COVID 2025: my third rodeo

Hey there strangers, how have you been? I guess it’s only been a week, but I feel like I’ve been down in the pit of COVID forever, you know? But now that I’m mostly out on the other side, I’m restless, but still not allowed to push myself, so you get a blog post since I’m back to being able to handle screentime. 

So, COVID. 

 How did it go this time? 

This was my third rodeo (the other two acquired in travel scenarios in 2022 and 2024) and my worst one for how I actually felt. I think I've kept with recommended boosters pretty well. My last shot was December 2024.

 I don’t know how I caught it. I work from home, so I don’t interact in close quarters with many people. I wasn’t traveling or spending time with anyone obviously ill, but I did go to a cooking class and go grocery shopping last weekend, so those are my best guesses.

Monday: Woke with a bit of a sore throat and stuffy head, but ignored it. After all, “stuffy head” is almost my natural state with seasonal and dust allergies and tired is sort of normal for me too, between being over 50, parenting young adults, and perimenopause. It’s everyone’s favorite game of “Am I sick, or is this just how life feels now?”

I went about a very busy day of work, taking the Kiddo’s bestie to a farewell breakfast (they're leaving for college), and taking the Kiddo out to the community college to get set up for next semester. I can only hope I didn’t actually infect anyone while I didn’t know I was ill.

Tuesday: Definitely didn’t feel good. 

Slumpy is the best descriptor I think. 

I still worked. Luckily my day job allows me to work from home and I could space out on my office sofa between meetings. I was having some weird gastro-intestinal feelings similar to how I felt before my gall bladder went bad, so I put in a call to my doctor and got a Wednesday appointment. Can’t say I put in my fullest 8 hours ever, but I muddled through. I was supposed to take the Kiddo to an open house at the college, but Sweetman took that over when it was clear how bad I actually felt. I took an antihistamine and went to bed at 8:00 p.m.

Wednesday: I already had the day off since I was supposed to help move the Kiddo’s bestie into their dorm. Sweetman took that duty over. It was clear I could NOT handle six hours of driving (there and back) and hauling boxes and the like. Sweetman suggested a COVID test because even though I had taken an antihistamine (which normally knocks me out like I’ve been punched by Mohammed Ali), I had a thrashy, restless night. 

And damnit, yes, COVID.

So, quick change of plans. Doctor’s visit moved to virtual, then cancelled all together and rescheduled for next week. They offered me Paxlovid, which I refused because so many folks I know who’ve taken it just end up getting sick twice, with a rebound case.

The day went by in a haze. I had a viscous headache that felt like a steel bolt had been driven through half my head, so mostly I laid around, moaned, and went back to sleep. Any kind of screen time spiked that pain, so I barely connected with the outer world at all.

Our family protocol for other illnesses has been to isolate, so I washed my hands really well and put on a mask whenever I had to venture out of the bedroom for dog care or sustenance seeking. It was all I could do to make myself consume Lipton’s chicken soup and some water.

Once Sweetman and the Kiddo were back, we packed him up and sent him to a hotel because I wasn’t so sick I couldn’t see to myself, and we wanted to prioritize keeping him from catching it–the sofa isn’t a great option for that tall man and we don’t have a guest room. He’d already been exposed, of course, sharing the bed with me during those first two nights, but so far he had no symptoms and was testing negative. Kiddo and I stayed home, acting like we lived in adjoining apartments and communicating only by text. Elder Kiddo (grown and flown) brought me some takeout which I ate more of than I would have anticipated being able to consume. Bedtime and antihistamines again.

Thursday: Set an alarm so I could ascertain whether I might be able to work or not. The answer was definitely “NO!” That searing headache was still there, and I’d had a horrid night of thrashing, acid reflux that led to vomiting. 

I called it, suffering through a few minutes screen exposure to let my manager know and put through my leave request. This was the worst day in terms of how I felt. I drifted in and out of consciousness, and took extra showers to try to open my head a little with steam.

Of course, because I was unable to get my brain to function, there were things to deal with. The kid was in a fender-bender accident on their way out to the college to register for classes. Now that I’m coherent again and have gotten the full story, I’m super proud of how well they handled that very stressful situation and still got out to the college and got registered. Poor Sweetman had to abandon his work early to trade cars with the kid and help handle the logistics. When they tried to talk to me about it, I couldn’t focus at all and wasn’t sure later if I hadn’t fever-dreamed the whole thing (yeah, the dreams have been WILD this whole time).

Sweetman swung by in the afternoon to drop off supplies and, masked up and gloved, helped clean up some of the detritus of my being sick for several days, taking out the garbage and bringing more supplies upstairs for me, handling one of the dog outings so I wouldn’t have to, then back to the hotel with him to keep him well if possible.

