thegreatkaysby – Page 12 – The Great Kaysby

The Simple Things

According to the calendar today is Thursday, but in my head it felt more like Monday #3 of the week. I’m sure that I’m not the only one feeling the mental exhaustion associated with “Back to School Covid Edition”. The mental exhaustion seemed to have reached it’s peak this evening when I legit just wanted to sit in my chair and not make any decisions. This level of exhaustion makes things like the pork we were supposed to have for dinner expiring three days ago seem like catastrophes instead of inconveniences. When this level is reached, the best thing I can do is step back and enjoy the simple things in life.

The tone of the day changed completely when I let go of the day’s stress and decided to only do fun, simple things the rest of the evening. The first simple thing was to pour a cold drink (Diet Coke for the win) and sit on the front porch. Until this summer, I never understood why my grandma always found sitting on the front porch to be so relaxing. However, after having sat out there quite a few times over the summer, I’ve realized that it is peaceful to just sit and watch the world around you. I also enjoy waving at people as they go by because it always seems as though they don’t know how to respond. The next simple thing that led to a better today was playing in the rain when the storm broke lose. I held LilKsby tight, and we ran around the house in the rain. My socks were so soaked that they felt as heavy as actual shoes, but it was the most exhilarating, freeing feeling of the day! Nothing can wash your cares away like a warm, summer rain! Then, since it wasn’t quite time for a bath, I held LilKsby while he played with his markers (washable ones thankfully) and colored a kitty. Snuggles and art are a great combination for relaxing! The final simple thing? Breaking out my calendar, making a to do list, and completing it! Now, I’m relaxing in bed to type this blog, and I’m going to be snuggled under the covers before 9:30! Boom!

On paper, none of the simple things that I did this evening seem like much. None of them are based on necessity, and none of them lead to profound revelations about the existence of humankind. However, these simple things did put me in a much better mood which will help me rest easier. On a day that feels like Monday #3, I call that a win!

Check out these links to see items that were part of my simple things!

Starry Night Planner: https://amzn.to/2EGCp5s

Pip Squeaks Markers: https://amzn.to/2Ep6WFm

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

So Long Summer!

Once again it is time to say good-bye to summer as we return to school. No matter what your stance is on returning to school, I believe we can all agree that this has been the most bizarre summer of our lifetimes (unless your over 102 and can remember the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918). Never before have we had to consider social distancing rules when going to the grocery store; never before have we had to remember to always have a mask with us so that we can be sure to follow mandates. We’ve experienced the closure of summer activities like swimming at public pools, the switch from in person to virtual summer camps, and the cancellation of favorite parts of summer such as vacations. You always hear about how summer can change people, and I think that is more true of this summer than anyone that I’ve ever faced.

For some of us, change is a very hard thing especially when it comes to personal growth as often times personal growth is difficult. In my own life, this summer has taught me to not be afraid to stand up for my beliefs. As someone who doesn’t necessarily like confrontation, this can be very difficult. However, I’ve realized that my beliefs are important, and when I don’t let them be heard, then it impacts me internally in a negative way. This summer has also taught me that sometimes you need to tell people no even though you don’t want to hurt their feelings. Again, as someone who likes to make everyone happy, this is a difficult task. However, I’ve discovered that if you’re always a “Yes Man”, then you’re denying taking care of yourself in the process. Self care is very important! I’ve always said that if you don’t take care of yourself, then you can’t be your best self for everyone else. That’s been very true this summer!

Another key part of this summer has been the difficulty of learning how to deal with the unknown. This is the hardest for me. While I may not necessarily like to have everything planned to a T, I do like having the ability to be in control of situations. (Which is why I like to drive instead of be the passenger.) During this pandemic, there has been very little over which I’ve truly had control. I can’t control mandates; I can’t control the actions of other people; I can’t control the impact of the virus. What I can control is my response to all of those things. There have been days when my response is crying and feeling sick because of the things I cannot control. There have been other days when I’ve been able to lose myself in fun things and enjoy each moment. Most days, a combination of both happens. Thankfully, I’ve got a great circle that loves me on all the days!

As we enter the last four days before teachers have to report to school, it would be really easy to have four of the rough days. However, my plan is to immerse myself in the fun moments because come Monday, I really have no control over what happens. If the weather holds, then this means four days of splash pad time with LilKsby, reading on my Kindle, painting, and finding some activities to look forward to throughout the rest of the year (this is always a mood helper for me).

As we go into the unknown of the school year, I know I’m going to have to keep working on dealing with the unknown. I also plan to keep standing up for my beliefs, and I plan to keep being okay with saying no. One thing this summer has taught me is that LilKsby observes a lot of what Mr Kisby and I do. I want him to observe positive changes in us that he will embrace in his own life as he grows up.

