becomingavery

[becomingavery]

10. What do you remember most about your parents’ relationship?

My parents always had an ooey gooey relationship that I wanted to be just like when I grew up. My dad joined the military as soon as he was out of college and married my mom. They met on the very first day of college, both 18 and leaving home for the first time. My mom was going to an ice cream social with some friends and my dad was going to the same ice cream social to try and get away from his new roommate who came in and immediately dumped drugs in a drawer. They have been together ever since.

I heard the story of how they met hundreds of times as we grew up and talked around the dinner table about their experiences and the things that were important in their lives. My mom moved for him dozens of times and uprooted her friendships, her job, her family, and everything else in order to support our family and my dad‘s career. Family always came first for my parents and that has been really pivotal for me. I think it’s important to recognize that my mother didn’t pick up and leave everything because she was expected to. My mother chose to be where she wanted to be and where she wanted to be was beside my dad. Her interactions with him shaped a lot of who I am and how I understand femininity. My mother is probably the most wonderful human I’ve ever met. When I think of intelligence and bravery, I think of my mother. When I wonder if I can do a task that is at hand I know I can always try it because of the model that she set.

My father is kind of traditional. He did the typical “man” things. He hunted and fixed the house and went to the tavern in the evening. His work took him all over the world and he worked hard. He missed a lot of birthdays and a lot of holidays but it’s interesting that that’s not some thing that I’ve ever held against him. I may have been upset on the day, but I couldn’t even tell you now which birthdays he missed and which ones he was present for. One thing that my father was really good at was being present when he was home. There are things that happened that I didn’t agree with, but I never questioned whether or not he loves me and whether or not I was important to him. He sacrificed a lot for us. Often that sacrifice was time. When we moved around the first thing that my family looked at was the safety of where our home was going to be and then how good the schools were. The convenience of him getting back-and-forth to work was tertiary to the things that directly impacted my sister, my mother and me. There are many places we lived where his commute was an hour in the morning and in the evening in order to ensure that we had what we needed.

I don’t remember my parents ever fighting in the way that I remember friends’ parents fighting. They didn’t yell at each other, and they didn’t ever get physical. They would occasionally snip or bicker, but I don’t recall them ever not speaking, even for a short amount of time. I am aware that when it comes to modeling a healthy, successful relationship, I am very fortunate. I had friends who envied my family and I had a group for a time that tried to single me out as the only person in our peer group whose parents were not divorced. I’m not sure why this was some thing that they thought was how they wanted to identify themselves, but my parents put in the work to make sure that they could be healthy and that we could all be happy.

We did things together often despite my desire to be alone. When I think back, I know I was a pain in the butt. We watched movies and I tried to get out of wearing tinfoil hats. We went jet skiing or to the ocean and I brought a book. Yes, I literally read Artemis Fowl on the back of a jet ski. We went to the gym and I hid in the pool. Even though I was often reluctant or even downright resistant, they never stopped inviting me, or trying to get me to interact and be part of our family. It would’ve been easier and it probably would’ve been more enjoyable to leave their sullen teenager at home but that’s not who my family is. They pushed me to be better.

There’s never a time that I ever even questioned my parents love for each other when I was growing up. I had a very steadfast knowledge that they were in it forever. ��

[becomingavery]

Add two more days to my fitness badge. Tuesday and Wednesday I hit that goal. I’ve decided that I am between the opening song to the first season of My Hero Academia

and Radioactive.

I feel like The Day would be super fun but it has a very different vibe than the other two songs I’ve selected. I’ve started dreaming the choreography to River. River is definitely danced with a veil. Radioactive is still a little bit of a vibe shift but it has that heavy beat that I just love. I might throw it up in the Rebel Facebook Group for opinions.

I also tried a new chocolate today and it was divine. It has the lowest cacao percentage of any of them that I’ve tried so far and is made with coconut and toffee. This one is 5/5 ⭐️. It is smooth. The fats in it are silky. It still has the bite of something dark but the shift to some sweetness from this company is something I am enjoying. The coconut, which made me nervous, is something I am truly enjoying.

