reagan Highway, Landslide came on the radio.

I ugly cried from Ronald Reagan all the way to 71--and you know Landslide ain't that long of a song.

I nearly had to pull over as mascara flooded--and stung!--my eyes.

Now, part of this could be that I've decided to change nearly every aspect of my daily life in a very short period of time; part of this could be that I was mourning the loss of our Angie.

But more than anything, I was mourning the loss of all of you.

I have been feeling for the past few days like I just broke up with a boyfriend, and although I was done with the boy, I wasn't done with his family. I didn't want to lose the physical or emotional connection that I had developed with them.

I keep using the words "loss" and "lose," and to be honest, social media will never ever let me lose any of you.

What I will miss is the daily interaction...the smell of coffee in the office; the copy machine jammed at 7:05 a.m.; sneaking goodies left on the counter; begging the secretaries for another pack of post-its, or white out, or poster board, or five minutes of sanity; talking to my neighbors in the hall between bells about the ridiculous class we just had, or the latest glitch in ProgressBook, or what we are doing on Spring Break (because there is one this year!); the sign-up sheet for the holiday luncheon...and check out days; and the annual kick line to the Hallelujah chorus down the center hall on the very last day.

What I won't miss is the smell of onions on chili days.

Or waiting to pee between bells.

Or the roaches.

And there will be new coffee smells, and new neighbors to gossip with, and new secretaries to beg for supplies from, and new copy machines to curse at, restroom lines to wait in, computer programs to abhor, and holiday luncheons to make spinach dip for.

But there will not be your faces next to these things.

To say this CMS family has been dealt enough tragedy to fill an NBC dramedy (because we are a bit comical as well) would be absolutely accurate.

And what holds each one of us up is the heart and soul we don't just pour into our classrooms, but into each other.

Because that's family.

So many faces at Angie's funeral tonight that have long retired and moved on, and they come back because it's what you do when it's family.

I don't know that any other profession, or even building in our district, could possibly understand how close we are.

That connection...well, I'm going to miss it.

On a personal note, yet related, I'm not dealing well with leaving you. This is mostly because I don't take kindly to change, and I'll be the first to admit it. Little things, like a change in manicure, or a change in type of car, I can handle. But this whole life upheaval is freaking me out.

As you know, Greg and I left the first Kauffman homestead this weekend. We went back on Sunday to grab a few outdoor items, and to mow one last time, and laying in our (now former) side yard, was a dead cardinal.

The irony wasn't lost on me (non CMS people--Colerain's mascot is the cardinal).

One day later, we were running home from the gym back to my dad's house (where we are staying temporarily), and some of the neighbors stopped us.

"Look at this baby hawk," they said. "She fell from the tree. She seems to be doing okay...just trying to show her the way back home."

And again...my new school's mascot? Well, although not a hawk, a bird of prey: Eagle.

So when the Universe played Landslide as I left the funeral--and all of you--behind, the irony in how I was feeling in that moment was so palpable.

I've been afraid of changing cause I built my life around you.

I'm taking my heart with me, but I'm leaving every last bit of love for my cardinals.

Take care of each other.

Then again, it's what you we know how to do best.

Kristin

So long, Longbourn

Dear Z. Family,

I suppose this is a bit unusual, to a.) leave any kind of note to the new owners of a home and b.) to just go ahead and post it on a blog, too, but for me, this is essential closure on the walls and the roof that we have called home for the last seven years.

It's also a bit like writing a "Things to Remember" note to the babysitter...

...not to worry, there are no bedtime rules attached, nor emergency contacts, "no snack" lists, or remote control instructions.

Rather, I am leaving you the pertinent stories that these walls hold--the ones they'll never tell that should  be shared.

Let's just get started.

First and foremost, you must know about George.

We purchased this house from the McDuffies (George and Patty), who owned this home for a good fifty years before we did, and George was a biology teacher. The reason they converted the laundry room into a garage? George kept little alligators in the basement--one chased Patty to the steps and she told George if he wanted his laundry done ever again, he'd move the washer and dryer upstairs.