How have you positively changed this summer?

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Game On! A Gen Con Online Review

It’s Monday, August 3, and after four fun filled days, my Twitch channels I followed are all offline, I’ve only gotten one Discord notification, and I found myself asking Siri to roll a D20 because I was having gaming withdrawals. For those of us in the gaming world, today’s the Monday after Gen Con (aka “the best four days in gaming”) and we’re all feeling like something is missing. To those of you not in the gaming world, Gen Con is a four day convention that typically happens every year in Indy. During the convention, attendees can game pretty much 24 hours a day and participate in more events than the mind can comprehend. However, like a lot of conventions, this year Gen Con Indy became Gen Con Online because of Covid-19. Brace yourself…the following is my review of Gen Con Online.

Sensational Sovranti – Hands down the best part of the weekend was playing Sushi Go, Hedgehog Hop, and Truck Off on the Sovranti App. Sovranti was there running games online because after two and a half years of work the app is about to go into Beta. Sovranti wanted to let Gen Con Online attendees try it out in order to get some early feedback. Great news? They started taking that feedback and immediately fixing bugs in the app. Problems I had on Thursday were not encountered during my events on Saturday and Sunday! An additional bonus? The Sovranti folks were AMAZING! Huge shoutouts to Dani and Jason for their awesome GM-ing and friendliness! By the end of the weekend, Dani knew who I was by my voice. That’s pretty awesome! They also had a GM named Mark who was phenomenal! He ran my session of Hedgehog Hop, and he just happened to be the artist who designed all of the illustrations for the game!

Excellent and Not So Excellent Events – At any con there is the potential for events to be excellent. Some of my most excellent events for Gen Con Online were the seminars on teaching and gaming in the classroom! I’ve always wanted to attend Trade Day at Gen Con Indy, but I’ve either been in school already or at Professional Development. Thus, I was very happy to get to do some of these seminars. The one with Kathleen and Catherine was AWESOME! There was also a fun game called Trophies from Facade Games that was a fun event! I also have to give Facade Games props for working through technical difficulties and not giving up! Unfortunately, there were some not so excellent events. Also, a bit of advice: if you’re going to run a game or give a seminar, whether it is in person or online, you need to have more personality than a blueberry muffin. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some blueberry muffins! However, if you’re trying to hold my attention for more than five minutes then you’ve got to have some charisma. Also, a problem with solely Gen Con Online has to do with motion sickness. There are certain video game camera angles that make me sick. The entire time I was doing a demo on Tabletopia, I thought I was going to get sick. After the demo, I had to go take Extra Strength Tylenol in order to make it through the rest of the evening.

Exhibition Hall – One of my favorite parts of the Gen Con experience is the Exhibition Hall. At Gen Con Indy, within the Exhibition Hall there are crammed over 500 booths with artists, authors, and game companies. The Exhibition Hall is AMAZING because you can talk to vendors, watch/participate in quick game demos, haggle for bargains, and collect freebies such as pins that you never knew you even needed until somebody handed it to you. With Gen Con Online, they attempted to replicate the exhibition hall experience via The Looking Glass (still open until August 30). The idea of The Looking Glass was great! But the execution of The Looking Glass left something to be desired. The extensive vendor list would have been a lot easier to browse with more than four filters, and my laptop had a difficult time with the interface. I could also tell that some of the vendors didn’t take a lot of time with their Looking Glass promos because they didn’t include any descriptions, product image thumbnails, or even links to their social media. If they didn’t provide descriptions or thumbnails, then I didn’t even go to their website. I also feel like I didn’t pay as much attention to the vendors after getting through the “G’s” or so on the list because it was kind of exhausting to read through. Plus, on The Looking Glass nobody handed me free dice or collectible pins. At real Gen Con, I would’ve literally spent an entire day going through the Exhibition Hall, but at Gen Con Online, I just didn’t have the desire to keep clicking.

What was missing by having Gen Con Online? There were two main things missing for me with Gen Con Online beside the Exhibition Hall encounters. One, the gaming library. For those who want to try as many new games as they can get their hands on, the gaming library is the place to be. This is where you can go for hours and hours and play games that they have on hand. The last two times we went in person, the gaming library was my second favorite ticketed event. (You have to remember in 2014, I accidentally entered a National King of Tokyo tournament and came in 3rd Place, so that’s hard to beat.) The second thing that was missing was the social scene of Gen Con. I looked outside my house, and there was no Georgia Street packed full of food trucks or a beer garden. There wasn’t a Sun King set up with the official beer of Gen Con. There wasn’t a tent serving “island noodles” which just might be the best noodles on the planet! I could stream music performances, but it wasn’t the same as jamming to bands playing live. Other little things were missing like pool time in the hotel, pick up games at random hours, and people waving you over to a table to jump in a game with an empty seat.