[becomingavery]

I've been doing the movement. I took a walk Wednesday, taught my students DDR on Friday, and went to the zoo with my kidlet yesterday (Saturday). That is five exercise days in a week and a half so if I have a good rest of this week, which is the goal. I will be on track.

That being said, I only danced one day last week so several of these need to be dance days. I feel good when I belly dance but I don't always like to do it in front of people. I need to sort that one out for success. DDR doesn't count even a little bit toward my dance badge because my dance focus is belly dance. I think I'm going to choreograph my three dances to songs that I naturally want to belly dance to when I hear them. I need to decide on a third one.

River - Anonamouz

Living in the Shadows - Matthew Perryman Jones

[becomingavery]

April has some challenges for the Rebel Cup that are not related to badges in particular but add points to my patrol (Bader). I have two to add in here. I created a sculpture of Mother Earth. It’s terrible but I probably made this thing 6 times while trying to sculpt. Not something I’m good at but I got to a place where I was okay with it.

It’s, well it exists. That’s a 6” knitting needle for scale.

The other one I feel like I did a good job on. We had to make an item of clothing using at least 30 safety pins. I knit some fingerless gloves and the seams are held together with safety pins so that they will not close otherwise. I was looking for something I would wear again and truly felt in the spirit of something worth three points.

Also, looking at this picture makes me want to endeavor towards some of the other badges I am working on, like fitness, because I am not happy with where I am. It was good to get that perspective. Here we go.

[becomingavery]

This one is slightly more acidic than the quinoa crunch but is just as smooth. I thought it would have a higher fat content given the brown butter but it isn’t much higher. I was also expecting some nuttiness that is not present. It’s not a bad bar of chocolate but not one I will buy again. I give this one 2 stars.

[becomingavery]

Trigger Warning: Suicide and Depression

I am using prompts found here to get started on My Story: https://authority.pub/memoir-writing-prompts

13. Who or what did you want to be when you grew up?

Emphasis in my house growing up was always that I would get married and have kids. I would have a job but even though it was never directly stated, my job would probably come second to my husband’s. I think this was implied because it is what my mother did. She changed jobs dozens of times to follow my father’s career in the military. Such is the life of a military spouse. I feel like the option of doing things online today makes that easier, but that is another aside. What my job would be never felt like it was a thing of great importance.

I had several things I considered doing. I wanted to be a teacher when I wrote up options in kindergarten. This was not something I was stuck on for long but almost every kindergartener wants to be like their teacher. They have so few experiences with different jobs or opportunities that they want to do what they see in front of them. There is interesting research that says this is not just true of the average five year old but that many adults do what their parents did because we do a poor job of allowing exploration of what career paths might be out there and what might better suit an individual.

I spent several years wanting to be a marine biologist. Study of marine mammals and sharks was a particular interest. Mammals are interesting because, for the most part, they are not designed to live in water. The adaptations that exist to ensure their ability to thrive in such an environment are amazing. Sharks are fascinating because they have so few bones and are apex predators in a place where food is hard to come by. After many years of study, I seriously considered elements of the job. I do not particularly enjoy the sun, salt water, or sand. Grittiness is not something I tolerate well. Because of these, I nixed that despite still quite enjoying the physiology and study of marine animals. Sharks continue to be a particular interest of mine.

I also considered being a journalist or writer. I like to write. I started publishing in 5th grade with essays, poetry, and fiction. I am a decent writer. I am also aware that I think poorly of almost everything I do, so if I think I am decent I am probably more than capable. Even without a writing degree of any sort, I have made money in several ways through publishing or selling my written work. I thought so highly of this idea of writing for a living that I went to school for journalism right out of high school. My grades were no where good enough to get into the journalism program and definitely were not good enough to allow me to get out of the program. I did well enough in the journalism classes I took but I did not have an overall GPA that would allow me into the program. I did good work but there was no passion for what I was doing.

When I was in school, I transitioned from a “journalism intendee” to an economics major. Again, in economics, I did well enough but there was no passion. I got married. My husband joined the military and I transitioned to an online school. I was very much like my mother, which was and is a great thing. While continuing in my degree I found that my foundational math was not good enough but my conceptual understanding of mathematics was sound and the theories behind that content was interesting. To this day one of my all time favorite jokes is about economists. I did okay on my weekly assignments but would tank my final papers or projects. There is a question about whether that was my fault or if the school I was attending was shady. They were taken to court and lost a significant amount of money over that happening to other students. In total, I attended college for five years before I was invited not to return to school.