George also had a pet boa constrictor--Louise--whom he let have full roam of the house. He would start baths for Patty, and she'd go to get in, only to find Louise had made herself quite at home in the tub of warm water.

When we excavated the backyard a couple of years after moving in, we expected to find all kinds of wild animal skeletons. It was actually really exciting to start digging.

The best we got was a horse skull. In a garbage can. In the shed.

Not to worry, we've removed that for you.

George also collected license plates (aside from animals). When we initially looked at the house, every wall of the basement (and I literally mean "every") was covered in license plates. One was inadvertently left behind. We've left it downstairs for you. (We already checked--not worth much.) But it's a part of this house and its history.

George passed a few months after we moved in. Every once in awhile you'll get a note from a doctor's office that he's long overdue for a check. Have a chuckle that someone's not very good at record keeping, and don't worry about passing along.

There are also some miscellaneous items--highlights, really--that you should note:

• Spend as many summer nights on the back deck as you can. You can hear just about every Riverbend concert--especially when it's just a little bit overcast--and it is fantastic free entertainment.
• Reds fans? You can also hear the home run and game winning fireworks on about a 10 second delay as they carry down river. 
• The neighbors behind you in the little green house throw a spectacular Halloween party--we were never invited (I don't even know their names) but you should definitely befriend them because it always looked like fun (we're talking huge tent, tons of kids carving pumpkins, beer, bonfires, and fireworks).
• While we are on the topic of Halloween, you should probably only buy one bag of candy...unless you really like candy. We had about eight trick-or-treaters last year...including our own kids...so don't overbuy. 
• We have loved on nearly every inch of this house. Very few things are still from the various eras this house was built and added on to. As we rehabbed, we cursed poor George and Patty for making everything "custom." You just can't rehab custom...cheaply. So as you go and make your own changes, please know we made every effort to make your life a little easier. 
• Our street is always the last to get plowed when it snows. Cambridge is always fine--so don't look out the window and think, "Oh my gosh I'll never make it out!" You will. Just get to the end of the street. Also, Mr. Jim next door is pretty handy with a four wheeler. Not only have we seen him plow snow with it, he's also excavated front yards. He's pretty nice, too. He'll do anything for a six pack of Budweiser. 
• If you turn left out the street and walk to the end of Cambridge, there's a horse farm and a huge pond for fishing. Who knew? Probably not you, which is why I'm sharing. 
• Every once in awhile you'll hear what can only be described as an angry donkey sound. There's a guy up the hill who owns some pretty cool animals, including a zebra that he has tamed. Befriend someone who knows him so you can go check it out--go pet a zebra!
• The HGTV master is pretty spectacular, right? We've revealed secrets about our show in the paper attached to the DVD copy we've left--we decided you should see the full before and after process! 

Lastly, and perhaps most sentimentally, you are reading this on June 24th. In three days, Greg and I will be celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. 

We used the wedding money we were given to do much of the work on this house...the kitchen you are standing in while reading this, and that amazing backyard.

As a result, we held our wedding reception here.

All of our nearest and dearest friends and family filled this house and its outdoor spaces with love that night. They celebrated us and we celebrated love.

(The AC unit is also five years old...as wedding luck would have it, it died. On our wedding day. Before ninety people came to pack themselves in.)

As Greg and I pack our belongings, and I find myself tearing up on a daily basis, I hold in my heart that home is not so much the walls and foundation, but a feeling we carry inside ourselves wherever we are.

So in addition to that license plate in the basement, we left you a little something else in the fridge.

Crack it open on June 27th. 

Toast us.

Toast you.

Toast this house.

Welcome home.

The Kauffmans

Nemo

It's the last day of school over here, and while my classroom is ripe with the scents of Clorox cleaners, sweaty kids, and Sharpie markers as yearbooks are furiously passed around and signed, the sound that has filled the room is Finding Nemo.

One of my favorite Disney movies, it's what I chose for background noise this year--my sort of "You have to be quiet because someone might be trying to watch!" Namely, me.

