Refverie - Mom Breaks

 In the last two weeks I’ve had the most consecutive time off my full time mom job since I started this gig. Byron took the baby to the beach with Gran and Grandpa, then two days after they got back I went to Boston to visit my boo @karabux. What do you think I did when I got the whole house to myself?? Chores, lol! And it was glorious.⁣ ⁣ So one thing I’ve been trying to come to terms with since going back to work full time is the fact that it is not realistic for me to see Bats every moment of his life. Like I’m having to remind myself that he is a different person from me??? I think he has a better handle on the whole situation than me. He was inside my body for 9 months and then he was so utterly dependent (udderly? Lol) on my body for so many months that I’m just sort of on autopilot. One thing that is constant is change!!! And he is growing and moving and I am back at work and it’s awesome but still sort of weird.⁣ ⁣ I am listening to the audiobook “Nightbitch” and it is like MomKafka. A mom turns into a dog? A great commentary on early mom life and how everything starts feeling totally bonkers. Do I feel like I’m turning into another species??? Maybe, lol. I find myself wanting someone to write about what it’s like being a first time mom in Covid. Story time at the library?? I don’t know her. Bats doesn’t really go anywhere in public yet ☹️ maybe we’ll learn the parenting landscape soon, but maybe not……

Refverie - Parenting Anxieties

 I think I knew this before, but maybe not as much as I do now… the world of parenting is full of landmines. There are So Many Decisions to make at every turn, all of which seem to have EXTREMELY DIRE CONSEQUENCES. Sleep? Stressful. Eating? Stressful. Play??? Stressful. Every time you make a choice it’s like you’ve picked a side somewhere and now have an entire online community of enemies lurking somewhere. The minute they sniff that I (am/am not) sleep training… attack!!! Even me posting this picture will show which types of toys I buy for my kid and which shirts he wears and that I let the cats fully put their butts on all of his toys etc etc etc. ⁣ ⁣ I feel like every little piece of information I leak out about my parenting journey just adds up a little wall to the box I’m supposed to exist in as a parent (for the sake of this metaphor let’s pretend that’s how boxes work). It makes me uncomfortable and it makes me stressed because it seems like it’s very hard to find a neutral ground. I heard a mantra a long time ago that I think I need to bring back- there are a million ways to be a good parent. There are!! I have done so much research and care so much about the specific ways I’ve figured out how to go from day to day raising a kid, but I have no vested interest in anybody else choosing my exact system because everyone is unique!!! Obviously we don’t/can’t all raise our kids exactly the same.⁣ ⁣ Basically what I’m thinking is I’m glad I’m not an *~influencer~* because then everybody would yell at me all the time about why my baby choices will be terrible for my kid and maybe I’d lose this sense of chill. ⁣ ⁣ Not sure where I’m going with this but I have just been mulling this over and figured I’d put it out there somewhere. Also nobody has been pressuring me I think I’ve just been seeing various TikTok moms being thrown to the wolves and it’s stressed me.

Refverie - Parenting in Public

 Something that’s been on my mind a lot is identity- how we identify, how our identity shifts through time, and what experiences influence how we see ourselves. My doctoral research has been focusing on science identity (feeling like a “science person”). A lot of that research finds that being recognized as a science person by people around you is a strong driver of identifying as one yourself. So I keep applying that to my own life in other ways (even if that may not be technically supported by the research 😅). ⁣ ⁣ Having basically been stuck inside for a year, the only people I’m really interacting with are people that I know. I barely saw anyone new when I was pregnant, and have never taken Bats anywhere except the doctor’s office. There have not been extended opportunities for me to meet anyone new in my role as “pregnant” and as a “mom”. I’m posting on social media, but it’s all sort of negotiating the old Emma with this new baby accessory, which isn’t doing a lot to change how I identify.⁣ ⁣ I was thinking about this because I visited family out of town this weekend and had the chance to meet people who have never known me except with a baby and as a mom. I had absolutely no clue how to socialize in this way. I have never introduced Bats to anyone really and have never negotiated my identity as his mom. I was sort of lost? Like- I am a lot of other things, but the mom things are such an easy thing to start talking about, especially with the baby right there. I can’t quite get at why I wasn’t good at it but this could also just be general rustiness in small talk. (Side note: someone said “go heels!” to me at a grocery store and I said “thanks” 🤦🏻‍♀️)⁣ ⁣ I bet I’d experience this identity crisis anyway but covid has really delayed and warped it I’m sure. I am not feeling recognition much in this new role, at least by new people, so I’m sort of in this limbo and not sure how to identify in relation to other parents. I have more thoughts but this is already so long 🥴