Gen Con Online Greatness – All of this said, if Gen Con had been in Indy and not online this year, then I wouldn’t have been able to go. Could you imagine LilKsby at a four day gaming convention? He would’ve been amused for maybe an hour, but since we were home he had a ball at Gen Con. While me and Mr Kisby listened to streams or participated in events, LilKsby played with his toys. He also joined in on some of the Zooms and Google Meets since he likes to see the people that live in the computer. Another perk? We weren’t rushing to pack up the car before checkout on Sunday, and we didn’t have a long car trip home. We also made it fun by having theme days as far as how we dressed each day. The best two were definitely Cat Day and Batman Day. We also saved A LOT of money by not having to pay for badges, a hotel, gas, and meals. We also didn’t buy nearly as many games as we usually would at Gen Con because we didn’t really get to try very many. There were some definite perks to Gen Con Online.

Where Can Gen Con Online Go From Here? I think that even when Gen Con Indy can resume, then Gen Con Online is still worth continuing. In an ideal situation, I think Gen Con Online would be great to have during the winter – like February or March – when it is cold and people want to game without leaving their homes. I also think that Gen Con Online reached a wider international audience than Gen Con Indy does as it could all be accessed anywhere with internet. No one had to worry about 24 hour flights to Indy! One of the biggest draws of Gen Con Online this year was also that it was free to attend and many events were free. Gen Con has already said that to continue Gen Con Online, then they would have to charge money. I think this would be okay provided the experience involved more events that I couldn’t have found and streamed free without even registering for Gen Con online. I also think that to charge for Gen Con Online, there would need to be something in it for me. For example, if Gen Con Online were $25, then getting a set 7 piece set of Gen Con specific dice and 25% off my official Gen Con merchandise would make the $25 worth it. Another idea would be for the $25 fee to include some event vouchers.

Overall, I feel like with the small amount of time they had to switch from Gen Con Indy to Gen Con Online that Gen Con LLC did a good job. In reality, one probably shouldn’t even compare Gen Con Indy and Gen Con Online as it is kind of like comparing Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. Diet Coke (Gen Con Indy) is always the better choice, but Diet Pepsi (Gen Con Online) will suffice if necessary. I loved my experience with Gen Con Online, and I’m very glad that we made the choice to participate. That said, I can’t wait for Gen Con 2021! I hope that Covid-19 is under control enough to go in person, but if not, then I’ll be ready for another (and I’m sure much improved) virtual experience!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

13 Things About Me

You know those articles about famous people like “25 Things You Never Knew About Nicholas Brendon”? As a celeb gossip site junky, I like to read those to see if the things listed are truly ones I didn’t know. Typically, if it is someone associated with a favorite show or musical act, then I already knew about 75% of the things. Today, I got to thinking about my own audience and what fun things people may not know about me. Thus, I present “13 Things You Never Knew About The Great Kaysby”!

1. I love reading Top 10 Style Lists! Top 10 lists, especially those on http://www.screenrant.com, are one of my guilty pleasures when it comes to reading. I want to know things like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 5 Times We Felt Bad for Riley (And 5 Times We Hated Him)”. Lists about my favorite TV shows and movies always amuse me! I also enjoy just general funny top lists like Dave Letterman was known to share on his late show. I prefer my lists to have bold titles so that I can just read the list without all of the fluff if I’m not in the mood for it. (Feel free to just read my bold titles.)

2. I prefer odd numbers. I don’t know why, but I’ve always preferred odd numbers over even numbers. Maybe it is because I’m an only child which meant three people in my house growing up. Maybe it is because people always insisted that numbers like 13 were unlucky. Could just be because I’m an odd duck; therefore, I like odd numbers.

3. I don’t like being hot. If it is over 80 degrees, then I’m not happy! In fact, if it is over like 72 with the AC, then I’m grumpy. There is nothing worse to me than being sweaty and stinky. When it is over 80 degrees, the only way I want to be outside is either in a pool or on the ocean (cruise ship pre-pandemic or beach). I would much rather have fall temperatures all year than sweat.

4. I love food, but I do not like to eat it outside. Outside there are bugs (something else I’m not a fan of). The easiest way to get me to throw away food is to have a bug land on it or near it. Flies buzzing around food really grosses me out especially if they land because somebody told me when I was little that a fly vomits every time it lands.

5. I love food, but I’m very picky! I don’t like cheese unless it is on pizza or like how it is on pizza. The cheese CANNOT be the dominant flavor or texture. I don’t like steak because of the texture. I’m not a fan of chocolate unless the chocolate is a small part of a chocolate chip cookie or Reese’s cup. Ice cream is too cold, and I’ll only eat it when it is melty in a Blizzard. I’m not a fan of beer or drinks with sugar in them. Cheetos are yucky as are Cheez-its. I don’t like olives, mushrooms, or lima beans. Blue cheese dressing is gross as well.