And it wasn't until bell three that I realized the timeliness of showing this movie and my current emotional state.

About a month ago, Greg and I randomly chose to put our house back up for sale.

Daily vaccuming, dusting, scouring and toy-putting-awaying, and within a week we were sold, a far cry from our predicament last year.

We found ourselves excited about the potential of all that was available to us: do we go here or there? Build brand new or renovate an old farmhouse? Or something in between? Do we try a new area?

And then my questions got a bit more panicky: what about the schools? Will we ever find a gym like our current one? (I know, it's so silly--so silly--but it's our social hub, our kids love it, and I can't bare to part with it!) What if our new grocery store doesn't offer marinated sun dried tomatoes in an olive bar? What if we pick the wrong suburb? What if we pick a place and Will is bullied at that school but he wouldn't have been at the other one?

How can I possibly know that we are doing the right thing?!

And here's Finding Nemo: Marlin and Clara find the perfect anemone, and they love the neighborhood, and the next thing you know, a big fish ate all their babies.

I don't want a big fish to eat my babies! 

Why do I feel like someone might judge me for preferring manicured yards and pretty flower beds in the same suburb in which both Greg and I were raised?

Why is it not okay to love where you came from?

When I first started my yoga teacher training many years ago, and everyone was going around in a circle doing introductions and sharing things they loved, I shrunk a little with each answer given: I did not love kale, definitely not in smoothies; I didn't have a background in massage or fitness; I had never considered living on a commune; and I had no desire to even think about something called "vegan mayonnaise."

Instead, I sheepishly confessed that I shower twice a day and read People magazine and celebrity gossip websites and have an addiction to gummy bears.

That, really, is who I am.

It is that moment I come back to again and again to remind myself that it is more than okay to love where you came from.

To love who you are.

To be afraid of making "wrong" choices, when really it's not wrong so much as it is just difficult.

To embrace everything that makes you you, gummy bears and celebrity gossip, and manicured lawns, and hardwood floors, and plantation shutters, and flower beds full of tulips in the spring, impatiens in the summer, and mums in the fall, and PTA bake sales, and sending your kids to the same place you went to school.

Who is anyone to judge what we love, where we are comfortable?

So that's what Greg and I did: we embraced our roots, realized how much we love them, and we picked an amazing house that becomes ours in July.

And I keep the gym. And my olive bar marinated sun-dried tomatoes.

In the end, whether we made the "right" choice is irrelevant. "Right" is where our family is.

And a big fish can't eat us if we're together.

New Space

Y'all know I like to make lemonade out of lemons.

Our basement was like rotten squishy moldy lemons that may have even dried out.

In an effort to make our home more marketable, and to get a few toys out of the upstairs, Greg and I took on the task of finishing up a room in our basement. I told him it would only cost $150.

I went a little over (but not too terribly much--price breakdown at the end).

A little determination was all it took to get a fantastic new space (that, subsequently one day after finishing, my parents moved into).

Here's what we were dealing with in the "before" stage:

• painted concrete floors
• primed wood paneling covered in sticky tack (previous owner hung some of his hundreds of license plates on the walls)
• a hole in the paneling about the size of a dinner plate from when Greg checked a few years ago for a water leak
• mismatched crown molding and base trim
• seriously dirty stairs
• horrible lighting from two rickety, falling apart lights from 1982
• oh, and this room used to flood with heavy rains until we fixed the drainage issue two years ago

Dark, dirty, blah. And no daylight! We had our work cut out.