Refverie - Tired MomThoughts

 Looks like it’s time for the ol’ blogstagram to make an appearance again! Now I’m a parent to an actual human being... wild.⁣ ⁣ Parenting is so overwhelming I don’t know how everybody with a kid is not constantly spiraling about something. Maybe they are but they’re just hiding it well... in which case, kudos to them. My current spirals have been about sleep. In my pre-parenting life, I saw that there were so many sleep consultants but I didn’t understand why... I certainly do now 😅😅😅 this shit is wild. In order to protect the online reputation of my small child, I will not go into details about his sleep. Let’s just say it’s been difficult and it’s driven me into a bit of a phase of anxiety that I don’t love. What I *do* love is that I have the pleasure of getting to parent with Byron who allows me to spiral for a little bit while also making me commit to one specific tactic for a while. Without him, I would be flailing from one “tried and true” method to another. What the bb and I both need, though, is consistency and I feel so glad I have Byron the rock there to calm me down. This post was inspired by the fact that I wanted to give up on one tactic but Byron made us commit to 4 days and it worked on the 4th day 🤪⁣ ⁣ I also don’t know what it’s like to have a baby in a non-pandemic, but this shit is wild also. A lot of the advice is like “get out of the house” and it’s like... and go where 😒⁣ ⁣ This is not a very deep post but maybe I should get back in the habit of writing my thoughts so I don’t feel so cooped up. (p.s. this is a pic of 4 of my 5 kids 😩)

Refverie - Creating Life

 I guess since it’s a pandemic, I’m pregnant, and I have a million thoughts swirling around in my head, I thought I might come back to this space to write some of those thoughts down.⁣ ⁣ Right now I’m at the stage in tiny bb development that I can feel occasional wiggles from my midsection. I don’t know if bb is flipping around or not, but based on where stuff was located on the last ultrasound I can kind of distinguish the punches from the kicks. Last week after a particularly noticeable bout of movement, I was struck with the feeling that I was proud of the little bb in there, and sort of proud of myself. Proud that they were conquering these little developmental milestones and that I was giving them a space to do that. ⁣ ⁣ Growing up I’d always sort of balk at people’s compliments for things I perceived to be normal and expected. Like graduating high school. To me, that was not a feat and I was just supposed to do it so I did. (I can now see that this shows my privilege that provided me very few obstacles to succeeding in high school.) But now that I’m looking at this life that I 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 (?!), every little thing seems like something to be proud of. I made it one more day!! Little bb has fingers!! They wiggle around in my body!!! These are feats and it’s okay for me to be proud of them and maybe one day Lil’ Cutie will experience that in some way too.⁣ ⁣ So maybe it’s weird to feel proud of feeling baby movements but I’m okay with that and am ready to keep feeling proud of the steps we keep making!!

Refverie - 2019 Books

 My favorite books of 2019!! This was hard because I read a lot of good books this year, but not a lot of them stood out. I chose these because they affected me more deeply than the others, I think.⁣ ⁣ I listened to An American Marriage on audiobook which was really interesting. There were two different narrators and they would change their voice based on the ages of the characters. This story is heavy and deep and gritty and very well told.⁣ ⁣ Red, White & Royal Blue is a modern romance novel and it was SO FUN. So uplifting, so well-written, so witty... I wish I could read it again for the first time.⁣ ⁣ With the Fire on High was another audiobook, which I listened to simply because Elizabeth Acevedo is such a good narrator. Emoni came alive and I loved watching her learn and grow. ⁣ ⁣ The Overstory was such an interesting structure and it made me start thinking like a tree and I don’t know how to say it other than that.⁣ ⁣ I listened to Evicted for my Intro yo Qualitative Research class this spring. Such an amazing feat of ethnography. The issue of eviction is so much more serious than I’d known, and Desmond does a great job with the stories he tells here.⁣ ⁣ Finally, another nonfiction! This one was really important for me to funnel my political anxieties into productive thoughts and conversations. It was like listening to a very long podcast series 😂⁣ ⁣ Thanks for joining me! Shoutout to Hoopla, the library app with audiobooks you don’t have to wait for (!), and Libby, the library app for books you do have to wait for. I think I’ve transitioned to be an ereader... what has this world come to.