6. I love to bake, but I don’t eat a lot of it. I love to bake! I love trying new recipes! I’ve been working on my decorating technique after getting hooked on Nailed It! on Netflix. Fun fact, once I’ve baked it, a lot of times I don’t want to eat it. The exception is usually cupcakes and cookies. During the holidays this means I bake a lot of things for other people just because!

7. I love to paint! I will never claim to be good at it, but because of the “Paint and Sip” style classes that have become so popular, I love to paint! I like playing around with a blank canvas and trying my hand at creating art. Currently, I’m watching YouTube videos of Bob Ross to improve my skill!

8. I love socks! I have so many socks that I could probably go two months and never wear the same pair of socks twice! I love ankle socks, knee socks, no show socks, socks with designs, plain socks, fuzzy sucks…any type of socks! If you ever want to buy me a present, then send socks! I have size 10 feet, so they can be a challenge!

9. I love labels, and I’m not ashamed to admit it! There are not a lot of things where I pay attention to labels. I don’t shop for name brand clothes, and I always try to save money by purchasing brands like Great Value when it comes to groceries. However, when it comes to shoes and bags, I’m not ashamed to admit that I have favorites! For shoes, I love my Skechers and Converse! You want me to be amused for a while? Drop me off at the Converse outlet! I’ll also accept knock-off Converse. I just love that style! With handbags, I’m a fan of Coach and Kate Spade. The addiction started when I earned pieces from both designers as prizes in my direct selling job. My helpful hint when it comes to labels? Shop the outlets, and sign up for their emails so that you get extra deals! That way you can save and shop!

10. I love performing! Performing on stage in front of an audience has been one of my passions for as long as I can remember. I love acting, and I love to sing. My fear of what people thought of my singing has truly held me back from singing in public more. That’s why I’m always in the ensemble in musicals! Acting wise, I love to be in comedies! If I can make people laugh, then I feel like I’ve accomplished something great! Favorite roles have included Emily Webb in Our Town (even though it’s not a comedy), Mrs. Poppenghul in Moonlight and Magnolias, and Phyllis Montague in Play On.

11. I love playing games! I love to play games! I love computer games like World of Warcraft! I love console games especially any Zelda game! I love board games, card games, and table top RPGs! Any game where I have a goal and the chance for victory pretty much makes me happy!

12. I love “quiet” activities! I love putting together puzzles. I enjoy word games on my phone. I enjoy completing crossword puzzles and word searches. I LOVE to read! This is one is so big that I can say breaking down and buying a Kindle last year was one of my best purchases. I love taking pictures of flowers and landscapes!

13. I love decaf coffee that doesn’t taste like coffee. If I’m drinking a cup of coffee, then I want it to be so diluted with creamer that it is like a pale brown color. For me the best coffee tastes like french vanilla, caramel macchiato, or a mocha. Drown it in whip cream and I have my own frothy Starbucks like drink at home. In actuality, the best coffee to me isn’t even coffee. It is a nice, freshly brewed cup of hot tea.

There you have “13 Things You Never Knew About The Great Kaysby”! I challenge you to share things about yourself that people may not know!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Teacher Talk

During a typical summer by the time July 22 rolls around, most teachers are starting to get back in the school groove. With school usually starting in about a week and a half, most teachers have already started Professional Development sessions, working on their classrooms, thinking about plans for the first week, and considering squeezing in one more day trip to the zoo or weekend getaway. In a normal year, teachers are talking with their colleagues about expectations for the year and planning for Open House.

This isn’t a normal school year; this is a pandemic year.

Instead of getting ready for a start of school the first week of August, many districts have pushed their start dates to the end of August to implement pandemic procedures. Professional Developments have been moved to online, and though the topic for the session said one thing all conversations turn to Covid-19. Working on classrooms is difficult without knowing for sure what setup will be required to look like. Even Open Houses are going virtual for the year! What’s normally an exciting time has become riddled with anxiety and what seems like a million questions about reopening that no one can know the answers to with 100% certainty because no one can predict next week’s Coronavirus numbers.

If you talk to a teacher about the upcoming school year, then you will get a variety of answers. Some are afraid to go back in-person while some can’t wait to be physically back in the classroom. Some are anxious about the possibility of bringing the virus to their own homes or spreading to their own parents with co-morbidities (a term that has become way to “normal” since the pandemic). They may miss in-person instruction, but they also want to stay home to protect their families. There are those who don’t really have an option because their family relies on their income or health insurance who will do as told because when it comes down to it they really have no choice.

