Fridays ARE Fantastic: The Return to Open Concept

I've been making a new welcome sign each week. It's brings me joy. That is all.

So, what can I tell you . . .

As you are literally reading these exact words that I am typing, I am sitting in bed and drinking coffee before seven on a Saturday when the world is pretty quiet. This brings me so much joy after an arduous three-day week (it really wasn't arduous-- this week was kinda fun).

First Off, Lemme Me Explain How This is Working

I mostly write on Saturdays and Sundays, with a little time sprinkled in during the week. So, most of what I'm sharing is almost two weeks old. That felt like an important detail in regards to context.

Open Concept Education

I live in Texas. When temperatures drop into freezing, things go a little haywire because winter is pretty inconsistent. Anyway, we had a freeze, everyone stayed home, and my employer ran the heat full throttle, I assume to keep the pipes from busting, which isn't the worst idea in the universe, as long as we're not worried about the whole power grid issue that I'm not pretending to understand.

No pipes broke in my building, which is awesome. That said, we returned to school as soon as the ice had thawed and interestingly enough a portion of the upstairs was clocking temps at ninety-five degrees of dry heat. I was surprised how long that part of the building took to cool down because even on Friday it was pretty toasty.

So, I hosted between five and eight classes all week in the library (plus we checked books in and out as well). This went well and had very little to do with me and more to do with the teachers finding a spot, keeping their spot, respecting their environments, and keeping up with business as usual. It made me think of my own Reagan-era education in the open-concept elementary school, which is NOT A THEORY ANYONE NEEDS TO REVISIT, but was kind of nice to experience for three days that, again, NEEDS TO NOT HAPPEN AS AN OVERALL BUILDING REDESIGN.

So yeah. Sometimes those little pivots evolve into some pretty good learning for no reason other than mixing it up a little bit.

Two Weeks Into Factor Lunches

As I mentioned before, I made the decision to fully abandon about a third of my domestic tasks as a means of keeping my kitchen clean.

Pro: My kitchen is clean. Even on a Saturday morning, when I typically do most of the full-throttle housework, my kitchen is about as close to spotless as I can expect it to be without a complete personality change, or hiring help.

Con: My grocery bill is up roughly fifty bucks a week. I can afford the hit, so I'm going to pretend this doesn't bother me.

Pro: Waaaay less takeout. So, if I included the takeout during the weeks when I one-hundred percent have given up on life (it happens about once every six weeks), then we're probably closer to even regarding food expenditures overall.

Pro: The meals are pretty good.

Con: For me it's about a six on the tricky scale regarding this-is-what-I-have and do-I-need-to-skip-next-week-because-of-a-surplus conversation. It's manageable though and I think ultimately I'll have it figured out sooner rather than later.

Pro: You can freeze them.

Con: I froze a pasta one. It probably wasn't the best choice to freeze.

This system will be revisited the week of spring break.

Dinner Music

# 174 The Harder They Come: Original Soundtrack: Remember, the rule is I pick the page and select from whatever is on that spread of two pages. In this situation, I chose between this, Nirvana, Simon and Garfunkel, and Sonic Youth. The other rule is I'm supposed to pick something unfamiliar to me. So it's a reggae night.

According to the book, this 1972 album "took reggae worldwide". I typed this nodding my head rhythmically.

# 10 The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Lauryn Hill: "I wanna hear thickness of sound." I thought that was an interesting thing to say about music. Lauryn Hill apparently was involved in every facet of the recording process-- also John Legend did some piano work

The Thing I Learned About Technology and Overall Health

I bought an Apple watch in March of 2021 because I had some credit card points about to expire and I was momentarily depressed and needed something to bring me joy. (One of these days I'm going to share this story because it has some value. Not today though.)

Almost three years later, I've gotten over changing out the bands to go with the wardrobe, but I am still fully committed to putting on the watch as soon as I wake up.

Consequently, the thing knows me pretty well. Shockingly well.

And with that, I have to go before I get a nagging "stand up alert". Time to move!