When my headache finally broke around supper time, I watched a movie (Ballerina, 2025). Great movie, but a bad idea and I went to bed with a returned headache that made it hard to sleep.

Friday: Woke with that same searing headache and called in sick once more. That pretty much finishes my sick leave for this year. I can be sick (and paid) for 12 more hours in 2025 (and it’s new that contractors like me even get sick leave at all–so there’s a small favor). Despite the headache, I fumbled through dog care in the morning (masked up for movement through the house), trying to leave the Kiddo free to get themselves out for an appointment.

After that, it was back to bed for me. Miraculously, after the next round of napping, my headache was gone. I was smart this time, though, and still stayed 80% offscreen all afternoon, only using my phone a little and that with the brightness turned as low as it could go. It was clear something had broken, because I was restless. I had the energy to feel restless. So I washed up and masked up again so I could do a couple of small things around the house like take my dirty dishes downstairs, and put on gloves so I could wash some of the dishes at low risk of infecting the Kiddo or Sweetman.

At 3:20, I got a text from my cover artist, asking me if our zoom meeting was still on (it had been scheduled for 3:00). After apologizing for ghosting her (who knows what day or time it is in COVID land…and staying off screen meant I wasn’t obsessing on my calendar like I usually do), we decided to still meet and I spent a lovely half hour looking at pictures from her trip to Iceland (SOOOOOO gorgeous–I definitely need to go there) and at sketches for the first of three covers she’s making for me.

I was energized by that–this whole process is so exciting! And the zoom meeting had NOT given me a headache (HURRAY!), so I spent my afternoon working on writing life things. No actual writing–my brain wasn’t that good yet--but administrative stuff like updating my submissions tracker, submitting a couple of stories, adding my “about the editor” page to the interior design of Not Too Late, and getting a wild hair about resurrecting a short story collection called Shadowhill that I had intended to bring out in 2020 as my first indie project, but dropped when the world went pear-shaped.

There’s a nice symmetry to resurrecting that sucker while recovering from the illness that killed the project in the first place, so I sent an email to the original cover designer, found my then-editor’s information, and went looking for files of what I had already done. It’s actually really close to done–already through edits and I’d done some layout, so if the cover artist is able to come back on board, I might be able to get the book out there pretty quickly. That’s exciting!

Looking for those things put me on some data maintenance, getting files moved over from the old laptop onto this new one and throwing away a bunch of old files that aren’t important anymore. I’m terrible about downloading things for one-time quick use and then letting them linger, taking up memory for decades. It was such a relief to be able to be back onscreen without pain, that I didn’t even mind the tedious tasks. They were probably about my speed, mentally speaking. 

It’s been a long time since I was a night owl. I generally turn in a pumpkin by 10:00 most nights. But after several days of forced inactivity and feeling joyful about being able to use screens without pain, I watched movies.

I like old movies all the time, but especially when I’m in recovery of one kind or another, so I decided on The Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935 because it had a young Clark Gable in it and I had never seen it. I’m going to need to read that book sometime, I think because it was fascinating! What is it with sea captains and obsession, huh?

Even though it was late when I finished the film, I didn’t feel able to sleep yet, and I was going to try a night without antihistamines to knock me out. So, I picked another film: How Green Was My Valley, 1941, with Maureen O’Hara. I’ve been a fan of Maureen’s my whole life, probably from the first time I watched The Quiet Man, 1952, with my mother when I was little. The glory of her red hair was absent from this black and white film, but she still shone like an angel and you could definitely see why Walter Pidgeon lost his heart to her.

It’s a very sentimental story, but has some very real human drama, centering around a large Welsh family of miners, or colliers as they called them, and narrated by the youngest son. It’s based on a novel by Richard Llewellyn by the same title which I have not read, but the plot bore a few striking similarities (with less sex) to Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, which I have read. A little research tells me that the book was touted as autobiographical, but that’s a stretch as the author was English-born and had spent very little time in Wales at all.

After that I slept again.

Saturday: As I write this, it’s noon. I have only a little headache. Morning was a little rough–getting my bodily systems online–but I’m definitely doing better than I have all week. It’s already clear that I’ll be struggling with making myself take it slow for the next bit to avoid relapse.

I’m watching a silent movie this morning, Sunrise, 1927 because the description caught my eye: “A married farmer falls under the spell of a sophisticated woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.” Janet Gaynor who plays the wife, is the only actor in it that I think I might know, but I wonder if I’m mixing her up with Mitzi Gaynor, a more recent actress (I checked: they’re not related). George O’Brien, who plays our main character, is quite good.

Silent films are always kind of amazing. The acting style is entirely different when actors cannot use their voices to convey emotion and the photography is often startlingly beautiful. This one has some very cool effects like a ghostly image of the temptress character shown over the man when he’s struggling with his conscience and the animation of title cards. Fonts, carrying emotional weight since 1927, apparently. The way the words melt and slide off the screen when our temptress proposes drowning was very effective.

