I will continue this post with my usually happy news update after this, but a student of mine from last year died a week ago and it’s been rough. In respect for the family and confidentiality I cannot share much but I feel the need to put that information out into the interwebs. The world doesn’t often see how teachers love their students; they leave a lasting mark on us. My grief is still ongoing for a student I lost over 6 years ago and he will never leave me. Now I have two. Losing someone so young is always traumatic. I have always leaned on faith, and my catholicism is carrying me through. We believe our prayers for the dead are powerful and potent to help the souls move on from purgatory. I regularly pray a chaplet for the dead for my one student and now I have another one who will be remembered in perpetuity. Anywho, I do not mean to dwell on this topic here but it needed to be said.
August is back to school in Florida! We start August 10th, before you cry in horror, remember we are out around Memorial Day. I know practically everyone else still has summer on the brain but we get out of school around Memorial Day so our 2 months break is up! Both of us teach high school so August is a busy time for this family! Things both feel like they speed up but, at the same time, it’s not hectic because our summers are incredibly busy (all four of us are home) and the routine Monday-Friday is good for all of us. Certainly, I can no longer lazily start dinner at 3:3opm, my alarm annoyingly rings at 5:30am, and I have to pack lunch boxes 5 nights a week but my house is less destroyed every night and I love hearing stories of what my eldest did at school that day in kindergarten. It’s a trade off and I am grateful we get these seasonal flows.
Read more: Teacher Tips: How to Actually Do Virtual PD
What We are Doing
I love that I get to walk to work and drop William off at school (even though the heat is still unbearable at 6:45am). New for this year is walking home with William and our neighbor’s kid three times a week. It doesn’t add to my load but I am super conscious of the trust I have been given of being in charge of getting someone’s baby home from school is huge! Our toddler (2.5 years old) is still with the nanny so Will picks him up 4 days a week and I am in charge on Wednesdays so Will can stay extra time in school if he needs it or go to the district office for science fair meetings.
One extra thing for this month was that Will and his Research students got recognized at a City Council meeting for their excellence at ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair). He has done so much with that program these last 10 years and is has grown to much (pretty much at capacity of what he can handle!). One thing Will has recognized is that no one is going to be his cheerleader/promoter unless he does it. It’s exhausting but it’s so important to publicize their successes otherwise they will go completely unnoticed, even by his admin. It’s funny how a football team can be lauded for winning districts yet his kids win at an international event and everyone is too busy to celebrate. But instead of just complaining, he is doing something about it and they are getting the recognition they earned.
In our family life, we paused any extracurriculars for the month of August; there is enough things shifting right now. However, in September we will pick back up with tennis for William (Ale is too young but he is dying to play too) and this year we are also adding Faith Formation at our church for William (which is CCD if you are a catholic my age or older). What did CCD even stand for? I just googled it: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Faith Formation is a better name.
We are very conscientious of overloading our plate because time together as a family, especially around the dinner table, is so important to us. Sidenote: September is going to suckkkkkk because I think we accidentally overdid it; I’ll save that post for the beginning of October but I am dreading it!
What We are Cooking
While I like a good steak, I am not overall a big meat eater and my meal planning leans vegan at times (except for the fake cheese and meat stuff, no thank you). In addition to that preference, groceries are taking a chunk out of our monthly bills so I am trying to find ways to reduce the cost and one quick thing is to eat less meat or buying cheaper cuts of meat. Now that we are back in school, I have less time to cook in between getting home and when we want dinner on the table. I absolutely hate eating dinner at 5:30pm but the boys need to go to bed early (we wake them at 6am for school) and there is no way we can do bath, brushing teeth, books and bedtime on time if we ate later. So 5:30 it is; which means I usually casually starting “cooking” at 4:30 (i.e. chopping vegetables, reading over the recipe, etc.)
- Sheet pan Brussel Sprout paneer with Lime Vinaigrette served over rice from the amazing cookbook Dinner in One (if you have never had paneer I highly recommend it! It is a firm Indian cheese, it does not taste like cheese at all!)
- My family came over for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and I served a spatchcocked herbs de provence roasted chicken, rosemary smashed potatoes, Assumpta salad (with blessed herbs of course!) and my aba made natilla with meringue on top (perfect for the Assumption of the Virgin into the clouds of heaven). Also the boys and I made a watermelon basil lemonade using frozen watermelon cubes I miraculously discovered in our freezer.
- Canned Tuna Spaghetti + Will’s Homemade Pesto (defrosted from the freezer) + smashed cannellini beans (The pasta was a little dry, but don’t blame the recipe, I added beans and hemp seeds, but should have added more pasta water or olive oil)
- Ugandan Kabobs with a japaleño dipping yogurt (my recipe is a pdf in Liturgical Cooking Binder) served with toasted naan and a Gazan Minced Vegetable Salad from The Gaza Kitchen (I put my Gaza cookbook next to my Israeli one . . .world peace and end genocide maybe?)