So, here's what we did:

• painted walls a fun robin's egg blue (cost: free--it was an unopened extra can of paint from a bedroom that I purchased four years ago; I just took it to Home Depot to have it shaken for free)
• put in four new can lights to make the room feel less like a dungeon basement (cost: $90--and labor was free; glad I married an engineer!)
• painted all the doors and trim, and the stairs, and added new door knobs to the two doors (cost: $61--$17 for trim paint and $14 for door hardware, $30 for porch and patio paint on the stairs)
• laid what is essentially a giant wall-to-wall area rug, with carpet off the big roll at Home Depot--no pad underneath, but soft enough for Reid to crawl around on (cost: $199. I won't go into the detail about how Greg and I laid that carpet down like a bunch of idiots who had never done home improvement before...but in our defense, the entire house is hardwood!)
• hung curtains to frame a mini "art gallery," which also conveniently covers that hole in the paneling (cost: $35 for curtains and hardware at Ikea)
• moved the upstairs play room down to the basement--all the cute furniture, easel, train table, art supplies, etc. (cost: free!)
• Total: $385

We have a few things left to do, namely hang the family guitars on the wall (Greg's idea) and move the cubby storage down there for the bins of toys (which are currently just under the train table). 

As I said before, we finished this project last Sunday, and my mom and stepdad moved in with us temporarily but indefinitely the next day. The futon is down there, and there is still tons of space for them and their three dogs, and Will and Reid to go down and play. Money well spent. 

My favorite part is the little art gallery--those curtains are so fun! It's such a cheery room now! 

Be Kind

Across the state of Ohio this morning, sharpened pencils and thick test booklets were handed out; stock rose in bulk sales of mints and pocket sized kleenex; granola bars were consumed in the thousands; principals joked that we had, in fact, reached "Def Con 1."

State testing began.

But this is not a blog post about the unfair money-making biased teach-to-the-test schemes of big government testing.

This is about a girl.

Since I am not a "core" teacher (math, science, social studies, language arts), I am generally given a small group of students to administer the state tests to: kids that need extra time, the test read to them, etc.

This year I was given one student.

Eighth grade girl, pale, freckly, should be a red head but she prefers jet black.

Loves bling-y jewelry and her hot pink cell phone.

Tall, slim, with an affinity for glitter-fied or sequined clothes.

Currently in the foster care system.

Be kind; for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.

This has been my mantra for her all semester.

She talks back, she murmurs unkind things, she is demanding, unreasonable, and she doesn't give a flying pie about French, let alone math or reading or history or anything outside her immediate need to feel loved, accepted, and to survive.

But she's fighting a battle. A life I know so little about.

During the practice state test about a month ago, when she was finished, I asked her about her life.

The details she gave were painful, and although I'm not sure they were all true, even if only moderately embellished, my heart still broke.

I thought maybe I'd softened a little.

And then she pulled out her old antics and I felt myself grow rigid.

She does more than just tap dance across her teachers' patience--she stomps on us.

This morning she walked into my room, and even though it was just me and her and two and a half hours of quiet, it turned into a little more.

My maternal instinct took over, and I spent those two and a half hours nurturing.

The heat was turned off this morning, so our students tested in classrooms that were about forty-five to fifty degrees.

I got her a blanket.

Her hands were getting numb.

I heated up hot water for her to wrap around a mug.

She looked at me half way through and said, "I don't want to do this anymore."

So we took a walk. She ate some fruit snacks.

And back to work.

When she finished the test, she did a few missing assignments for me, which didn't go far in the gradebook because she hasn't turned in anything this quarter.

And then, one hour left, no academic work to be done. What to do?

We talked.

And talked.

I asked her about food she loves, and her face lit up like a sunny day as she described what she was good at making (fish sticks and chicken nuggets).

I learned she just tried shrimp for the first time--pan fried without the breading--and she loved it. If she wanted to eat cheap she'd go to Steak-n-Shake, and if she wants a really fancy meal she would go to Red Lobster.

I discovered she loves steak and mac-n-cheese, and triple chocolate cake, but she doesn't care for rice, unless it's plain white rice with ranch dressing poured on top.

"My grandma taught me to eat rice that way."

A rare familial connection.

My heart didn't just soften; it melted completely, to watch one child full of so much anger and pain forget for a moment and beam. I think, for a brief moment, her face expressed a joy I haven't seen in the  four months I've known her.

I think, in that moment, she felt accepted, and loved, and cared for. All of her basic needs met.

At least, this is how I hope she felt.

The little assignment she did for me after testing was finished?

