Will this beet the end of me?

Part of my three year absence was due to a complex array of health related issues including the creation of Frankenknee. But I won't bore you with details.

When life is unkind, being healthy is critical for dealing with the stressors that lurk behind every bush, hide under every rock and assault you each time you answer the phone or open an email. How can you fight off the boogeyman if you are curled up under a blanket in bed?

A few days ago I had a biomerdian test done to see where I'm at in the battle against Yeast Overgrowth Syndrome. My chiropractor noticed sluggishness in both my liver and gall bladder. The last thing I need is another surgery.

After Frankenknee and the nightmare with my mom last year, I don't ever want to see the inside of a hospital again.

Dr. Kristen prescribed me some "medicine". Food medicine. She told me Hippocrates himself said to use food as medicine.

After two days of taking said prescriptions, I am not sure how either of the following qualify as food.

Let's start with apple cider vinegar. I am taking that to detox my liver. I also get to wash it down with the juice of a whole lemon with a dash of cayenne pepper!

Have you ever tried to drink straight apple cider vinegar?

It is one of the most vile substances on the planet. I rank it with poop and vomit. At least I don't have to drink those.

Then there are the beets (for gall bladder). No, I do NOT get to cook my beet. I must put it in my Vitamix and drink the pretty purple liquid from a RAW beet. Tastes like dirt. Makes me relate well iwth earthworms.

But I tell ya, beets should come with a warning label!

Fortunately I was able to make 1+1 = 2 and knew I was not dying. But a person not in the know might die of a myocardial infarction in the bathroom. Pink and purple are not natural colors to be seen. Let's leave it at that.

I called the chiro's office this morning to ask if taking my "medicine" ever gets any easier. The response was, "Honestly... no. It's a matter of pure discipline."

Well then.

I must admit I slept all the way through the night last night for the first time in many months. Thanks to the nasty tasting concoction Dr. Kristen prescribed.

And after all, isn't medicine supposed to taste awful?

Gettin' my blog back on

I took a three year break.

Been through a lot of stuff.

Still going through even more stuff.

But...

There really is no such thing as perfect timing when all the planets, planes and pine cones all line up perfectly indicating it's now time to move forward again with the writing thing.

Oh, I haven't stopped writing. I've been working on my novel. I just felt the need to withdraw from any kind of notice.

Spotlight.

Judgement.

After sending out a proposal for my fiction, I was advised to focus on building a platform. My how things have changed in the past three years!

To blog or not to blog? What formats? Audience? Start a new one? Revive the old one? Do it all in thirty minutes hoping to attract ten thousand followers?

Yikes.

I've been exploring the world of Tumblr. Created a blog Silk Wood and Steel. It's a blog for color guard fans. I'm still trying to figure it all out. But it seems to be the place where guard lovers hang out and interact more so than Facebook.

My Twitter account is still around. You can follow me @DarcieJoy. Posts are more or less random as I figure out how to hone my content.

And after lots of brain torturing thinking, I decided to go ahead and bring Litterbox back to life as my personal blog.

About life. Writing. Parenting. Guard. Stuff.

So. Here I am.

Again.

:)

Not sure

February? I haven't posted since February? Obviously posting hasn't been on the top of my priority list and right now I'm trying to decide how worth it frequent posting is.

What is my motivation for blogging? Pretending I'm important, thinking people care about my tiny little world? I know the people directly in my life care, but out there in cyber world where there are millions of blogs? Not sure if this is the time in my life to spend hours revamping the look (I can't afford a designer at this time and none of the free templates work for me) or trying to think of something interesting and relevant to say.

Honestly, I'm in a very vulnerable and protective place. Don't want to draw attention to myself or my family given all the trials we are trying to survive.

Maybe when I do get a published book and a readership I'll reconsider a re-launch of the blog.

Right now I need to focus my time on my family, my guard and my book.

Big Honkin' Learning Curve

You think things should get easier as life goes on b/c you've "been there done that".

Yeah. Right.

I'm finding the curve in my learning curve has deepened and steepened to pitches unheard of. Around every corner I'm finding life is surprising me in some horrifying and interesting ways.

Right now I'm learning how to be strong. My friend and colleague, Todd Carrasco (Columbine HS drumline and Malachi Independent Winter Guard) is chanting Kia Kaha to me. It means "be strong" in some tribal language from New Zeland - I'm going to have to find out for sure on that one.

I'm at a crossroads where giving up and walking away would be the easy and even understandable thing to do. I'm learning success isn't about scores and placements. I'm learning how I handle crisis and situations that call for full blown freaking out will shape how my young padawan learners (AKA guard students) deal with crisis later in life.