Wish me luck, y’all. For the next couple of days, I’m probably my own worst enemy and I’ve fought her before–that Samantha is stubborn and not entirely reasonable. But this Samantha will fight her to make sure I’m back on my feet for real as soon as possible.

Oh, and maybe go update your COVID shot, if that's an option for you. I know our government isn’t pushing vaccinations anymore because some insane guy thought it was a good idea to put an anti-vaxxer with a worm-eaten brain in charge of such things. But I enter myself as evidence: the virus is still out there. And it still sucks, even when it goes as well as it can.

2021, huh?

So, that was weird. 2021, I mean. 

Time is always weird, of course. But it's gotten weirder lately. 

I was looking at a family picture today because Shutterfly sent it to me as a "remember this day" ad, and I do indeed remember the day very clearly. 

It's my mother's family, all of us except for one cousin and one aunt who couldn't come. It was a fundraiser my high school band was holding and we took the opportunity to get a family photo of ALL of us. The photographer had trouble getting us all in frame…maybe in part because we ranged in height from three foot to six and a half feet, or maybe because there were just so darn many of us. But it was a fun evening. We laughed so much, which is maybe why it's actually a pretty good picture with some genuine smiles in it. 

Two of my uncles, one of my aunts, and both of my grandparents are now gone, and I'm wondering how that can be, since I can remember this day so clearly, as if it were last week instead of three-going-on-four decades ago. 

2021 felt that way, too. As I write this, there's one more day in the year, and that doesn't seem right. 2021 never really felt like it started; it was more like 2020 just kept on going. So if 2021 never started, how can it be ending? 

So, I'm looking back at the year, because that's what we do at this time of year, right? Or maybe it's because I just read Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, a book about nostalgia, at least in part. Or maybe it's because one of the things I did in 2021 was turn 50, and that's what us middle-aged ladies do. I don't know. 

But here's my year that was: 

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Teaching: I started 2021 teaching from home. My middle school had gone virtual starting in March 2020, like so many did. And we stayed that way until February 2021. 

It was a time of mixed blessings. I worried about my students, but was grateful for a way to keep teaching and still feel safe, in those pre-vaccine days. 

I had the best work-life balance I've ever had, and was really there for my family more completely than I've ever been able to manage before. Being home meant that my dog, O'Neill, who was losing a cancer battle, got to end his life with all of us at home to love him and care for him. 

I've always been a teacher who enjoys using tech tools to support my practice, but I became extra adept with learning management systems, video lesson presentation, and teaching via Zoom. Learning was different than it had been before, but it still happened, and some kids thrived on it. 

February-June 2021 were the hardest months of my teaching career (and I've been at this for 27 years in a variety of places and settings). I never considered quitting as often I did during the months where I did two jobs at the same time (as an online teacher and in-the-classroom teacher at the same time), under constant stress of uncertainty and threat of severe illness. Everyone who taught during this time should get double credit towards retirement. 

When the school year ended, everyone lost their minds panicking over "learning loss" (as if you only get one chance in life to learn 7th grade math concepts and the world will end if you didn't get it on the usual time table) and teachers were strong-armed, pressured, and bribed into working various summer programs. 

I knew how burnt-out I was, so I didn't take that work. I'm still glad I didn't, though the extra money would have been nice. Because when school started up in August, I hadn't recovered from the 2020-2021 school year yet. I was still crispy around the edges. It's rough to start a school year only a step away from burnt out. 

This school year has been strange in all new ways. So many people quit. So what felt like half the staff was new, and throughout these first four months (August-December 2021), lots more people have quit, taken early retirement, or suffered medical consequences that kept them out on leave. 

We had two teaching positions at my school that went unfilled until early December and were covered by long-term subs. Often, when a teacher was absent, there was no sub available to cover their classes, so safety precautions and policies were thrown the wind, putting two classes in together and giving up all possibility of social distancing, or taking non-teaching staff (librarians, counselors, teacher's aides, etc.) and taking them out of their own work to cover absent teachers. 

At least I work somewhere that is trying to find a balance between safety and learning. Some of colleagues have not been as fortunate. I'd have to quit if they didn't. But they have a vaccine mandate for staff, mask requirements for everyone, and keep us stocked in air filters and disinfectant spray. So far, I've stayed healthy, despite having one to five students a week who go on isolation or quarantine.   

I've found some joy with my students in person again, even with all the restrictions we have to work within, and most of them, now that they've seen what school is when it's not in-person, are cooperative and grateful and trying hard. But it's still challenging, given that kids disappear for days and weeks at a time and information sharing is sketchy, making it hard to know when to give grace and when to push for productivity (not that it's ever easy to know). 

I haven't quit yet, but I have submitted some resumes for non-teaching jobs. We'll see what happens in 2022. 