Getting kicked out of college put several things into stark perspective for me. I was severely depressed and did not have a support system outside of my husband at the time. We had moved to Washington and, with a single car, I was stuck in our little duplex all of the time. We lived close enough to a mall but I had no incentive to leave. I looked for work but struggled to find it and with no skills, I floundered. I slept a lot. I took care of our dog. We walked every day but I was struggling. It was in this time that I realized that part of the challenge I was having was that I truly had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up because I had never planned on growing up.

As a middle schooler, I valued a group of friends that are mostly in tough places today. Some of them are in jail. Several died. A few escaped and managed to do things with their lives but overall, that was a tough group. The low expectations of my peers coupled with severe undiagnosed depression meant that I tried not to exist several times. We moved away from this group but I was angry and continued for many years without a diagnosis. We lived in a much better place with much higher expectations for me but I did not want to grow up. I had no plan because I did not need a plan. The only reason I graduated from high school was because of this move and it was still not enough to push me to really think about what I would do in the future. People were concerned about me and, thinking back, they probably should have been.

The reality of becoming an adult really settled on me in my early twenties when I realized I was not going to take my own life and had to figure something out. I had this dog who was dumber than a box of rocks but also had a background with severe abuse. I was married to someone who I cared deeply for and who cared for me (still do, he’s wonderful). I didn’t have anything else going on. I dated on and off but was pretty bad at selecting people who would care for me long term. Husband and I bought a house. In order to do that, I worked for the realtor who helped us buy but that fell through quickly. I found a position at Home Depot and worked as a virtual assistant for $5 an hour. (Add this to my list of things I do not recommend.) I walked to work 5.2 miles and after 3 pay checks could afford a bike. When I got pregnant, my parents helped me get a second vehicle. They did not want my pregnant self walking or on a bike in the pitch black dark at four something in the morning getting to Home Depot for minimum wage. I owe them a lot.

Pregnant and working at the service desk worked for a while but the reality of having a baby with no insurance in the United States came crashing down on me and I had to sort something out. If I was out of work for months, we would absolutely fall behind on bills and lose our home. The little goblin became my reason for being. He is a week from turning eight and continues to be my reason. Working full time hours in a part time job that wouldn’t pay me during maternity leave and offered no benefits became exactly what it was: a way to get through to birth. In my off hours, I started working online and collecting clients.

When I started applying for positions online, I was very up front about the fact that I needed to be working from home because I was pregnant. I did not want to come off as lying about something so big. I had some really amazing interviews, was told I all but had the role and then it would fall through until I started not mentioning my pregnancy. By the time the goblin was born, I had six clients who each needed between two and ten hours each week from me. They tended to balance each other out so that I had very few weeks of less than full time but I couldn’t let anyone down or I would lose clients. I, as a native English speaker who was not afraid to make recommendations based on research, now demanded $15 an hour but I brought my laptop to the hospital with me. The day I was in labor I emailed my clients that there was a “medical emergency” and I would be back online the next day. The nurses in the hospital thought I was insane for working from my hospital bed but they did not let me go home for three days and I had to be working. The fear of not being able to take care of my little drove me to do my best.

When my little goblin was six weeks old, we were driving to an appointment and I heard a radio DJ talking about how graduation rates in my state were up from 55% to 85%. There is nothing I want more than for him to struggle less than I have and if fifteen out of every hundred kids in my state are still not graduating, that is something I want to fix. Terrified, I applied to college that night. Looking at my beautiful son, I decided to be a teacher. Little kindergarten me had circled back around and with all the struggle of the last twenty-six years, I knew what I had to do. I could not and would not let this system in which we live fail my child. If he is like me, and he is my miniature to a T, he would work his hardest to be one of those fifteen. I started school the the same week he turned one year old and, finally having something to motivate me, became a 4.0 student.

I think the story of school will come in another post.

