As Jeff heads into his last year of graduate school, we take time to breathe and to look back as It has been a little over a year since the surgery. What shocked that back into my mind was that I saw Jeff bend over the other day and saw his surgical scars. Everyone at the hospital (Torrance and San Pedro) kept telling us that it will take a year, but he will do ok due to his youth. They were right.
This time of year is always rough for us. Not only did Jared start school, but Gayle started a new teaching position at a new school. All those years of collecting 4th and 5th grade materials have now been stored away and replaced with 1st grade materials……. If you are married to a teacher, you probably know that the whole family is eventually involved in moving, cleaning, preparing the room, etc. At her new school, she is able to stay late at night to work and she is fortunate to have friends and a sister that comes to help out. So the first weeks of school, everyone keeps their distance until the classroom settles down. Of course Jeff is learning from all of this as Tiff is starting her second year of teaching high school science.
One last note, you know you have a teacher in the family if you find all members shopping at an office supply store to purchase enough “limited quantities” to supply all students. I am always amazed at the number of teachers out there purchasing supplies out of their own funds, the opposite of what I experience at work. Over the years we have purchased major office items to make her tasks easier to manage. Our last purchase was a long reach stapler so she can make booklets, this is among the tripods for posters, heavy duty staplers, hole punches, non endangering paper cutters, etc.
The best indication on how Jeff is doing is to describe some of his life experiences. Jeff came home last week and told me that he had just played basketball. Internally my mind went “what the #$@* were you thinking, you can reinjure…….” But before I could spit that out, I saw the expression on his face as he explained It was half court, he couldn’t run too well, or jump, but he did ok. That gave me a sigh of relief. But I had to figure out how to tell Gayle without her doing the same. I got a “WHAT!?, Oh, that’s good”.
During the summer, Gayle gave Jeff and Jordan the assignment of cooking once a week. I never thought that going away to college would enable them to develop their culinary skills. For the years I spent in college, I learned to visit different relatives for meal. Jeff can be found in the kitchen with his laptop following recipes. He tends to be more adventurous in creating his food. Jordan usually follows the uncle Cliff style of bbq outdoors and the staples of fried rice and dinosaur chicken nuggets. Jared takes after me and sticks to ramen.
Jordan built a bbq and prep table out back in our attempt to take back the backyard from the feral cats. Our dog Jade has enabled us to start the process. We were able to set up a fountain and fire pit, while clearing out years of salvage materials (don’t throw that out, I can use that…..some day). Of course the weekend the 4 of us went out of town for a basketball tournament, Jeff had a backyard bbq get together with his friends.
The Wadas are doing ok…………….