Writing: I began 2021 with a big deadline: the fourth Menopausal Superhero Novel, Be the Change (which released on December 16, 2021), was due to my publisher on January 1, 2021. 

I missed that deadline, the first time I've missed a deadline in my writing life. I turned it in on February 1. Considering how screen-burnt I was in 2020 and how difficult it was to write during that time, I'm proud that I finished the book even CLOSE to on time. 

As soon as I turned it in, I turned my attention back to the Gothic Romance I've been working on these past two years (working title: The Architect and the Heir). I was hoping to finish it by the end of summer, before I had to put it aside to work on the fifth and final Menopausal Superheroes novel, due (under renegotiated deadline) in April 2022.

I didn't finish it in time. I've always been a slow writer, compared to many of my friends and colleagues, and that became a serious frustration in 2021. 

Now, as we finish the year, I've got 20,000 words in on that fifth (as yet untitled) novel. It's proving difficult to write. Since I intend it to the be the last, there's a lot I need to wrap up from the entire series, while still making sure the book has an individual story of its own. 

Because teaching life left me so crispy I'd be a hit at Kentucky Fried Chicken, I didn't have a burst of productivity in my writing life over the break like I usually do. I'm hoping that the rest I gave myself during these two weeks will allow me to begin seeing good progress again in January. 

Still, it was not a year to sneeze at for new words written: According to my writing tracker (I use Jamie Raintree's Writing and Revision Tracker and highly recommend it), I wrote 394,333 words in 2021 (on various projects) and revised 278,544 words. My daily writing chain is now eight years long. 

I had two short stories published in paying markets. "Poison" in Enchanted Conversation and "Boy Chick" in Apex & Abyss. I saw another novel through publication. It wasn't the kind of success that lets a girl quit her day job and write full time, but it wasn't bupkis either. 

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Getting Out Into the World: In 2020, I dug into life as a Hobbit, and came to appreciate going slower and being home. 

But in 2021, vaccinated and caffeinated, I ventured forth again, taking some opportunities for my writing life, and taking a couple of small trips. Not as many, and with more caution than before, but I got out there. 

In 2020, I attended one convention, MarsCon in January, before conventions started shutting down, cancelling, or even folding. After building up a schedule of appearances and events over the past few years, it was weird to suddenly stop doing that. 

Since my day job involved so much screen time, I wasn't thrilled about zoom events for my writing life, but I did a few. (Con-Tinual gave us all a chance to connect with readers that way, as did Strong Women, Strange Worlds. A pretty complete list of my video appearances can be found here.) Video appearances are easier in some ways--no travel, mitigates geographic distance, potential wider audience--but they are not the same as the energy of an in-person room and the kinds of connections made that way. 

On my own, I made a series of videos on Spooky Reads for October. 

In summer 2021, convention life opened up a bit again, and I attended Con-Carolinas, Con-Gregate, Galaxy Con, and a library Pop-Con. It was really good to see my writing friends again in person. I'd missed them terribly. I have become more cautious about my energy, though, and plan to do fewer conventions and more single-day events in 2022. 

I also managed a visit to Kentucky for my mother's birthday, and she and my dad managed a visit down here for mine. Sweetman took me on a trip to the mountains to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. My long-time writing critique group (which had moved to Zoom), began meeting in person again after we were all vaccinated, and we took a short retreat to Lake Gaston in the fall. 

The big trip was a visit to New York City in October, when Broadway re-opened. I had never been and really enjoyed my few days there, though it solidified my understanding of myself as a rural girl at heart. 

We ate lots of good food, saw iconic sights, and really enjoyed the production of Six: The Musical. We haven't had that many cool travel opportunities with our youngest child, so it was great to spoil them with this trip. 

Throughout it all, I continued to walk in the woods, finding stress relief and solace in walking among the trees. 

Starting in July, two new friends joined me for those walks, when we adopted two new rescue dogs: Ghost and Pumpkin. 

They are wildly different than O'Neill was, but they have brought a great deal of joy to our lives. 

Our holidays were quiet, but lovely and we took our time away from school and work restfully and gave ourselves time to recuperate and recharge. 

So, that's my year that was. Not bad for my fiftieth one on the planet. I hope 2021 brought you joy as well, and that 2022 will give us all more reasons to smile. 

On Headaches

My first husband didn't believe me when it came to my headaches. I guess he thought I was exaggerating to get out doing things I didn't want to do. He didn't really get headaches, lucky bastard. 

I was never lying though. No, "not today, honey, I have a headache" games from me. Just waves of pain and a need for quiet stillness in the dark. 

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I've always been susceptible to them. Sinus headaches, allergy headaches, stress headaches, migraines. I manage a lot of life through the haze of some kind of headache or another because if I gave in and went to bed every time I had a headache, I'd be there more often than not. 