Regardless of their position on the return to school, teachers are all thinking some of the same things. What will our group discussions be like without being able to see faces through masks? How will we implement cooperative learning strategies and group work with minimal risk of spreading the virus? What can we expect our schedule to look like so that we can begin to plan for those who have trouble with schedule changes? How can we teach everything we are supposed to while implementing all the pandemic procedures? Of course there is also the biggest question of all: will any of us die from the virus?

With so many unknowns you can see why teachers are having a rough time right now. Luckily, we aren’t alone and have support systems with other teachers. For me, the support has come from two places. One is the Blessing Teacher 2 Teacher group on Facebook. It was started by Kristen Hall and Heidi Hamlyn as a way for teachers to send blessings to one another as we all know that teachers tend to buy for others before themselves. Now, with over 10,000 members, it has become a group where you can openly discuss how you’re feeling about the pandemic, things you need prayers/positive thoughts about, how many jobs you have besides teaching, and much more. It feels like a group of friends supporting one another! My second support system has been my own colleagues. Even though some of us haven’t seen each other since March, all the texts, private messages, video chats, and social media posts show that we have each others backs! These support systems that allow us teachers to talk with one another are current keys to sanity.

For all the non teachers reading this, please be patient with the teachers and other school personnel in your life. They don’t mean to be short with you or antisocial. They don’t mean to be overly emotional or overly preoccupied. They don’t mean to be quickly confrontational. They are trying their best to rest and relax, but with so many unknowns it is very difficult to be positive even for the most upbeat people. Be patient with us. Most of us are okay, but we need you to be patient and not critical.

To everyone, stay safe, stay healthy, and do your best to stay positive!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

The Eye of the Hurricane

“In the eye of a hurricane/there is quiet/for just a moment” is the lyric that kept running through my head over and over while I worked on the pictured painting with LilKsby. The lyric is from “Hurricane”, a musical number from Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. During the last few weeks life has kind of felt like a hurricane with so much going on with the pandemic. Businesses and places have reopened, but then they’ve had to close back down. Case numbers had seemingly plateaued, but now there are more cases than ever in certain areas. Masks have gone from being recommended to having to be mandated. On any given day one person can experience so many thoughts and feelings that they feel as though they are constantly living in an emotional hurricane.

Then, there are days where you finally feel like you can breathe; days where you feel like you can finally relax. These are the days when you feel safe from all the distress of the world; these are the days when you just enjoy the life you’ve been blessed with having. These days are the eye of the hurricane for you. Currently, these are the best days! They are days of no anxiety, no doubt, and just experiencing relaxation, contentment, and joy. I think we could all agree that we need more of these days!

So what’s in my eye of the hurricane? Snuggles with LilKsby, cooking for him and Mr Kisby, baking, painting, reading, avoiding social media (that really gets the old anxiety going), exercising, writing, and watching fun videos (lately a lot of Nicholas Brendon’s lives), communicating with family/friends, and focusing on today. My eye of the hurricane is a comfort to me, and with all the uncertainties these days, it’s a good place to spend some time. In my eye of the hurricane, there is love and joy! Even though I know this storm must be weathered, it is good to just be in the moment of quiet sometimes.

What’s in your eye of the hurricane?

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

3 AM Thoughts

Remember the Matchbox 20 song “3 am”? A couple of the most memorable lines were: “She only sleeps when it’s raining, and she screams and her voice is straining and she says baby, it’s 3 am I must be lonely.”

Well, I do love to sleep when it’s raining, but just because I’m awake at 3 am doesn’t mean that I’m lonely. Tonight, it means that (a) I fell asleep really early for me, and (b) the bottle of water that I drank right before bed kicked in effect! After waking up, I realized that I wasn’t tired, so I laid back down and finished a book on my Kindle. Now that the book is done, I find myself just laying here enjoying the moment.

It’s funny because if I were lying in bed awake during “normal hours”, I would feel obliged to be doing something. I would feel like there was something that had to be done around the house, activities that had to be completed with Mr Kisby and LilKsby, or business that had to be attended to immediately. However, since it is the middle of the night, it’s like I give myself permission to relax and enjoy it.

I’ve always been more of a night owl than a morning person as frankly that early bird catching the worm has just always seemed like an overachiever in my book. I really got used to getting up in the middle of the night when LilKsby was so small that we had to wake him up and feed him every couple of hours (you know a year ago…lol). Now it’s almost hard not to wake up for just a little bit.

Often times when I do wake up, I do one of two things. One, I look at my loves and smile. It’s a smile of pure happiness and thankful awe; it’s a smile of how did I get this lucky in life? Two, I stare at the ceiling and think about how perfect these quiet moments are. They’re moments where I can just reflect, count my blessings, and be thankful for the life I’ve been given. The calm that these two things brings is indescribable which is why 3 am turns to 4 am and 5 am and so forth. It’s kind of my personal version of staring at an aquarium to lower your blood pressure. 😊

What are your thoughts at 3 am?

