Author Archives: olivia

May 12 2012
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Family, Home, Life

Mom

My mom and I have the same hands.  She humored me for this post by letting me take these silly pictures to prove it.  Our hands are exactly the same size.  In fact, when pressed together, they are mirror images.
The older I get, the more of my mom that I find in myself.  Hands, laughter, kindness.  I owe much of who I am to her.  She influenced me to become a teacher.  She showed me how to be brave and not care so much about what others think.
“To thine own self be true.”  The most famous words of wisdom from my mom.
For so many years I fought against all of the things that I admire most about her.  Refused to eat the right foods, scoffed at activism, pretended not to care about nature.  In all of my childish efforts to be different from my mom, I’ve ironically turned out in many ways to be the same.
Better yet, I am now proud of these similarities.
Being a mom has to be one of the hardest jobs on the planet.  All of that waiting for your kids to fully appreciate, understand, and embrace your efforts.
Thank you Mom for your patience.
My mom and I are more alike than I realize.
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May 09 2012
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Teaching

Oh, May.

While other teachers count down the days until summer, I childishly declare my love for May.  In fact, May might just be my favorite month of the teaching year!  I think it goes back to that correlation between anticipation and happiness– May is like the Friday of teaching.

Oh, May.

You bring two weeks of testing,
With four minimum days.
Oh, how I love thee,
Let me count the ways.

First there is time,
Each day out by four,
No more long evenings,
Watching the door.

Second there is sunshine,
Evenings stretch before dark,
Time to do yoga,
And take the dog to the park.

Last there is teaching,
With the tests over and done,
More time for history,
For art, and for fun.

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May 06 2012
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Health, Life

Why my toes will be naked this summer!

I love pedicures as much as the next girl.  In fact, I anxiously await the warm months for the excuse to have someone rub my feet and make my toes look cute.  It’s a cheap thrill.  In my circle of friends, it’s also a social ritual.

However, this summer, my toes will be naked.

I make this declaration now because I know that it is going to take some serious self-control to decline the inevitable invitations.

Here’s why I’m abstaining:

1.  When my last pedicure finally chipped away this fall, I discovered that my toe nails were half dead, suffocated beneath the polish.  Six months pedicure free, they’re beginning to look healthy again.

2.  Prompted by my experience above, I decided to do a little research on the chemicals in nail polish.  Among my most interesting findings, I discovered that chemical-free nail polish, which I planned to substitute, often contains the same harmful toxins despite claims to the contrary, (further reading click here).

3.  In college, my IR classes highlighted the unfortunate truth that many nail salons are part of human trafficking rings.  Immigrants are promised jobs in the US, then work as indentured servants to earn back their freedom.  The conditions of these arrangements often border on modern slavery, not to mention the harmful effects of breathing toxic nail polish all day.  Click here for one example in Ohio.

So, there you go.  Naked toes seem like an easy way to cut back on some of the toxins in my body, restore health to my sad little toe nails, and make a social statement that people shouldn’t be forced to breathe toxic nail polish fumes all day as a job.

I promise, if you know me in real life, I will attach no judgment to whether you continue to use nail polish or visit nail salons.  Goodness knows that I still buy clothes made in sweatshops, talk on a cell phone that could debatably give me a brain tumor, and partake in all sorts of other activities that people disagree with on either health or moral grounds.  I can only handle a couple of battles at a time, so I chose this one.

Good-bye nail polish 😦
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May 06 2012
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Life, Travel

Retail Therapy: Anticipation Purchases

I fancy myself minimally materialistic.  I won’t lie and say that I don’t like new things– I do, but generally I avoid situations that make me want to purchase items that I don’t need.  In other words, I consciously avoid shopping.

However, today I gave in.  Alex and I went to find new jeans for him and came home with goodies for me.  New running shoes, check.  Need those to run on the beach.  A hat to block the Hawaiian sun from my face, essential.  Flip flops to replace the ones rotting from yard work, yep.  1950’s inspired D&G sunglasses to look cute, okay, I didn’t need those, I just wanted them, badly.

Thanks to Nordstrom Rack I managed to purchase all of these items for around $160.  Not bad when you consider that the D&G glasses retailed for $155 alone.  In fact, it’s a rare dose of retail therapy that so far brings zero remorse.  Usually, I have a hard time buying anything for myself, anything, and often I end up taking everything back.

I don’t feel guilty this time is because I justified everything as “necessary” vacation purchases for our summer trip.  A stretch, perhaps, but I have always derived extra morsels of anticipation from buying little things to use on vacation.  Somehow, these purchases prolong the happiness derived from travel as their imagined use enhances the entire experience.

Maybe retail therapy is not the secret to lasting happiness, but sometimes, it really doesn’t hurt.

My collected treasures…
Now I’m officially beach ready!
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May 05 2012
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Home, Life

To sell or keep your wedding dress?