People who don't suffer from headaches really can't understand what the pain is like, much the way people who've never broken a bone or never birthed a child cannot truly understand what a sufferer is suffering. 

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I woke with a doozy this morning. Felt like a hot piece of steal was piercing the left side of my head, with a point of impact feeling on the forehead, and something else in the middle of my skull, like a hot golf ball swelling and trying to burst its way out though my cheek. 

Waking with a headache is especially terrible. Like the day has pounced before you were even alert enough to defend yourself. Unfair. Dirty pool, old boy. 

I tried vacating the bedroom and going through the morning motions--letting the dogs out to pee, feeding them, making a cup of tea. Sometimes moving makes things better. I'm a medication-avoider. I don't like to take pills, even basic pain-killers, if there's something else I can do and feel better. 

Not this time, though. The pain kept increasing, making me worry I was going to vomit and giving me heat waves, even after I caved and took a sinus pill, so I had to wake Sweetman on his holiday and get him to take over dog duty so I could work on finding some relief. It took a range of things: that sinus pill, a nasal rinse, a shower (for the steam), lots of nose-blowing, a defensive sleep nap with the pillow shoved against my aching cheek to apply counter pressure. 

But I woke with only the residual ache and a cautious feeling. Whew! I'm relieved it ended after only a couple of hours, and that my head chose a day off to attack me on, so I didn't have to try and create sub lesson plans through that pain. My best guess is that my head was angry about the amount of dust I got into yesterday cleaning up to host Thanksgiving. I hadn't done anything else that usually triggers a pain wave like this. 

Any other headache sufferers out there? What do you do to find relief, besides medication? 

IWSG: Recovering from Writer Burnout

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. This month you get two posts in one: It's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop AND it's the blog tour for Chrys Fey's Keep Writing with Fey. 

The awesome co-hosts for the August 5 posting of the IWSG are Susan Baury Rouchard, Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jennifer Hawes, Chemist Ken, and Chrys Fey! Please check out their posts and others in the IWSG blog hop when you finish here!
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When writer's burnout hit me, it came as a real shock. Up until that moment, writing had been how I coped with other kinds of burnout, how I found my fun and kept in contact with my creative spark. While I had felt burnt out in many other aspects of my life (parenting, teaching, housekeeping, adulting) I had *never* lost the joy in writing. But that's exactly what happened to me in 2018. 

The direct cause was publisher trouble. I won't rehash the details here, but you can read about it in this old blog post if you're interested. Other causes were more internal--I'd put a lot of pressure on myself to produce a book every year, and I'd done it, releasing a book in 2015, 2016, and 2017. But come 2018, I faltered, my confidence shaken.  

I felt exhausted at a soul level. I had to fight anger and pessimism within myself as never before--I am usually, by nature, an optimist with a good layer of scotch guard that lets bad moments wash over me without sticking. But I took any small setback to heart, and started to feel like I'd overestimated myself. The self-talk got ugly and damaging sometimes. Doubt is mean. 

I tried a lot of things during this time:

• pomodoros instead of word count to track my progress
• crying
• switching up my projects often
• going for more walks
• taking a hiatus from my critique group
• coloring
• journaling
• chocolate
• doing more "play writing" in the form of writing prompts

Despite my good fortune in making a relatively smooth transition from one publisher to another, I felt like my writing career had barely gotten started and then got the wind kicked out of it, I felt desperate to make progress…and we all know how attractive desperation is. 

Still, I did start to come out of it after a few months. 

The most important thing I did was to talk to other writers, sharing what I was feeling and listening to

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their stories and advice in turn. Across the board, they assured me that everything I was feeling was normal, that burnout happens even in work that brings you joy. They told me about what they liked about my work, reassuring me that my work had value and interest to the world. 

In short, they were good friends. Offering me counsel, support, a listening ear, and chocolate, in whatever proportions were needed. They cared about me and pulled me through to the other side. They reminded me to give myself the patience, grace, and compassion I would have offered to anyone else in the same situation. 

One of those writing friends was Chrys Fey. And now she's collected some of her experiences and advice on coming back from burnout in a new book!  

Catch the sparks you need to conquer writer’s block, depression, and burnout!

When Chrys Fey shared her story about depression and burnout, it struck a chord with other writers. That put into perspective for her how desperate writers are to hear they aren’t alone. Many creative types experience these challenges, battling to recover. Let Keep Writing with Fey: Sparks to Defeat Writer's Block, Depression, and Burnout guide you through:

 

∙        Writer's block

∙        Depression

∙        Writer's burnout

∙        What a writer doesn’t need to succeed

∙        Finding creativity boosts

 

With these sparks, you can begin your journey of rediscovering your creativity and get back to what you love - writing.

