breathing through school decisions, summer, and a last Minute Zoom Reading

Well, August is upon us, folks. Just yesterday my kids' school district announced its back to school plan. They're trying hybrid for elementary school, and distance learning for all others, reassessing at the grading period. They did a thorough, comprehensive job trying to take everyone into account, but of course, there are still a lot of unhappy parents. It's a crummy situation no matter how you slice it. Since one of my kids will be distance learning anyway, I'm opting to do the same for the elementary schooler. I'm grateful parents have that choice, and that it can be reassessed at the grading period as well. I have a background in teaching and work from home, so I can do this. Deep breath...

In more upbeat news, we did manage to visit my parents, camping out in the yard to keep social distancing. We lucked out with gorgeous weather, no swimmers' itch in the lake, a house without forced air (less air movement to spread Covid?), and a basement for the occasional rain delays complete with a working VCR and every Disney VHS my siblings and I had growing up. It was wonderful but exhausting, and we're going back next week. Deep breath...

I've got a positive social media story to share. I end up friending a lot of people who I wouldn't see often in real life, if at all. That's the beauty of it, right? But as of late, I find myself in a scroll stupor, feeling anger and despair at the viewpoints of some of my fellow Americans.  So when I got a last minute, out of the blue message from someone I don't interact with much, I didn't know what to expect. Her values align with mine, and I wasn't worried, but I've been getting weird spam/copy and paste stuff a lot. Hooray, this was a fun message! I learned about her virtual girl scout troop, the first of its kind, with members from all over. Could I read my book to the group? Heck, yes! My dog even got some camera time, as he was the inspiration for the dog in the story. Yes, I was a bit rusty and felt somewhat awkward. But a took a deep breath...and it was fantastic.