Most people sound surprised when I tell them that I’m selling my wedding dress.

“Don’t you want to keep it?”
“What if your daughter wants to wear it?”
“I bet you’ll wish you had it when you’re an old lady.”
Maybe they’re right.  It is not an easy choice.  I am attached to it.  
However, it also bothers me, hanging there in my closet, taking up so much space for the sake of the past.  My real attachment is to the memories, the pictures, the day.  The actual dress is just one piece that happens to take up a gigantic amount of space in my bedroom’s “quaint” 1950s closet.
While I understand the logic of keeping it, I also romanticize the idea of it living on as part of someone else’s special day.  Perhaps it will be like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but with a wedding dress between strangers.  I almost imagine it becoming its own story, a book even.  Living on from love story to love story.  Ending its life well-used, tattered in some thrift store until someone finds it and decides to reinvent it again.  Maybe I have too much hope for my little old dress.
The hippie in me likes the idea of selling it though.  Let someone else use it again.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.
I know there is a chance I’ll miss it, but I also enjoy the small act of rebellion in not holding onto it.  We’ll see.  Someone actually has to buy it first.  
When I went shopping for a wedding dress, I thought I wanted something understated, tea length maybe.  I almost bought a vintage Audrey-Hepburnesque dress that hit at the knees.  I anticipated the shock value of defying tradition.  However, no other day in my life would I ever have the excuse to revel in such pageantry.  I didn’t even want to try this dress on, but my sister Kaitlyn convinced me, and once it was on, I was happy.  Now, it would be cool if this dress could make someone else feel the same way!
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May 04 2012
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Writing

Writing: Hope, Focus, Perseverance

Audrey Niffenegger, author of Time Traveler’s Wife, sent out 25 agent queries before landing an agent.

I don’t fancy myself at her level of writing, so I am prepared for the reality that finding a home for my first book may take forever, literally.  While I’m researching agents with similar authors and small publishers accepting manuscripts, I’m also anxious to start writing again.  Writing is the fun part.
My next book already lives inside my head and I’m obsessed.  It’s very different than my first.  Darker, more developed.  This time, I plan to thoroughly brainstorm the characters backgrounds before I begin.  I’m excited to see my writing grow.
Last time, in the heat of 50,000 words in one month, (under Nanowrimo’s tutelage), I knew where I wanted to go, but I didn’t stop to plan along the way.  In some ways this was wonderful.  It got me past the first couple of chapters, where I usually get stuck.  It also surprised me as the plot unfolded, allowing me to live in the story like a reader instead of just following an outline.   
I’ve tried to outline write before, it didn’t work for me.  I had fun writing the outline and then lost interest when it was time to write the middle chapters.  
Do you have a writing process that works best for you?  
I enjoy hearing how other people write.  I relate a lot to Audrey Niffenegger.  She wrote Time Traveler’s Wife for herself, for the enjoyment of writing, in her moments between doing other things.  I could not help but note that she’s older than I am.  This gives me hope that I can craft myself into a distinguished writer over time.

Now, all I need is a mantra…

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May 02 2012
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Home, Life, Teaching

Happy May Day: Let’s Bring Back the 40 Hour Work Week!

Life is so much happier when we spend 8 hours a day at work.  The days that I leave school at 3:30 feel so much more complete.  I have time for a nap, yoga, writing, walking the dog, and spending time with my husband– all in one evening!

However, 3:30 days are rare.  And, I know I’m not alone.  Eight hour days were uncommon at my old job.  Friends all complain of being overworked.  Companies blame the recession.  A recent media debate exploded around whether people have to be parents to justify leaving work at 6:00.

I know that I’m lucky.  If I plan my time right, I can leave at 3:30 some days.  As a teacher, I also get breaks.  But, I sacrifice pay for these luxuries.

In honor of May Day, I proclaim my support of a societal shift back to the 8-hour workday!  Call me a Marxist, but we could all use a little more life in our life!

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May 01 2012
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Writing

What is your book about?

Today, I showed up to work and was humbled by all of the interest that I received about my book.  For some reason, I forget that I broadcast pieces of my life on the internet, so it always throws me off when my real and cyber worlds collide.

The question that I received repeatedly, “What is your book about?”

Seems easy enough.  I just get so self-conscious about sharing my writing soul to real live people, (somehow internet people, even if they’re actually the same people, are less intimidating!).

My one sentence answer:  A couple that is frustrated with their jobs and life and decides to sell everything to travel separately.

Not the most poetic response, but truthful.

Even trickier, however, is putting my 59,089 words into a couple of meaningful and engaging paragraphs.  If you’ve already read my previous attempts, save yourself the time now, stop reading.  Tonight’s attempt is likely no better than before, and more likely than not, will drive me crazy with revisions.

