Twos-day! 02/22/2022
OK, hokey, but I need to have some fun. Yesterday, the other new lady at work and I started training for food assistance. Which I’ve been doing for almost four months and she’s been doing for six. To say it is boring is to massively understate the case. However, we do get paid for it, so there’s that. I am enjoying my job though—it’s great to be able to help people in need of aid and to see that happen right away. As a teacher, I rarely saw any benefit of my profession borne out. Very occasionally, someone would say they were glad they read Of Mice and Men, or (less often) Romeo and Juliet. Or that they used something I had taught them. The rewards were ephemeral. With this job, they are concrete and nearly immediate, which is great for my down-trodden spirits.
Robert is home from rehab (surgery 01/20/2021, in hospital until 02/01, then rehab until 02/11) and we’re all glad he is home. It wasn’t really the same without him. He’s glad to be home too, and has started doing some work—three to four hours a day for now. I know his bosses want him back, but he is still healing, so he shouldn’t push it. The worker’s comp insurance is going to pay for a metal railing for the front of the house and some bars and supports in the bathroom so that he’ll feel safer. I ordered and put together a bed frame that will support him and get his mattress/box spring up off the floor. Working well so far.
Ethan is very, very, slowly feeling better. He plays D & D on Saturday nights and DMs his own games on Sunday and Tuesday afternoons and Thursday night. It really helps him to feel in control of something and gets his mind of the still considerable pain he is feeling. I need to work with him to do some of the physical therapy for his back so that pain will be more manageable.
Cathleen was told on Thursday (02/17/2022) that she would be non-renewed at her school this year. Though we believe it is body-weight related (all of the other teachers are young, thin women), we can’t prove anything. She’s written up her resignation and has started looking for another job. She really loved the kiddos and her fellow teachers and the parents seemed to like her as well. My hope is that now that she has a year of teaching (plus two years of subbing) under her belt, she get snatched up. Emporia would probably be a good fit, but maybe she can find something in Seneca or Sabetha or Horton.
I’ve been battling a fair amount of depression and hopelessness, but I just keep on keepin’ on. Really, what else can I do? My family needs stability, calmness and someone who can keep the home fires burning, as it were. I do my best.
COVID-19 seems to be going the way of the flu, in that it will be endemic and we’ll just get a shot every year. Johns Hopkins reports the US leads all other countries in both cases (78,620,973) and deaths (938,567), but 10,402,901,371 vaccine doses have been administered world-wide, so it seems we’ve started to realize that vaccines do make us safer. How about that?