A rising sun.

She is my constant reminder to be kind.

Ode to the Burpee

People carry themselves into a hot and sweaty yoga class for a variety of different reasons.

Mostly those reasons tend toward asana--the physical poses themselves.

Maybe sometimes it's pranayama--forcing oneself to breathe, and stick with the breath when they want to hold it in--a metaphor for dealing with life's "tough stuff" off the mat.

There are six other really legit reasons to start a yoga practice, to walk into a studio, to unroll your mat and be present.

Four months ago, a teacher and friend I came to know through yoga opened up a studio literally a song and a half's car ride away from my house.

And here I found my mat again...reunited with my breath...reignited my fire and strength. 

And here, my teacher and friend introduced me to the yoga burpee. 

Burpee: noun. popular form of torture in boot camp style fitness classes across the globe. generally involves quick movements, elevated heart rate, and testing of stamina.

In other words, it kicks your ass.

Put a burpee in a yoga class, and you think, "Yeah, pretty sure Patanjali didn't intend for that to be a part of any branch of yoga." 

Oh but yes...it is.

When I request it in the class I regularly attend, or I hear her announce at the beginning we are going to do them, I get really excited--like, big-grin-can't-be-wiped-off-my-face I am so excited. 

I look around the room and the reactions of other students are more...smoosh-face-crinkle-nose-audible-moan-of-terror. 

But here's what a burpee does for me--for all of us. First, it's fun. It's like flying on a trapeze: jump back, rise up, jump forward, leap, repeat. You feel light. I feel free.

Second, it's a total in-the-moment thing. There is no room for your chitta, your shit, your bad day, or guilt, or stress. It's you and the next jump, the next breath.

Which brings me to three: you absolutely have to breathe. You inhale through power and exhale through release and you find the rhythm and move. 

And that's number four: movement. Moving is fun. Jumping and leaping are things we haven't done since we were five. You release expectation and you move. And when there is no expectation, you find yourself in a moment of pure joy. You smile. There is absolutely nothing serious about yoga...and good grief there is zero seriousness in a yoga burpee. 

Finally, at the end of a yoga burpee, you pause. Your breath is moving rapidly, but it's fire. And your heart feels like it's going to pound right out of your chest.

"Feel that?" my teacher friend says. "Feel that pounding? That's your reminder you're alive." 

Eight limbs of yoga or not, I come to my mat to feel alive. 

Toddlers & Teens

I am fortunate enough (although in the eyes of many, perhaps unfortunate) to be with children all day long.

I leave teenagers at the end of the day to go home to toddlers.

Two extremes, neither of which a parent will tell you is a "golden age."

I beg to differ.*

For every eye roll and heavy sigh and groan I may get from a thirteen year old, I can go home to Will singing, "You are the BEST mommy in the world!"

Even when I feel like I'm not.

For every arched back crying tantrum I get from Reid during a diaper change, I can walk into my classroom and hear, "Thanks for the help Mrs. K." (Because oh yes, teenagers can be polite. I promise you.)

For every time I bang my head against a wall at wrong verb conjugations and sentence order that makes no sense in any language including "Jibberish," I can go home and babble in Jibberish with Reid and sing songs about the moon with Will and feel my heart tell my head it's okay.

For every Will meltdown, complete with harsh words spoken by a little mind who is repeating and not understanding--meltdowns that test my patience, strength, and heart--I can look at the faces in the seats in my room and know that he'll probably turn out alright.

For every face in those seats that I know has seen pain unlike anything I will see in my lifetime, I can go home and squeeze those little ones and tell them how much they are loved.

And always will be.

Teaching--like parenting--is a job that can swell your heart so big you feel it will burst in one breath and then pull on the strings that hold it together in the next.

There is always a yin to the yang.

Choosing these roles in my life--best decisions I've ever made.

Sometimes when you're in a good place, you just want to share.

*at least today...I haven't been home yet to pick up Reid only to have him scream when I put him down, nor have I been witness to any Will meltdowns, and in my classroom today things went okay. So...there's that.