[becomingavery]

I’ve decided to work on the Entrepreneur badge as part of my Life Less Ordinary quarterly challenge. I teach and run a tutoring side hustle but that’s really only like 5 hours a week. It brings in a fair amount of money and I kind of wonder if there is a way to develop the tutoring into something more. The first aspect of the Entrepreneur badge is to consider at least 5 business ideas.

The obvious one is tutoring. I love tutoring. Getting kids to where they need to be with one on one or very small group work is just awesome. I really enjoy the elements of teaching that are present in tutoring. We get to those specific aha moments and the kids growth is huge.

I’ve also considered writing curriculum. I would like curriculum to go with contemporary books. There are a lot of woogity copyright challenges with doing this so I haven’t looked at it too heavily yet.

I would really like to run integrated learning quests. Learning, right now, happens in blocks of time dedicated to a single subject or domain. We often do now allow our domains to cross, but in reading a book, we run into information about science, mathematics, climate, and the world around us. All of these elements are things we can explore and understand. Setting up and running these classes for small groups is something that I would absolutely love doing for the rest of my life.

Since I’m just brainstorming business ideas, leaving teaching completely is something I’ve considered. I’ve developed several “witchy” designs and I think selling shirts and/or bags with those designs on them would be fun, especially as a side hustle and not it’s own thing.

I’ve also considered teaching classes related to witchcraft but I don’t know how I would feel about ethically doing that for money. The craft isn’t really intended to be an income and monetizing faith has its own issues. I do have a lot of information to share and would like to build a community there. I have been practicing for 20 years and have my own little hereditary witch who is learning my path.

Last, I’ve considered writing. I am a decent writer and writing something frivolous sounds fun. I used to make $75/month writing articles for magazines and left that behind a long time ago. It might be nice to publish under my own name and be allowed to keep my association with the work I did.

For this badge, I think I’m going to focus on my tutoring business and may be add “learning explorations” to that as an offering. The tutoring already exists, albeit barely, but making that an actual thing would be nice.

[becomingavery]

This morning was Easter and I sent my kidlet on a chocolate hunt fulfilling the next requirement of my Chocolate Challenge badge. There were 47 eggs hidden around the house with Hershey Kisses inside. He had to hunt them down and needed a couple hints but we had fun.

The child was so excited to find his eggs. He had many criticisms of the choices the “bunny” made which made me wonder if it’s time to tell him. I don’t like the lying aspect of some of these magical creatures but he seems to enjoy the play aspect. The Easter Bunny left a Minecraft mug filled with chocolate M&Ms in lieu of a basket and he thought I brought it down. Overall, it was a good time.

[becomingavery]

I’ve been thinking for a couple days on how to go about the My Story badge for the second quarter challenge. People in my life tell me that my story is inspiring and that I have overcome a lot. I’ve been told I have stories worth telling and that can make people want to move. When deciding what to do for this badge, I started reading this article: https://authority.pub/memoir-writing-prompts/

For this post, I think I’m going to examine potential themes to explore over the next few months.

Potential Themes:

- I don’t recommend doing anything in the manner I have chosen to do them.

- I work to do the things in my life that I want.

- I have been incredibly fortunate in my life due to the support I have had.

- I have found creative ways to solve the problems my life has presented.

- I have done many people’s bucket list.

I feel like I joke often about writing memoirs and calling the book “I don’t recommend it” but the story is really about overcoming adversity despite the solutions being difficult. I have a good life and most of my stress is based on the world we live in and cannot be helped. That being said, I have been incredibly fortunate and carry privileges that many people do not have. I know that I have a safety net if I were to need it and that is a thing many many people do not have. When it comes to the story of me, I think I want to point out the weird ways in which I have overcome the challenges presented in my life. When there is a thing I want to do, I find ways to do it. I am able to do that because of the people around me but I take the leap. I think my story is about taking risks. It’s about allowing life to be hard and finding joy in those moments.

Things I do not recommend:

- Do not start college the week your child turns one.

- Do not have a child without insurance.

- Do not do an associate, bachelor, and master degree in 4 years.

- You are not required to take the maximum number of credit hours at school.

- Definitely do not do that master degree during your first year teaching.

