Living Life Vegan Style: Beautiful Moments, Grumpy Faces, Spider Webs, and Roses

As I drove to work in the light blue-grey of early morning listening to Bryan Luke on my country music station and drinking my Chai tea, I could see the moon with its shadowy surface, hanging low but huge on the horizon. That was a good moment.

My current favorite morning drink - Good Earth Chai Tea (brewed strong), lots of lemon juice, and stevia (sometimes agave syrup) over ice. Not traditional but refreshing.

Another morning and another drive, and I looked towards a whiff of engine fuel that assaulted my nose and saw an old VW bug. I thought of my grandfather as he showed me where he placed the magnetic box that held a spare key to my own little red VW bug – after he had rescued me twice because I locked my keys in the car. At the time, I felt young and stupid but now, with him gone and me - definitely older and maybe a little wiser, I’m glad I have that memory of someone who was willing to rescue me and protect me. That was a good moment.

Grandpa - washed my car every time I drove to visit him, built a 6 foot puppet theater for my student teaching project, fed me fresh fruit and veggies from his garden, and took care of me in a million other ways.

It’s period 1, just barely after 8:00 AM on Friday morning after a very long week and I’m having a physics discussion with my not-totally-awake 8^th grade honors class. One of the young men in my class shares an answer that is so totally off the mark that I can’t help but laugh. The class, including the young man, joined me. I gave him a discussion point just because he made me laugh. That was a good moment.

It is not easy to think when you are sleepy! I appreciate my 8th graders for doing their best so early in the morning. (I can't show pictures of them - don't have permission - but they are a beautiful bright group of kids!)

And there were other moments – conversations I shared at lunch and after school with other teachers, the strength and strain I felt as I did bicep curls, the silky, smooth taste of my broccoli-spinach soup and in celebration of the end of the week, the Hawaiian Margaritas I shared with my housemate as we watched “The Big Bang Theory” (love my DVR) on Friday night.

I know I'm rather new to drinking, (being a former Mormon), and I do it so rarely but I think Tequila is rather nice. We used a recipe from the Internet for a Hawaiian Margarita. And, I did not take the above picture - I drank the Margarita instead of photographing it.

However, I have discovered that enjoying “the moment” doesn’t mean that all my moments were magically transformed into Disney scenes. And I spent plenty of time crawling through the gravel, struggling to climb the cliffs, and staring into space exhausted, overwhelmed, and discouraged. For example, it’s 6^th period, fairly early in the week and I am so tired I could cry. I tell the students: “I’m sorry – I’m so tired today”. And a student replies, “You sound tired,” (you’re thinking she’s sympathetic – how sweet, No, she continued with) – “and grumpy and mean.” AND I ate 2 Snickers single-bite candies! which have sugar and are most likely not vegan!

Oops. I allow students to buy "treats" with earned tickets. I've decided I should only use "treats" I don't like because on bad days - those Snickers are too hard to resist!

But it is the weekend, so the time is mine to enjoy and fill with fun activities – except for the stacks of papers that have to be graded, the visit to Kaiser for follow-up blood work, the lesson planning that’s essential, the grocery shopping, the preparing of healthy foods so I can eat already prepared fresh veggies instead of Snickers, and the list goes on and on and on.

Work makes me grumpy! I have too much to do and too little time to get it all done!

And maybe that’s the way life is for me right now. I am not far enough along in my development to find joy in cleaning the cat boxes or grading stacks of papers. Sometimes, in between enjoying the lovely moments, metaphorically speaking, I just have to suck it up and crawl through the gravel. But I am trying to absorb or learn, that just because something isn’t pleasant or easy right now, (like getting up early to exercise, or being patient with 13 year-olds that need time to adjust to a school routine as much as I do, or not relying on comfort food to comfort me), doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. Or that it won’t get easier the longer I work at it. And maybe, with practice, I can see more positive moments and less gravel!

Sometimes when life beats you up - you've got to just keep flying.

I'm finding it is taking me more time to get everything done. I wanted to post a blog every week but it just didn't happen last week. I wrote most of this last week but couldn't get it finished or published until this week.

And how did I do for the last 2 weeks, I mostly ate healthy but I wasn't as perfect as I have been (I really need to get rid of those Snickers!).

As for my weight – I’m not sure – my scale stopped working and I had to get a new one. It shows a 3 pound loss for last week. And another 3 pounds for this week! I have now lost a little over 30 pounds!

9/19 - Old Scale

9/26 - New Scale

Oct 2nd - I guess I made up for the Snickers with all the walking I had to do at school this week.

As for school, I do NOT KNOW HOW TO GET EVERYTHING DONE and have a life of my own. There is so much work! Last weekend, I tried the technique of setting time limits for work and just getting as much done as I could and that would have to be good enough. Except, it wasn’t good enough! It is the end of the second week and I don’t have grades for any students because I haven’t graded enough papers. This weekend I graded papers until I had enough to evaluate students. It took about 8 hours ( not all at once) and I watched saved shows while I graded. It wasn't fun but it wasn't horrible. (I was hungry the whole time I was grading though but I didn't eat. Even though I know it's a mental thing - I would really like to grade papers with out feeling so hungry.)

The gardens were beautiful the last weekend of September. There are still roses! In fact, I'm amazed there are still so many flowers. There were also a lot of spiders sitting on beautiful, big webs! One web completely blocked my chosen path, and I chose to take a different route. (I think webs are beautiful but I don't want to walk through one - and these spiders were BIG! And I know I'm a big bad science teacher but I still don't want to walk through a web with a big bad spider on it!) I'm sure there is a lesson there - sometimes your "path" is blocked and it's easier to take another path than fight your way through. Or perhaps the lesson is that I'm not more important than someone else (even if the someone is a spider) so why should I ruin his? her? day. However, the reality is that someone else will eventually come through the path and knock down the spider web but today it wasn't me.