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!!!!!!!! π§Άπ§Άπ§Άπ§Άπ§Άπ₯°π₯°π₯°π₯°π₯°ππππππ»π»π»π»π»
Started my resolution early! π 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 π
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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 π¬ 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!!!
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.
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!
“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!!
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 ¯\_(γ)_/¯ 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
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))
The Rockies are crazy and amazing... basically back when there was one of those supercontinents, there was an inland sea where Canada is now. Then things got all smushy and two plates collided and pushed all that sea floor way up to make the Rockies... there are so many cool aquatic fossils and sediments there now. And the glaciers that formed during the last ice age have been slowly grinding away a bunch of sediment and leaving cool landforms and ice-blue lakes behind. As a geology nerd I was LOVING IT. If (when) we go up here again, I’m gonna try to go the Burgess Shale- a huge and important fossil field with trilobites & stuff. • • • Visiting this geologically awesome place made me think about how so many of the features we see & take as normal are really fleeting on a geologic time scale- glaciers feel monumental, but they’re just like that last bit of snow to melt after a big storm. Barrier islands are beautiful but literally like a side effect of sea levels rising & falling and they are just a blip. It really blows my mind honestly and helps me feel a teeny bit better about climate change. The Earth will change, and it’ll be fine and probably make some new & awesome sights... just humans (more likely poor/vulnerable ones) won’t be around to see it bc we got out of hand with technology that won’t let this climate last. I don’t know where I was going with that, but glaciers are cool.
Today I had to “save” a little baby deer! Every year a mom deer will drop off a teeny baby deer and then come back for it. Truly the best thing is to keep the deer where it is & the mom will come get it, but this little buddy was walking around mewling and my kids said they saw kids from a classroom possibly spitting on it?? (I would like to believe in the goodness of humanity and believe this was a rumor.) I put it in a spot in the woods right near where the mom was spotted. I planned on bringing the baby back to the first spot when school was over, but it wasn’t where we left it so I choose to believe the mom found the baby!!! Anyway it felt like holding a little kitten and it was adorable.
I’m starting to reflect on my RHS teaching years now that my days as a classroom teacher here are truly numbered!! (9?????) One of my kids told me the other day: “Ms. Refvem, you’re not a nice teacher but you’re a chill teacher.” (He also called me irresponsible bc I always forget to make copies or something and I admit it freely to them π) ((somehow both of those were compliments lolllll)) I feel like I’ve been trying to figure out words for that balance for 8 years!!! I def started out too nice and kids took advantage of that, but somehow I’ve gotten tougher. It just doesn’t look as tough as I thought it would... it still looks pretty chill. I actually blame that on the fact that I can’t pay attention to all things at once- like, I hate when kids sit on the counters and yet I TOOK THIS PICTURE while this kid was sitting on the counter and didn’t even notice til just now π. Anyway, I am glad I have words to speak to my teaching style- chill but not nice- I hope to keep that up into my future even beyond my little corner of this place. • • • I love the back of my room bc of the floating jellyfish that look so delightful when the overhead lights are off π§π»♀️π¦
Comin at ya from 2003 - my blog was full of sophomore-year insights like this. Who votes that I start posting my old posts as if the were coming out live???? Lol
I haven’t been posting on here bc most of the things I want to reflect on have to do with the fact that I won’t be teaching next year, and I had to sit on that secret for a while. So- ima be back at it now bc I’m about to go through lots of transitions!!! Anyway here is a pic of a shot from my audition for the Netflix show Nailed It, lol.
Took an awesome pop-up watercolor class today and got to make this spring intentions mandala. I’m feeling (from the inside out) seeds of possibility, poking my way in to new things, rounding out & filling out my relationships, and protecting myself during all that vulnerability. . . This is a fun craft and I’m excited to explore this medium more- I never paint, I’m mainly a yarn crafter, but watercolor has always drawn my eye. So excited to have had the opportunity to learn some techniques!!! π¨π✨ (also I just saw Annihilation, so the spacey vibrant floral vibe is probably inspired by that)
I had such a good weekend but I’m behind on schoolwork and want to do literally anything besides the work I should do ¯\_(γ)_/¯ maybe I will just wake up fresh and try to just #livelaughlove through tomorrow. I honestly need to get out of a deficit framework. I’m so comfortable procrastinating then feeling shitty, but honestly WHAT is the point. I get paid to work from 8:30 to 4:30 so lemme just remember that and try to sit with my cats and talk to my friends and play silly computer games if that’s what needs to be done... papers will get graded or they won’t?????!!!?????? Idk idk
I’ve started doing a skincare routine with *~sErUmS~* and honestly my skin feels So Good. For the first time since... ever? I don’t have any blackheads or zits on my nose?????????? Amazing. I follow Nicole Cliff on twitter and she said someone told her we care about skincare because we are afraid to die and tbh it’s true, but ima do it anyway. My face feels great. (I don’t have a “routine” in that I do the same thing every morning and night, I just kinda mix and match. But The Ordinary is like super cheap and Super Great and you can get it at Sephora.)
I think I like cooking now??? This fall/winter I’ve been cooking more meals and I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. Probably it is a result of my extra time from not coaching swimming, coupled with a light grading load this semester. The part of cooking that was the most stressful was the planning and grocery shopping. I’ve conquered this by choosing a default grocery store - Food Lion off 55/I40 - that has a good selection of produce and whose aisles I have learned pretty well. I have also utilized some cookbooks I’ve had for ages to search for easy and hopefully healthy meals that are within my skill set. Now I find that I don’t mind coming home to cook, and I enjoy what we eat! Slowly I am learning some instincts, but I still definitely need a recipe. (I’m a true baker at heart.) It only took me 30 years to get here ¯\_(γ)_/¯
I love new beginnings. This upcoming year will hold such huge things and I’m excited, nervous, and ready. My SMART goal resolutions are both daily resolutions: read one poem and go on one walk each day. My broader goal is to soak in all the goodness of my interpersonal relationships this year. I’ve always loved the way weddings are huge, fun reunions, and I’m excited that one wedding I get to go to this year will be mine!!! Could be overwhelming, but I’m trying some positive framing. I just know I’ll be reconnected to so many cool people and I want to pay attention and soak it all in!! π¦ π¦ π³ I know last year was kinda butts for lots of reasons, but I enjoyed the new and challenging conversations I engaged in, and I felt like I payed even more attention to the media I was taking in. I feel so much more enriched, but also like a million times more existentially stressed, so who’s to say really.