I'm learning to think on my feet w/o panicking.

I'm learning to breathe deep and pray, trusting God will work things out - especially b/c He put me in this very place knowing all this very stuff would happen. That means I need to stick and be strong.

I'm learning I love my students fiercely and will fight for them as if they were my own kids. I refuse to let bad decisions made by some take away the very thing they are striving so hard to achieve.

I'm learning foundations go deeper than basic skills. Building trust, developing parental support, involvement and excitement are more valuable than a medal and need to come before the basic skills can be built and achieved. Especially when building a new program.

I'm learning my colleagues are there for me and we are a team. Even folks who direct other units are coming alongside of me in support. They see the potential in my students and the program and want to invest and help us out. Sure, we may compete against each other on the floor, but working together and supporting each other puts a whole new spin and fun in competition. It really does redefine success.

I'm learning tenacity and responsibility are not dead in today's teens. Today's teens have heart, grit and a maturity that is aching to be expressed. They are yearning for a cause or purpose to get behind and fight for. Contrary to a lot of eduspeak/psychobabble, there are kids today willing to sacrifice for a cause. I'm talking about kids being raised in an entitlement culture! These kids are seeing through the emptiness and are shucking it off, begging to shuck it off and learn self-discipline. Wow.

But it takes time, pain and perseverance to find those kids.

Yeah, life in my litterbox kinda hurts right now as I'm scrambling to Make Things Work in a few hours. But I'm seeing great joy in how my team is pulling together to overcome. Regardless of scores and placements.

Go Rebels!

For all the teachers, band directors and coaches out there

Being a teacher/coach/mentor is hard these days. I don't know about you, but sometimes when things are not going as I hoped, I wonder why the heck I do what I do. I'm getting too old to mash my hands with a saber blade!

But then things like this happen. Today I received a message on Facebook from a former student when I taught special education full time at Sheridan High School. I remember this student well. He was not easy or even pleasant to have in class, refusing to participate and gladly turned in blank exams and homework assignments. He'd disrupt my class every few minutes with James Bond trivia. I tried to hook him into learning by having him write Bond scripts for me pertaining to health. I think it was the writerly connection that kept me from totally losing it with him.

Yesterday I got a message.

Here's a piece from the letter:

As for school, I kind of regret not focusing in your classes in 9th grade especially health class. Perhaps I found it difficult to do or just wasn't used to asking for help and that's why I ended up quiting. But I learned over these years that if you didn't keep going or if you didn't ask for help and just quit, you miss out on a lot of opportunities especially in life. I have now vowed and dedicated myself to be more open and willing to work even if it is a challenge. My philosophy I think is "Don't think about how difficult it is, just get it done" and after you get it done, you feel like you have made a huge difference instead of doing nothing and sitting there thinking that it is no big deal whether you get it done or not.

Anyway, I'll talk to you later.

This student was a freshman in my health class at least six years ago. SIX YEARS.

I consider my years of full-time teaching my "dark years". The four years of my life I proved to myself that I am a total and utter failure in the classroom. After I left teaching, I sunk into a depression believing I failed. I believed I wasted years and years of my life pursuing a teaching career that was no longer.

Two and a half years ago I had this experience w/ a former student and band kid: Redeeming the Past. This still grips me. It was dramatic and profound. Take a moment to read it.

A short note from a former guard kid who ditched most of my rehearsals and appeared to hate my guts says this as she graduated over a year ago:

To the love of my guard life, I might have been a pain in your butt, but I'm glad I did guard this year and got to personally know you. Your [sic] wounderful [sic] and most of all you can put up w/ me!

What this last note revealed is that sometimes kids test us to see if we will put up with them over time. So many find adults get exasperated and walk out of their lives. Guard instructors get mad and quit. Adults walking out of their lives creates a void. A void that fills with pain. So, in the interest of self-protection they test the new adult, or in some cases they are new to the adult who's been there a while.

Kids who complained I pushed them too hard in guard come back and thank me for teaching them how to be pushed and push themselves.

Again, I'm talking years later.

That's what's so hard about teaching. It can take years IF you get to see some of the fruits of your labors.

I'm not posting this to toot my own horn, I'll leave that to the brass section. Rather I want to remind teachers and coaches why we do what we do. No matter how our season or semester progresses, we are impacting lives.

All the kids want from us is to show up and love them when they are feeling most unlovable. We may not feel like we're giving or achieving our educational/competitive goals, but in their eyes, we're sick.