- What started off as a Thai Veggie Tofu Stir Fry (with asparagus and mushrooms over a oyster/soy sauce glaze) turned into Chicken Veggie Stir Fry (with green peppers from our garden and mushrooms over peanut sauce)
- “Lighter” Chicken Marsala – I had to frankenstein different recipes together but it’s Chicken Marsala with less cream and kale added in – Will & the boys loved it!
- Couscous Buddha Bowl from Vegan Buddha Bowls (I found this cookbook at Goodwill for $1 and it is such a win; I modified the recipe with a few swaps on preference/things we had in the freezer and literally ate it all week for lunch)
- Chicken Tagine in my trusty Dutch Oven instead (my recipe is a pdf in Liturgical Cooking Binder) but sadly Will does not love North African cuisine and I just adore it. It was a phenomenal meal, perfectly cooked if I might add, but he just doesn’t love the flavors.
- I am not winning any awards for my pasta and red sauce meatless Friday night creation but I used up stuff we had and the kids chowed down – that’s a win for me!
I am no longer a big sweet tooth, but having two kids puts sweets front and center all the time. We do not keep many sweets in the house (except for a perpetual jar of baking dark chocolate) and we have never been big dessert eaters. Mixing that along with the fact that I have had gestational diabetes with both pregnancies, and that increases my likelihood of getting diabetes later in life, we are conscious about what we consume on a weekly basis. At the same time, I do miss little treats with the kids. Each Lent we give up all treats (broadly defined) but I make sure during the Easter season to have dessert every Sunday. I was hoping to make a new dessert for every Sunday, but then I remembered I hate baking and making desserts (so ice cream sundaes it was!). I wanted to retain a concept of “Sunday set apart” for our family rhythm. And we settled on dessert for Sundays and Solemnities. It’s always store bought, because that is not my love language, but it creates a tradition of something they look forward too while also establishes a reason why we don’t eat it Monday-Saturday.
What We are Reading/Watching/Listening To
After dinner we started a clean up dance party, each person gets to pick one song and we blast it while clean up before baths and bed. Ale is obsessed with “We Will Rock You” by Queen and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears so he switches between those two every single time. Will and I are happily playing (hopefully clean) club favorites; I actually look forward to cleaning up with this tradition. At work I have been enjoying Bridgerton–style playlists because I can’t grade to words with music but I need something uplifting.
During Kindergarten Curriculum Night the teachers talked about the Sunshine State Young Readers Award (SSYRA) Program. Students can read the books on the list (or have them read to them for the younger kids) and get lanyard charms through school. Of course, I like having a goal and keeping a list so I immediately looked up the 2026-2027 list for the junior category and put the books on hold at the library. This month we worked out way through: Vampire Jam Sandwich and Bored Panda. Also William came home with his first book checked out from the school library and he was STOKED he gets to keep it for a whole 6 days! 🙂 The book was Who Would Win?: Hammerhead vs. Bull Shark. Parents of little boys everyone know this series, but it was William’s first time reading one and he was engrossed in the imaginative “battle” scenes.
August is a low-book month for me because of all the back to school chaos but I managed to finish three books: Queen of Shadows , Tower of Dawn, & Empire of the Dawn. And honestly I needed some lighter podcast episodes this month so I avoided some of the more history-political heavy ones. I realize, as I wrote that last sentence, that my idea of a “lighter podcast” is still heavy for most people. Here’s a round up of some of my favorites this month: Data over Dogma, Spirits & American Medieval. All are religion/history/mythology related but use a lot of humor and I needed that this month.
Although this is not my husband’s blog, when Will gets into a book I end up getting a play by play and he is currently on the third book in the Three-Body Problem Trilogy; I can’t begin to wrap my mind around a recap so here is a substack with a synopsis. With as much as he has told me, I should be able to count it as a book I read lol. Flashback to this spring/summer when he was persistently working his way through the GINORMOUS book on Robert Moses: The Power Broker. IYKYK And then he also listened to the audiobook The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory about none other than the wannabe dictator Trump himself and how Evangelicals have twisted themselves into supporting the incarnation of all they supposedly stood against (he made me listen to a lot of this one too, but I didn’t mind).
P.S. – I forgot this when I first hit publish, Will and I also watched two movies (after the boys went to bed): The Wolf of Wall Street (holy shit that was intense!) & Match Point (also intense in a very different way!). We don’t want much TV but I promise we’re not anti-TV weirdos.
JMF
