Coffee dates are the only dates

Today I had a coffee date (pretty much the only kind of date I go on these days!) with one of the girls I taught for the second half of the 2018-2019 school year. Although she was only in my class for a semester we bonded super fast and she sent me a video last week on the "anniversary" of the last day of school from the year before. In the video she's crying (she never looks like she's crying while I am always blotchy and red when I cry) and says, "I'm only crying because I'm going to miss Ms. Williams. I hate this place." It is the most "her" statement ever and I am so grateful for the chance to know her because she is as sunshiny as her favorite color! (It's yellow. Duh)

Anyway, it was fantastic to catch up with her and I only cried once so that was a bonus and it was just what I needed to come back home and start organizing and destroying the clutter left over from moving. Since I haven't established a "place" for everything yet (like where I'll dump the mail) it just kind of winds up everywhere and it's not a very relaxing environment. In the condo I put the mail on the "game" cabinet by the door when I walked in. It was right below the hooks for my keys so it made sense. In my apartment the front door opens into a hallway and my bedroom is right by the front door (leave me alone, burglars!) so you literally have to walk all the way down the hall to the kitchen/living area to drop anything anywhere. Well...you do now. I had a vacuum cleaner, still in the box, in the hallway and I was using that as the place to drop mail but then I had to actually vacuum so that stopped being a thing.

Since I am always the perfect example of logic and caution, I was using scissors to slice open the box...and my right middle finger. It's fine, though. No stitches. Just a camo bandaid. You can barely see it.

Super lame. Don't even care. It stays!

This summer the people directly on my team (well, mostly just one of them for now) and I are going to get together and plan out what we want to do for next year if it's a regular year, which we know it won't be, and to prepare for a digital/hybrid year. It's overwhelming, especially since we have two AP classes to prepare for but we make a damn good team, even without any additional team members. That's all the more motivation to make sure my apartment is the way I want it to be...so we can work effectively.

It's been 2 1/2 weeks since I moved into this place and, while I do really like it a lot, it's been really hard to go from having a teen-aged roommate to being all alone. It's quiet, which is nice sometimes, but it's often too quiet. It's going to be an adjustment but I'm just wondering how long it might take because I like to plan things out. I need to know when this feeling of great emptiness will start to ebb or, if it's not going to, how I can make it suck less...without getting a dog or finding a boyfriend. 

Those have both been suggested and tabled for another time, thank you very much.

I'm working on the second season of The Last Kingdom on Netflix right now. It was suggested, several times, in our Zoom sessions over the last couple of months and, although it is incredibly bloody, it's freakin' brilliant. The storyline, the twists, the way it incorporates the hatred, love, defiance, passion, and sheer will is just fantastic.  Disclaimer: When it says it's rated TV-MA for gore they are NOT lying.

Aubs