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Optimism + Information = Hope

Photo Credit: http://www.goodreads.com
https://images.app.goo.gl/2gUxuLcmeZqiDKpd7

“Optimism + information = hope” is a saying from the late Christopher Reeve used by Michael J. Fox in his book Always Looking Up The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. I was too young/not interested in the genre to know Christopher Reeve as Superman. To me he was always the celebrity injured in a horrific accident who used his accident to advocate for himself and others. However, I loved Michael J. Fox from a young age. I absolutely loved him as Alex P Keaton and Teen Wolf in the 80s. I remember going to see Back to the Future III in the theater even though I was only 7 when it came out. When he returned to the small screen on Spin City, I was beyond thrilled. That thrill turned to shock upon learning that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. In 1998, when he announced his diagnosis, it was something that I in my sheltered existence had not heard a lot about, but luckily I like to learn.

Today (ironically on Mike’s 59th birthday), I finished reading his second book. I’d previously read Lucky Man and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future, but I decided to check out Always Looking Up as part of the adult summer reading challenge (read a non-fiction book). This book was amazingly informative! Did you know that bradykinesia and dyskinesia are both things that PD patients experience? Did you know that PD patients can’t just lay down and go to sleep at night? Did you know that simple things like sitting at a table in a restaurant or in a seat in an auditorium can be difficult for PD patients? I didn’t! Why? Simply stated, I didn’t know these things because I had never thought of them. Always Looking Up made me think about these things which is empowering as I’ve long felt that the reason people don’t understand cultural, political, social, etc issues is because they don’t have the needed information.

This book was informative on several levels. The first section called “Work” talks about how the Michael J. Fox Foundation came to exist. In the second section “Politics” he discusses some of the advocating that he did for Stem Cell Research. Following are sections devoted to “Faith” and “Family” and the ways they’ve impacted his life both before and with PD. It was fascinating to learn more about all of these things and learn more about Michael J. Fox himself. To say his story is an inspiration would be an understatement!

I’m glad that I took the time to read this book. I really believe that we can learn a lot from reading as in some cases it will be as close as we can get to walking in someone else shoes. Perhaps if we all read up on things, then we would all be better for it, and the world would become a better place. But perhaps that is just “optimism + information = hope” to once again quote Christopher Reeve.

For more on these men checkout: https://www.christopherreeve.org/ and https://www.michaeljfox.org/. Also, happy birthday, Michael J. Fox!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Zoom, Zoom Zumba!

9:20 am and I already have in 4,171 steps. Trust me, that very rarely happens. In fact, it only happens when I wake up and work out. Which if I recall correctly, the last time I truly woke up and worked out was my trip to MK Seminar in July 2018. Back then, I was doing it for an energy increase. Today, I did it as part of the Adult Summer Reading Challenge!

Guess what? The source of motivation doesn’t matter. What matters is how great I feel post workout! I feel ready to take on the day! I feel capable of doing it again! I also feel like I need a shower! 😂 Most importantly, getting up and doing Zumba gives me a feeling of accomplishment!

I hope that you get some of those same feelings today! For now, I’m zoom, zoom, zooming to the shower!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Garden Glory

Admit it. You like instant gratification. I’ll admit that I do, and I think this is why I like gardening. I find it very satisfying to get out in the flower bed and tend to it. There’s something especially satisfying about pulling weeds! For me, the satisfaction comes from instantly being able to see a difference between where I’ve started and paused or finished. I love anything where I can visually see progress!

My raised flower bed has been part of our house for seven years. My dad helped us build it, and maintaining it has been a family endeavor. Last year, it went untended because LilKsby was only two weeks old at this time. Needless to say, Mr Kisby and I were a little preoccupied. This year, it’s back to being a family endeavor.

Yesterday, LilKsby watched as I tended the flower bed. I took it as a time to tell him about invasive species which I know technically Morning Glory isn’t, but man it sure takes over! I also told him about sunflowers and my grandma from Kansas. I told him about my grandma from here and how she always had the most beautiful flower beds. He mostly spilled his water all over himself, but I like to think he enjoyed my stories.

Today, I went out by myself while Mr Kisby played with LilKsby. It was therapeutic to be there and taking care of the flower bed in silence. I did my best to clean up around my phlox which has gone wild without uprooting too much of it. I also envisioned a beautiful way to fill more of it since most of the plants are gone. There was something peaceful about being in the flower bed. 🥰

I hope that everyone has something that brings them similar peace!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

“I Meant To”

I meant to wake up for Zumba this morning. “I meant to” is one of the worst phrases in the English language because it always has something behind it that didn’t happen. It can be trivial: “I meant to put the toilet seat down.” It can be inconvenient: “I meant to pack your toothbrush, but I forgot.” (I still haven’t lived that one down, and it has been 11 years.) It can also be serious: “I meant to pay the electric bill.” Luckily, just missing Zumba simply means I overslept and missed out on exercise.