- If there is another pandemic while doing the master degree in your first year teaching, just pause the degree. Don’t finish it while teaching your first year with a four year old at home. It is the worst.

- Do not offer to keep things for a significant other if they are headed long distance, even if that distance is like an hour.

- Do not let people hit you.

- Do not fall for people who are not invested in you.

- Do not say yes to everything. I still haven’t learned this.

- Do not sacrifice sleep for ‘doing the things.’

- Do not forget your medicine.

- Do not move constantly.

- Do not live paycheck to paycheck.

- Do not fail out of college.

- If you know college isn’t the place for you yet, don’t go. No matter who you might disappoint.

- Do not let people speak badly about you. Whether they are a significant relationship, a friend, or whoever, dismiss them from your life. You’ll be lighter later.

- You do not need 10,000 notebooks.

- You also do not need 800,000 pens.

- Don’t hide who you are.

- If someone leaves you, don’t chase them.

Looking at this list is hard. I know there are more things. I’ll add to it as I think. Keep an eye out for edits.

[becomingavery]

Trigger warning: Discussing weight and negative feelings about self.

Doing the Fitness badge is scary for me. I am overweight. I am a lot overweight. I would like to lose weight but I am inconsistent. I’m busy and rely on that as an excuse to not do enough. Sometimes I’m legitimately exhausted and just…can’t. Other days I am definitely just not. I work a lot and my boy-thing is concerned that I am actively trying to hurt myself. He told me once he’s afraid of me dying before him because of my weight. He lifts and the way he puts it isn’t negative. It’s a legit fear.

Yesterday became my day one for the fitness badge. Over the next 3 months (Ends July 7) I will exercise 48 days. Day one, I took my kidlet to the zoo and we walked for about 2 hours. I also repacked some things in boxes to help with space in a spare room of my home. The zoo was a lot of fun and the activity definitely counts. As soon as I put this down, I will be doing a training set for belly dance which counts for both my Fitness badge and my Dance badge.

Fitness: 2/48

Dance: The requirement is to spend 3 months practicing a single style of dance regularly. I need to decide what “regularly” means to me, but I’m started.

Reminder: I am worthy and valuable no matter my size and I am taking steps to be happy. What I look like happy isn’t based on my waistline but being able to stay active is part of me being happy. Also, breathe.

Post dance update: I forgot how good I feel when belly dancing. My core feels it and I am smiling. Boy-thing gave me a thumbs up for doing the thing. I missed dancing.

[becomingavery]

I need to taste and review 5 different flavors of chocolate I’ve never tried before. This is the first. I’m giving this bar 4 stars. I had a single serving and like the bitterness of the dark chocolate (spoiler: all the new flavors I got are dark) and the malt was lovely. I had no idea what to expect from malt but they were these crisp little bits that crunch, much like nougat. I wish this had been a touch heavier with the salt but I know I have a preference toward more salt. Overall, this was a delightfully smooth mar that was wonderful after dinner.

[becomingavery]

The Chocolate Challenge asks rebels to research the history of chocolate and how it has changed over the years. The first two chapters of this book covers the history of chocolate and it’s changes. It took me about 45 minutes to read and consider and I learned so much. I am going to try and read the first 12 chapters this month because it covers so much information on chocolate.

Chapters ten and eleven will cover another element of the badge on chocolate classification. Once I get that information, I will be able to complete a visual aid to get another option of the eight required to earn my badge. I’ve already learned so much.

[becomingavery]

I am a grown up earning merit badges. This actually works toward one of them (journalist). My kidlet has joined scouts and I wanted to work on badges too so when I ran across this adult merit badge company run out of the UK things came together and I’m working on badges.

Currently in progress:

- Quarterly Challenge: Life Less Ordinary

- April Challenge: Chocolate Challenge

- Entrepreneur (Global for Life Less Ordinary)

- Fitness (Husband’s choice for me for Life Less Ordinary)

- Dance (Choice from least complete section for Life Less Ordinary)

- My Story

- Journalist (so started here)

This is a lot to take on but I am looking to shift and make things work for me. I have a lot I want to do with my time in the world. Here is to doing some of those things.