Refverie - The Power of a Lamp

 The living room is a place I always forget to hang out in unless we have people over. I tend to spend my time in our guest room (which is really my craft room) or the basement watching TV. I spent some time thinking about why I never sat in here and realized it was because I didn’t like the overhead lighting. I had some block in my head and didn’t realize I could change this by (a) getting a lamp and (b) getting something to put the lamp on. I happened to be realizing this when it was cyber Monday week or whatever and I ended up getting these on way sale. Once I got them, I instantly started hanging out in here more! (Could also be the hella cozy Christmas decorations...) We then got some throw pillows and Byron came home with this beautiful art piece he saved from an abandoned house about to be demolished. Now it’s 1 million percent cozier in here!!⁣ ⁣ Two things were blocking me from making this room what I wanted... ⁣ ⁣ First, I kinda forget that I am the boss of my own life. I keep trying to find people to ask for permission. Byron is someone I tend to ask and he’s like- why are you asking me this? Live your life?? Another person I ask is the imaginary jealousy amalgam of the good parts of everyone else’s life. I’m like- does this hold up to that? It’s an impossible standard so I’m trying to recognize it and forget it. ⁣ ⁣ The second thing holding me back is my guilt for not finding everything secondhand. I want to thrift things because I know that it is better for the environment. However, shopping is stressful so I usually go into it with a very specific item in mind. This doesn’t work for thrifting- you have to be more at the whim of the moment. So I tend to avoid that and then just not shop for what I want. I decided in this instance that a lamp would make me enjoy my space more and it was not worth the internal struggle of feeling guilty about thrifting. It’s an ongoing thing I’m working through! I have a long life ahead of me to get better at these things, I have to remember that.

Refverie - 2019 Crafts

 Resurrecting this account for my year-end lists!!⁣ ⁣ First up, here are 9 things I made in 2019! I made a couple more things but thought this showed a good spread of the types of things I crafted.⁣ ⁣ The top row is knitting... took a fun class, got some funfetti yarn when I was in Toronto for a conference, and did a trendy project that helped me gain confidence!!⁣ ⁣ Middle row is my crochet and cross stitching. Cross stitching was my first craft love but I don’t tend to do it as often as my other crafts. I’ve been inspired by cute designs on Etsy, though, so I might bring it back! I taught myself to crochet and love how quickly it moves and that I can make little (or big) stuffed animals.⁣ ⁣ The third row is sewing which I just really learned for real this year! I have sewed other projects since back in elementary school, but it was really just straight lines and I kinda made it up as I went. Following patterns and choosing fabrics was a lot of fun this summer and I’m proud of what I made. Turns out I can’t find the mental space to sew in the school year... I might try to work on that, might not!⁣ ⁣ It’s fun seeing them all together like this. I’m excited to see what I make next year!!!

Refverie - Blackberries

 This past weekend, we went up to Ben Haven for Fourth of July, and it was so relaxing and amazing. I saw an unripe blackberry on the wall by the driveway and it sent me on a bit of a naturalist journey! I went around and found blackberries- some of them ripe! - and I feel like my eyes have been opened. There are blackberries all over the paths up there in the mountains. I know what the leaves look like!! I got a few scratches from the brambles 😬... the whole thing gave me so much joy. Idk why it made me so happy but I loved it so much.⁣ ⁣ My naturalist journey has been slow... I remember learning different types of trees literally only three years ago. (Which might be surprising because I give off strong *~nature girl~* vibes.) In general, I am not very observant and I didn’t know really where to start, but I started slow and now feel like I add on one little layer at a time. I can recognize some birds by sight now, and at least one bird by its call. I know the main NC tree types, and how to figure out the type if I don’t know it off the top of my head. I get overwhelmed not knowing everything right away, but I do love learning that I have my whole life ahead of me to learn these little bits of nature.