Do you ever find yourself thinking about things you meant to do? Do you ever find yourself kicking yourself because you didn’t do them? I think this pandemic is a perfect time for thinking about things you meant to do and planning to do some of them. For example, you could plan a vacation you’ve been meaning to take! You could read that book that you’ve been meaning to read! You could clean out the closet you’ve been meaning to organize! There are all kinds of things you could do that fall in the “I meant to” category.

Need an example?

I’m finally learning guitar, blogging more, reading more, taking time for movies (usually in the background while doing something else), spending time outside more, and improving my baking skills. All of these had fallen in the “I meant to” category for a long time! None of these are serious, but they are all things I’ve enjoyed which is important!

What are you finally doing that you used to always say “I meant to”?

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Ready, Set, Nap!

Today, I got a little over zealous with getting things done! We woke up after not getting enough sleep and went at 110% until we crashed for a 3 hour nap. Me and LilKsby both slept through dinner! I’d say the nap was earned. After all, we got up and got ready, attended our first Virtual Baby and Me class (to which I now know you’re supposed to bring maracas), did Virtual Get Ready Camp, played, read books together (got to get those badges), baked, ran an errand, and ate. I also worked my Mary Kay business virtually in there, cleaned litter, did dishes, froze breastmilk, and read my own book. Wow…now that I look at it, no wonder we both needed a nap.

That’s part of my personality. I have a tendency to do stuff, do stuff, do stuff, and then I crash and need a nap (sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally). This tendency is why I think one of my biggest self improvement needs is time management. I need to remind myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Tomorrow we will strive to do less. We will see how it goes! Until then, I’m ready for nap round two. Although at this time of a night that just means going to bed!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

“Challenge Accepted!”

A notable television character used to frequently say, “Challenge accepted!” That character was the notorious womanizer Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother. I may not understand a lot of the characters motivations, but I do get this competitive mentality. National Sales Director Emeritus Linda Toupin always referred to this as the 4-H Mentality. She always talked about how being in 4-H taught her to learn skills, set goals, and strive to win a blue ribbon. I was never in 4-H, but I was in enough youth sports, art fairs, performance art competitions, etc to understand how motivating being competitive can be!

Fast forward to now…

I still love a competition! Which is why I’m super excited about Adult Summer Reading! I literally discovers it less than 24 hours ago, and I’m super excited! The idea is to get a bingo on the card your print and submit it for a chance at prizes! How fun is that? I can’t wait to have a chance to win for doing something I already enjoy! Plus, it has introduced me to other fun events through the public library!

Something else I love because of my competitive nature? Virtual badges! I pushed myself to earn several tech ones during NTI for a competition and earned the prize! I don’t just get excited about virtual badges for me. I get excited when I see a coworkers achievements from their badges! I got super excited today when LilKsby earned 7 badges in one day for Pre-Reader Summer Reading!

I feel like in a lot of ways my competitive nature is one of my strongest traits. Being competitive can show determination and grit. It can also help you to learn the art of losing which I also think is important! Plus, when I’m competing, I feel that I have some of my best mental health! Can’t beat that!

Now for a little personal competition that is part of the summer reading! Five days in a row of journaling (I’m choosing to use my blog). Let’s see if I can do it! Get ready for five days of me and my randomness!

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

Scheduled Summer

As a teacher, I’m very used to having a set schedule that I have to follow. The bell rings at time X. First block begins at time Y, second block begins at time Z, and this pattern continues until the final bell to go home at the end of the day. After school, I have a set routine to follow based on the day, I go to bed around the same time, and I get up the next morning and do it all over again. In a lot of ways, life during the school year becomes like the directions on the back of the shampoo bottle: “Rinse, lather, repeat; rinse, lather, repeat.”

Given the grind of each day, you may think, “Man, I bet she loves Summer Break and having nothing she has to do.” Having nothing to do sounds good on paper. So does being able to stay up until all hours and sleep as late as I want (maybe I’m an overgrown teenager at heart). However, do you know what I’ve learned about myself as I’ve grown as a person (grown as a person sounds more positive than gotten older)? I’m like a fish out of water when I don’t have something that I have to do.