 

 

BOOK LINKS:

 

Amazon / Nook / iTunes / Kobo

 

Goodreads

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Chrys Fey is the author of Write with Fey: 10 Sparks to Guide You from Idea to Publication. She is also the author of the Disaster Crimes series. Visit her blog, Write with Fey, for more tips on how to reverse writer’s burnout. https://www.chrysfey.com/

FOMO or JOMO?

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April is normally such a busy month in our family. 

We have two birthdays and our dating anniversary to celebrate. 

My parents usually come to visit, which usually means taking on a home improvement project (it's DANGEROUS to leave my dad very long without a project). 

Depending on where Spring Break falls, there might be a trip. 

I often attend a convention for my writing life. 

I do the AtoZ blogging challenge. 

We usually pack a LOT into those four weeks. 

Needless to say, this is not our typical April. 

And you know what? 

I'm glad. 

Relieved. 

Recovering. 

FOMO (fear of missing out) is a big source of anxiety for a lot of folks during this time. What does it mean to our relationships and careers if we don't do all the things we're "supposed" to be doing? This is probably why every organization I have any connection to is inundating me with invitations to video meetings and "live online" events. It's more difficult to feel connected if we don't see one another and that's harder for some folks than for others. 

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I, on the other hand, am happy to have more limited interaction with the world. I get a little restless here and there, and there are some events that I have been truly sad to miss out on during this time, but really the quiet has been good. It's been YEARS since I had a proper introvert recharge time--I mean a *really* long one, that refilled my well completely. I probably haven't had one in my entire adult life.

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When I talk to people about my teaching life, they often express jealousy about my "summer vacation"--my weeks of not working. That time away from the classroom to recover really is essential to my ability to keep coming back. 

And each year, I find that I come back a little bit less charged up. Maybe two months used to get me back up to 90% of normal me, but these days? I get back maybe half the energy I lost (and how much I lose seems to grow each year, too) and the build-up pushes me into dangerous burnout territory. 

My running joke is that I've been teaching for 26 years and that the necessary recovery period from that is…26 years.

I've been reading a lot about how this time is helping the earth recovery--people staying home is reducing the strain on the environment and wildlife and air quality are thriving. So, in my next month at home (at this point, I know I have at least one more to go), I'm looking for the JOMO--maybe I'll see a me I haven't seen in years thanks to the slower pace and recovery time. Here's hoping!

IWSG April: Pandemic Edition

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking.

If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

The awesome co-hosts for the April posting of the IWSG are Diane Burton, JH Moncrieff, Anna @ Emaginette, Karen @ Reprobate Typewriter, Erika Beebe, and Lisa Buie-Collard! I hope you'll check out their blogs as well as some of the others on this blog hop after you see what I have to say.

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April 1 question - The IWSG’s focus is on our writers. Each month, from all over the globe, we are a united group sharing our insecurities, our troubles, and our pain. So, in this time when our world is in crisis with the covid-19 pandemic, our optional question this month is: how are things in your world?

In the larger scheme of things, we're fortunate here at la Casa Bryant. We're all in good health, the adults are able to work from home and be paid as usual, the larders were well stocked before the crisis hit. 

We're all introverts and have great technology access and plenty of distractions in stock. Our child still at home is twelve, which makes this way easier than it would have been if she were two. The hubby and I are solid in our relationship and united in this fight. 

My scheduled new release was even still released on time yesterday. (Friend or Foe: Book 1.5, a novella in the Menopausal Superhero series that fills in the gap between books 1 and 2). 

Complaining, when I know how much harder this is hitting others in the world, feels ridiculous. 

My day job is teaching, so I see firsthand our families struggling to feed themselves and children struggling with isolation. Even if I try to stay away from news poisoning--limiting my news sources and time spent reviewing them--the wider problems poke sharp fingers into the corners of my awareness and I can't be blithe and ignorant, even if I'd like to be in some ways. 

I have a constant restless energy beneath my skin, fueled by anxiety and worry. Although finding time to write is easier than it usually is during the school year, finding focus and using that time well is harder. We're trying to balance preparing for the worst with generosity to others. 

I'm staying focused on the positives. My recent blog posts try to highlight the good: I have time to try new recipes and cook better meals. We're getting so much family time! My house is slowly coming into better order than it has been the entire time we've lived here. 

I'm taking nature walks every day, and the time among trees, flowers, and running water calms the wild panic to manageable levels, leaving me better equipped to care for my family. 

I hope all of you are safe and well, and able to find some cause for joy during our forced isolation. I pray that our nation and communities will learn lasting lessons that make us a better people--a people who value the work of our service industry and recognize that the pace we're trying to keep is killing us. When we get back to normal, may normal be better than it was in the past! 

Plus Sides to the Pandemic at la Casa Bryant

I lean towards optimism in most circumstances, trusting that time and energy spent can improve most situations. At least I believe that nothing gets any better if you don't try something.