Refverie - Sea Turtles

 Once again I have forgotten about this account ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #livelaughlove ⁣ ⁣ I was feeling bored and cooped up because I was sick through the rainy times two weeks ago, and was missing any and all normal human interaction. I saw this pic of me and Byron on our lunch break from a sea turtle workshop last month and it made me swell up with love for him! ⁣ ⁣ He came to this workshop with me because it just worked best for our weekend travel plans, and it was light and silly and just fun, and I didn’t think much of it. But looking back made me feel so full of love I think because I always do stuff by myself and don’t really ever talk about those types of workshops with people because I don’t expect them to really care. So these are normally really solo experiences. ⁣ ⁣ Byron spent the time just sitting there taking notes about turtles and talking with the people in the class... it was so cute. He cares about me and follows me around to do stuff and it’s fun and idk, just a facet of marriage I hadn’t really expected!!!!!

Refverie - Swans and Bears

 Nature walk 2 of 52!!! ⁣ (Number 1 was my GLACIER WALK OMG... see my regular account for details). ⁣ ⁣ I am starting off my weekly nature walks strong this year... I really am excited to get out and about. This walk was a part of an amazing Educator Trek “Where Swans Fly and Bears Walk” put on by @naturalsciences. So incredible - we saw 37 different species of birds!!!!! Probably going to hike in Durham Friday morning if you wanna join 😉 ⁣ If you turn the sound on, you will hear the geese and swans on the lake... a truly surreal and amazing experience. Reminded me of the last part of Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese”:⁣ ⁣ Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,⁣ the world offers itself to your imagination,⁣ calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -⁣ over and over announcing your place⁣ in the family of things.

(accompanied by a video I can't access right now?)

Refverie - 2018 Best Books

 My six fav books this year! Powerful women, inherited trauma, excellent narration, and all but one by women authors!!! I highly recommend each of these. The Fifth Season and its sequels are truly my favorite books of all time. Wow!!!!

Refverie - Cat Bed

I found this super soft and bulky yarn at Joann Fabric and I had a mid-store brainstorm to come up with this cat bed!!! It took me only 1 hour to make and I’ve already seen 3 of the 4 cats sleep in it voluntarily!!!!! I feel like the most perceptive and baller cat mom right now!!!!!!!! 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰💕💕💕💕💕😻😻😻😻😻

 

Refverie - Little Hike

 Started my resolution early! 😜 Byron and I both took Tuesday morning off and hiked 5 miles on the Laurel Bluffs trail along the Eno! My legs were sore but I was loving it. Also I got to use my new daypack that I got from REI because I love #stuff and #things 😏

f

Refverie - Got Elk?

 I’m a big fan of making New Years resolutions, but I really only do one successful one every few years. In 2010 I took a picture a day (before Instagram- can you believe it? I shared them on Flickr???) for a year. I made a picture book at the end that helps me remember the year I finished grad school and started teaching. In maybe 2013 or 2014, I read for 15 minutes each day in an effort to become a reader again, and it worked! ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ I haven’t done a monumental, time-based resolution with any success since then, though. I’ve been mulling over one for a while now and I think I’m ready to give it a go next year. I’m going to try to go on a hike or nature walk once a week for the whole year (!!)⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Being in the woods this weekend made me realize how disconnected I’ve felt from something I consider central to my identity. Much like I was a reading person who had stopped reading books, I am a nature person who has stopped going outside. I benefit from the building of intentional habits, so I’m excited about how this resolution will get me back out into nature. I’m excited to explore trails around the Triangle, and I’m excited to test out my burgeoning nature journaling skills. Hopefully I will share those sketches with you once I stop being ashamed of my art 😬 ⁣ ⁣⁣ I know I’ve still got a couple months, but I need to really mentally prepare in order to get myself to the point where it’ll actually work. Here’s hoping!!!

Refverie - Hurricane Florence

 This storm was/is such a huge event. My mind can’t help but think of all the ways this connects to an environmental science class curriculum. Weather, climate change, surface water, land use, agriculture, environmental justice, environmental racism... there’s just so much to unpack from the societal, economic, and environmental standpoints. I want to say that I’m sad that I don’t get to teach rich engaging lessons about this, but that’s not exactly what it would’ve looked like. I would’ve thought of a bunch of ideas and stressed for a while about how to incorporate them into lessons I already had, and I’d probably end up with maybe one more activity from it. In an ideal world, I’d have made an engaging, interdisciplinary, place-based project that would’ve facilitated the kids thinking critically about environmental issues in our society and becoming better citizens. In reality, I would’ve been tired, overwhelmed by all the other logistical work that goes into teaching, and emotionally exhausted after plenty of hard days, especially one of flooded roads, a tornado drill, and school that should have been cancelled but wasn’t. It’s hard to not idealize the past and hold my past self to a standard she couldn’t reach, so it’s easier to call it out and think it through and move on. I now have to learn how to think about all of these impacts in my own head without immediately trying to think up a project or lesson. I look forward to reading thoughtful essays and articles about this storm as they come out, and I look forward to figuring out what action around it looks like for me in this new phase of life.