If I don’t have a to do list or an event to look forward to, I find myself sitting around either waiting for someone to entertain me, wasting a lot of time in my recliner, or driving Mr Kisby crazy with “Whatcha doing?” or “What’s your plan for the day?” I bet I ask the second one at least twice a day on average. When you’re so used to your days having to be structured, it can be really hard to have a lot of free time. That’s why I find myself having to have “To Do” lists even during summer to feel like I’ve been productive. Some days my “To Do” list might be simple like “Scoop Litter” and “Pay Bill X”, but there is something about that list that makes my day a million times better. For me, it is the intrinsic satisfaction that comes from checking something off the list. Plus, I love the visual of a completed list. Nothing to me is more freeing than looking at that completed list. It’s almost like the completed list is a ticket to fun and goofing off by doing things like wasting time in the recliner!

I also thrive on having events/activities to look forward to. For example, I’m super excited about starting Virtual Get Ready Camp and Summer Reading with LilKsby this week. I’m thrilled that for like an hour 4 or 5 days a week that we’re going to have a planned activity. Having these helps me to feel like we’re accomplishing something. Then when we’re done, we can spend the rest of the day sitting in his baby pool! Well, he can sit in it, and I can sit in my camp chair and make faces at him. 🙂 I also thrive on having vacations to look forward too. In some ways, I enjoy planning the vacation (aka looking at pretty pictures of things to do and going “ooo, ahh”) as much as going on the vacation. I’m truly a happier, more productive (and easier to be around) when I have a “to do” list and things to look forward to doing.

Now, all of this said. I do enjoy staying up late and sleeping until 9 or 10 every morning. Frankly, I’m proud that I’ve seemed to be able to get LilKsby to accept this routine as well. I also enjoy the occasional day when to quote Bruno Mars, “Today I don’t feel like doing anything/I just wanna lay in my bed”. However, for the most part I need an outline for the day to keep from driving those around me bananas. You know what? I’m finally at a place in life where I’m okay with that, and it doesn’t bother me to not be more spontaneous. I hope you too can find that peace.

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby

A Taste of the Future?

Today, I had to go to work. I don’t say that as a complaint given that I have been fortunate enough to be able to teach from home since March 17. I say it as a fact. Going in the school today was very surreal. Due to Covid-19 there are new protocols that must be followed: temperature checks when entering, masking wearing, staying six feet from co-workers, limiting the number of people in the school, etc.

The day began with parking in the front of the building in an area that on a normal day would be filled with buses dropping students off for school. Today on a “normal” day, the students would have been jumping over puddles (okay, even in high school some would have been jumping in them). There would’ve been the buzz of chatter about what everyone did over the weekend and groans about having to get up early and come to school. Instead, there were teachers running through the pouring rain to get to the line at the front door. Then, there was a line of teachers spaced six feet from the next, wearing masks, and waiting to get their temperature checked to determine if they could enter the building or had to go home. As an adult, I understand the necessity of the new protocol. From the perspective of a student, I could see how it would be terrifying.

From a young age, we are taught that school should be somewhere we feel safe; school should be somewhere that we feel like someone cares about us. For me, it is hard to fathom how kids could feel either of those when they can’t come close to a teacher to tell them something in confidence, or a mask has to be worn hiding facial expressions. I also cannot imagine how kids can foster an environment of developing social skills and friendships when they have to remain six feet from one another. Imagine, having lunch and having to sit six feet from your friends. There won’t be any swapping your chocolate milk with someone for their chocolate chip cookie!

Beyond lunch, I think about how many kids like to share with one another. They share phones, games, iPads, clothes, etc. Most of them naturally have something that they want to share with someone else. Now we have to tell them, “No, Johnny, don’t share with Susie. Yes, it’s polite, but there is a pandemic.” On the plus side, this could help with PDA problems.

I feel like today was just a taste of the future for teachers. I believe that it was a tiny insight into what the coming school year could – emphasis on could – be like for us and our students. Do you want the truth? On a lot of levels, it is heartbreaking. Most of us who went into teaching entered the profession because we care about people namely kids. We want to be there for them as a mentor and educator. We’ve done our best this spring through NTI, and we’ve put on brave faces as we’ve done Google Meets and videos for our kids. However, on the inside our hearts were breaking wondering about our students. Are they okay at home? Are they eating? Are they healthy? Do they have all the necessities? Seeing them in our classrooms each day was sometimes the only way these questions could be answered. Returning to school will alleviate some of that heartache, but I feel like it is going to open us up to a whole new set of emotions if things aren’t “normal”.

I applaud all of those who are having to make difficult decisions right now that impact our students. My hat is off to principals, superintendents, school boards, state department of education workers, and anyone else in decision making capacities. You are making decisions that no one could’ve ever told you that you would be making. When we were all getting our various degrees there was no class called “Dealing with a Pandemic 101”. And though the future may taste bittersweet, I know that you all are doing what is best for our students as a whole. Thank you for that.

To all of our students, don’t be scared about the future. Even if we are behind masks, we’re still here for you.

XOXO,

The Great Kaysby