Looking at our leadership in my country right now, holding onto that optimism has been harder. But at least I'm in this with an intelligent and thoughtful partner, who has a very useful skillset for managing an isolationist life for a while.

And we're lucky, truly, on a lot of fronts. We're all still healthy. Both adults are able to work from home and are still being paid. The kiddo at home is introverted and digitally connected to her friends, so is handling social distancing pretty well for someone her age. The dog is old enough to appreciate a slow life.

So, looking to the sunny side: here are some plus sides to the pandemic at our house.

1. We're playing with our toys. Over the years, we've collected a lot of them: video games, board games, legos, musical instruments, books, craft supplies, DIY project tools, recipe books, etc. An embarrassment of riches really: more than we can realistically use.

But with extra time at home, we're digging into all these wonderful things and enjoying them. Go past us! For buying things even though we didn't have time for them? At least we're occupied now, without having to shop while we're money worried.

View this post on Instagram

#funinthewoods with #mygirl today. #natureheals #sunshine

A post shared by Samantha Dunaway Bryant (@samanthabwriter) on Mar 20, 2020 at 4:17pm PDT

2. We're getting out in nature more. I'm a walker. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that my feed is full of pictures of beauty I spot on my daily nature walks. It's my main stress relief.

Because I'm a teacher and my hours are early, even during the winter months, I can usually make it to a trail with a little daylight left to burn. But, my daughter is not so much a walker, and my husband isn't usually home in daylight, so it's usually just me and the pup.

But, without commutes to worry about and with the kiddo legit needing a stretch of the legs, we're able to get out into the woods together. It's a real joy to me to share this love with my people (and still the pupper).

3. Lots of family time. My husband and I have been feeling the rush of time whooshing past us in recent years, as our baby turns into a teenager and our older child becomes an adult.

We've struggled to arrange our days so that we get time together as a family, time for each of us with our daughters, time for just the two of us, etc. all while still holding down demanding day jobs and handling the business of the household.

It's been lovely to be right there for our daughter when she hits a bump in completing her school-from-home assignments, to help her problem solve or just be amazed by how well she does this on her own.

We're playing games and watching shows together. We're really in tune with how everyone is feeling and doing a good job balancing the needs of each of us.

I think we'll miss this part when the speed of life picks back up.

4. The house is getting cleaner and better organized. When it's time to "take a break" from our work from home situations, we're each handling household tasks: cleaning up messes that have been allowed to linger, changing out loads of laundry, running the dishwasher, re-organizing storage situations, sorting things, etc.  It gets us moving and clears mental space as well by making our surroundings more pleasant.

It's lovely to slip these tasks into down moments of the work day, instead of struggling to do them *after* work when we're exhausted and wanting some relaxation and more playful togetherness.

We're even making progress on our giant attic project (building an entire new room up there for game storage). The supplies were mostly already purchased, and now we can repurpose that commuting time for mudding, sanding, and (hopefully soon) painting!

5. We're eating better. We're planner-aheaders, the sort of people who usually have a deep freeze full of meats and boxes and cans lining the shelves waiting for use. So, without panic shopping or hoarding, we've stayed pretty well supplied.

Since I'm not coming home from school emotionally and physically exhausted from managing 160 children across the day, our dinners have become more luxuriant affairs, rather than the "what can I make in 30 minutes that is palatable?" trick we'd mastered so well.

So, new recipes, and old favorites that "take too long" for a school night. Cooking together because we're all there. Dancing to music while the potato pancakes fry. I'm enjoying the prep time as much as the eating.


What's a plus side to isolation time for you and yours? Anything you'd like to hold onto when life returns to something more like normal? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Sometimes I feel I've got to run away: Writer's Retreat!

I love my family and my teaching life, but sometimes they feel like they're going to squash me. At the worst of times, it's like people are grabbing chunks of me and carting them off, and at the end of the day, all that remains is a pile of vibrating nerves that no one else wanted.

All my life, writing has been where I run away to when there's too much. It's solitary, but creative and productive: at the end of it, I've created something. It's personal and self-expressive even when it's fiction. It satisfies something deep within me that can't be soothed by any other means. It's why my daily writing time matters so very much. Even when my writing feels stymied, it's still a selfish little moment that is only about what I want to create. It really is a mental health release valve for me, even more than walking (and walking helps me immensely, too).

This past weekend I was lucky enough to get run away from my regular life for three days for a writer's retreat. I spent those days in a lovely mountain house with six other writers, writing, talking, walking, reading. I didn't make a meal, wash a dish, wash anything, or give ANY of my time to something that wasn't about my writing life.