However, if you’re new to my explanation of my book, read on!  As always, thoughtful input is welcomed:

Expecting Happiness

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Apr 29 2012
3 Comments
Writing

59,089 words later…

Holy smokes.  I just finished editing my book after my second read and the momentary sense of completion is exhilarating.

59,089 words…  Six months of work after work… 144 pdf’ed pages… Approximately 240 actual book pages…

Phew.  Now it’s time to wait for my kind readers to give me their input so that I can make my final changes and submit to agents this summer!  I already have one request for my manuscript, which is a pretty cool feeling, (and a lot of pressure to make it perfect!).

I feel like it’s also time to manage my own expectations.  I was reading the blog of a published author this morning, where he shared that he has written four books, the first of which is still unpublished.  I know that this is pretty common for authors to write multiple books before they get published.

Still, I’m hopeful.

If nothing else, I’ve learned how to do it, so I can do it again, and again, and again, until it works.

Happy productive Sunday!

Done!  (For now…)

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Apr 28 2012
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Life

You Can Go Back

Last night, I went to Woodstock’s Pizza in Davis with my husband and a friend.  I never realized how many memories I have connected to this place.  Late night post-party pizza trips with beloved friends, pizza deliveries to the dorms in order to avoid the dreaded DC, infamous stories of fake IDs confiscated in the pursuit of alcohol…  Apparently, Woodstock’s Pizza was much more memorable than I ever realized back in college.

It has been six years since I graduated, which means that some of these memories are ten years old.  Whoa.  I loved college, but I never fully appreciated this glorious period of my life until it was over.  Sleep until whenever, do whatever, surrounded by friends, (even if do whatever was fairly tame for me!).  I loved studying outside underneath the trees on the quad, giggling with friends over dinner, riding my bicycle all over town, claiming my apartments.  Really, college was my first real chance to be independent, and I loved it!
This past week, the theme in my life has been that you can go back in time, it just won’t be exactly the same.  Stepping out of the car in downtown Davis, I felt old.  Not in a bad way, but in a wow, I really was a baby 10 years ago way.  Standing in line to order pizza, I felt so much wiser than the giggling bunch of girls in front of us.  I once was them.  
The funny thing is that I kept watching the door, expecting old friends from college to walk through.  I found myself looking for Rachel, Tanya, Liz, and Katie.  I felt the ghosts of us sitting around a table in the center of the restaurant, laughing, gossiping, planning our futures.  Now, the future is here, and I am alright that I can’t fully go back.  It was enough to sit there and remember.
As Alex and Ryan talked about the present, I remembered everything I loved about Davis!
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Apr 23 2012
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Family, Life, Travel

The Next Twenty Years

I celebrated my grandmother’s 80th birthday in Bodega Bay with my family this weekend.  It was a surprise party, much like the party that we threw for her twenty years earlier, for her 60th birthday.  My family, and my mom in particular, gets a big kick out of surprising my grandma.

As we ended last night watching family videos of a beach house that we rented two decades ago, I reflected on life, time, and family.  We all know that time goes by too quickly, but gathered in a house perched over the ocean, there was a comforting sense of repetition, that we can still have the past in the present, if we remember to try.

I look forward to many more new memories with my family smushed together in beach houses, and, if fortune is on our side, another “surprise” party for my grandmother’s 100th birthday twenty years from now!

There is something magical about Polaroids, like they instantaneously validate the present as classic memories.  Thanks Nick for taking these, (and letting me steal them while you napped!).

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Apr 20 2012
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Teaching

A Happy Little Story…

Today was one of those days that I remembered why I like teaching.  Please understand, there are many days that I forget.  Between challenging behaviors, long hours, and pressure to have high test scores, it can be easy to lose sight of why I chose this profession.

Today I remembered.

After school, I work with a group of students that need extra academic support.  One student, a girl who is routinely behaviorally challenging and does not easily express herself with words, did not feel like learning.  It was too much hard work.  As the other students worked away at converting fractions to decimals on their white boards, she gave up.

However, our little group decided that we were not leaving her behind.  She had to do the hard work whether she liked it or not because we believed she could.  Still, she didn’t believe in herself.

To sweeten the deal, I told the students we would have a party if she could figure it out.  Reluctantly, she and another student went to the back of the room and worked diligently for twenty minutes.  They called me back.  She still could not do it.

I told them to keep working, and they did, until finally she was able to show me she that understood.  The look on her face told me she was proud.  We were all proud.  The students cheered, the CD player flew on, and we danced, and laughed, and played catch with their stuffed class mascot, a Husky.

Still, the student was quiet.  She was too busy doing something to join us.  I didn’t know what it was.  Then, she appeared, proudly holding up what she had typed on her Barbie laptop, her show-and-tell for the day:

Mrs. M, You’re Nice.

I smiled, she smiled, then she joined the dance party.  The afternoon light soaking through my windows, happy children dancing because they were proud to learn and help each other, I felt happy.  I danced too.

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