Refverie - New Office

 This is my new parking-lot-at-work view!! (From Tuesday, the last day I was there before Florence) ... now that I’ve started school, I have so many thoughts and remembered I have this blogstagram so ima try to get back to it... • • • I’m having to figure out new routines as I get used to my new work & school situation, and I’m noticing space where there wasn’t space in my previous routine, and new limitations in other parts. One area of new space is my literal brain. The summer always clears lots of things out, but I’m used to my brain being quickly filled up again with all the new relationships in the classroom and around school. I am definitely meeting & interacting with lots of cool people, but I am no longer responsible for their emotional well-being at any given moment. This has been such an interesting feeling to settle into. It’s lighter, a bit lonelier, and making space for me to actually remember things and process my thoughts in a productive way. It’s nice. On the other side, I’m still finding my voice and feeling weird boundaries and limitations in how I express myself and how I’m perceived. Many people don’t know me, and I don’t really know myself in this context yet, so it’ll take some getting used to before my voice feels fully like its own again. Overall, though, I’m loving discovering these new areas and seeing new parts of myself!

Refverie - Alice Munro

 “Real everyday life *is* crazy like that! Alice Munro you’re so right” - Byron when I was trying to articulate why I liked her writing. He gave me this book in I’m pretty sure 2015?? and it’s taken me til just now to read it because I get super weird about book recommendations from people, especially if I care about that person’s opinion of me and double especially if I’ve never heard of the author. I just know Byron is smarter than me/likes different books than me and was worried I would not like it and then disappoint him. HOWEVER! I did like it a lot and I waited so long he was just delighted I’d read it. Munro writes characters you feel like you know, and makes searing emotional insights just in the flow of a very dry and seemingly straightforward story. (Dry like how ppl are sarcastic, not dry like boring.) This was a great set of stories!!

Refverie - Brioche

 I’m trying to learn new knitting techniques but it’s weird bc I don’t want to take a class or ask anyone how to do the complicated stuff. Since my Cheerio friend Bristin Krown (@kb_rown) taught me to knit in high school, I’ve basically taught myself with confusion and YouTube videos, and have slowly added new projects to my repertoire. When I go to a craft club where there are “real Knitters”, I realize there are some little things that I realize I don’t actually know. Like if I had only ever read (but not heard) the word “lingerie” and pronounced it exactly how it’s spelled when I say it out loud and ppl are like “that’s not right, duh” but how would I know bc I’ve only ever read it??? (I saw a tweet about that the other day.) the thing that made me think of this was that I totally have been using stitch markers all wrong. Nobody makes fun of me at knitting clubs because adult people are for the very kind or at least usually polite, but I do like sitting in my little world of “self-taught person who knits but would under no circumstances identify as a Knitter”. Slowly one day I might make a sweater ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is a brioche stitch and it’s the first thing I’ve done with two colors throughout. Hopefully it will be a cute hat at the end of it!!! • • • PS showing y’all my planner was funny because ppl knew things I did last week and I was like “how did you know???” Lolol

Refverie - Planner

 With summer and a whole new vibe for next year, I’m trying to set up new habits and ways to anchor myself. I love the idea of a bullet journal but cannot handle having to make all the pages myself and I am not a cute doodler. So I have come up with this hybrid planner/reverse journal in which I write down what I plan to do, keep track of what I did, and keep to-do lists. I did this a few years ago and loved looking back and seeing that I actually did a lot of fun things, even when it feels like I laid around all day. It’s helping a lot so far this summer!!! “Felt weird/napped” is probably gonna be a repeat, lol • • • (planner credit: moleskine weekly! pen credit: pilot frixion- erasable bc of heat-changing ink!!! don’t leave them in your car or they will heat change to invisible and be out of commission lol) ((also lol just noticed ~refverie post~ : trying to do more so I figured I’d track it, haha... #influencer))