I'm discovering that short bursts of focused time like this are essential to my writing life. I can't always take a trip and surround myself with like-minded folks, but at least during summer vacation, I'm fortunate that I can arrange a few days during which I am only a writer, during which I can bring the full force of my considerable concentration to my current creation and push the rest aside, just for a little while.

I send the youngest to camp or to visit Grandma. I tell my family that I'm off the grid. I cash in all those gift cards I received for teacher appreciation day on take out meals. I prep ahead with snacks and tea so I don't have to go anywhere. I don't answer the phone.

I don't think I'd fare well if this was my life all the time. I am a writer, but I'm also a teacher, a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, and various other kinds of human and even though I run towards introverted, I'm not willing to give up all my other loves JUST for writing. Even Emily Dickinson had people visit and wrote letters, after all. I do need and want people. I'm not really a hermit, even though the idea is tempting sometimes.

But as a respite, it's wonderful to run away from everything else for a little while and give myself over completely to my life of words. May you all find a respite like this when you need it, an oasis that lets you refill your well and gives you the wherewithal you need for harder times.

SickBed Movie Marathon

I don't wish for more time to watch TV anymore, because the only way I ever get it is by being sick. Unfortunately, I've had a lot of time for TV this week: sinus infection. Gah!

So here's my sickbed viewing marathon these past few days. I decided I'd watch some things I'd been meaning to watch and hadn't gotten around to yet. I'm an impatient patient, so it's good to be sick in the 21st century, the age of streaming services and digital content!

I started with John Wick. Great fun and perfect for my mood (I hate being sick and would really like to blow some things up instead of blowing my nose). John Wick was a very satisfying flick and more fuel for my theory that Keanu Reeves does his best work when he doesn't talk too much. He's so good at the physical: body and face work. Though, he did pleasantly surprise me with one great angry explosive speech.

The fight scenes were creative and fun to watch. The whole secret society angle of hit-people and other dangerous folk was intriguing, with all the layers of loyalties and betrayal. Adrianne Palicki was a nice surprise for me, as she's not an actress I've been aware before The Orville, and this role as Ms. Perkins is nothing like her Kelly on that show.

I always love the reluctant hero (or antihero) story line, where a person had turned their back on a life and gets pulled back in. It's not a story with a lot of surprises, but it hits every expected beat well.

I was still in the mood for blowing things up after that, so I tried Red 2. I enjoyed the first movie

some years ago, and considered this one worth seeing if only for Helen Mirren. I can take or leave Bruce Willis doing another Bruce Willis type guy, and John Malcovich's character doesn't seem to know if he's the philosophical backbone, or the comic relief. Sometimes he felt more like Doc Brown from the Back to the Future movies than anything else.

But Helen Mirren's Victoria is one of my favorite characters ever. So the movie did not disappoint in that regard. Helen killed in evening wear and army fatigues with equal efficiency and panache, and even as dressed as a lunatic who believed she was the queen. In fact, I'd argue it's worth the whole thing just to see her shooting out both windows of a careening car and then sitting smugly while it all blows up behind them. When I daydream about having movies made of my books, I always cast Helen Mirren.

The movie overall wasn't quite as much fun as the first one, but I guess we'd already done the "coming out of retirement" gig, so this wasn't a bad way to go, and Anthony Hopkins was a delight. I think I'd probably be more critical of it if I felt better, but I'm looking for popcorn, and popcorn is what I got. :-)

After that, I'd had enough explosions for a while. So, I decided to watch Pan's Labyrinth (which turned out to still have some explosions, but they weren't teh point).

I'd heard a lot about Pan's Labyrinth, and most of the things I'd heard panned out (ha!). The puppetry was beautiful and creepy as heck. If all the labyrinth stuff was in this little girl's imagination, as the story certainly leaves room for, she was a child of darkness for sure.

But then again, what other kind of child could she have been given all the tragedy and sadness she'd experienced already? The story doesn't give her age, but I'd guess her at about 11 years old, and she'd already lost her father, seen her mother hook up with a dangerous guy, seen her mother suffer through a life-threatening pregnancy, lived in the scary household of said dangerous guy, connected with members of the resistance, and then seen her mother die.

The other Del Toro movie I remember well is Shape of Water, and there are some similarities in feel between the two films, including the fantasy happy ending representation of what came for our tragic heroine after death.

Definitely on the darker side of fairy tale, bringing to mind other movies like Legend and Labyrinth. So much ambiguity all the time. I couldn't tell whether I should be hoping she'd do what the labyrinthian creatures told her or that she'd discover their lies in time, because it definitely seemed like they were dodgy and playing right into what she wanted to hear. (Which makes sense if they only exist in her imagination). That deep ambiguity was woven through every scene in the real world and the fantasy one and is the main emotion the story evoked in me.

Quite good. I'll watch it again sometime when I don't have a fever.

So, there's the view from my sickbed today. Here's hoping it's a while before I have this much time for movies again!