It Was Fall Break

For the majority of the time my kids have been students in Atlanta Public Schools, we've been lucky to have a calendar with full week breaks in early October and mid January. These extra weeks off give teachers and students much needed down time, reduce our summers to a managable ten weeks, and, best of all, used to give us amazing and affordable family vacations. Before COVID, we took the kids to Disney three times over the years, and each time saw other Atlanta families we knew there at the same time. We went to Costa Rica, we went to we visited family, the kids went to week long camps offered by local arts and crafts places or their karate dojo. The October break, in particular, has always been nice because early October is when the heat has finally lifted off Atlanta.

During the COVID years - the school years that started in the fall of 2019 through last Spring - those three years didn't have week long breaks, because of a number of factors, and it made me mad every damn time. Luckily this year we have our old calendar back, and so the kids had this week off.

There's no money to go anywhere this year. We still haven't sold the Lake Claire house. It's under contract for an amount we considered insulting as recently as ninety days ago. Now we'll just be happy to get anything at all, and avoid foreclosure before sale.

I did manage to take the kids out for a nice dinner Monday, right after I took them to get their annual flu shots. Years ago I made the holiday formerly known as Columbus Day our family flu shot day every year, as a kind of object lesson in applied history. The kids always have it off, and even when I don't I can usually skip out on work a little early to make vaccinations happen. Now that we live in Virginia Highlands, I was able to walk with them down to the CVS and then over to the restaurant after.

Other than that one walk out, I was unsuccessful in getting the kids out of the house during their break. I tried, but as teens they legitamately want to lay in bed and play video games with their week off. I am hoping that after the house sells, we can afford to travel again. Winn and I are considering driving the kids up to the UGA Athens campus over the Thanksgiving holiday week. As difficult as it can be to get in to UGA, that's currently the 16-year-old's safety school. We only have about a year before she has to make her decision about where to spend her first few years of early adulthood away from us.

I really want both the kids to go somewhere far away, as I think being outside your home culture is an important part of growing as a person. I don't know if anything outside the state will be possible with our current finacial situation though, and honestly, none of my friends with college ended up making any more than my friends without college in the long run. I am pushing college on the oldest child because I think she has the best shot at scholarships right out of High School, but maybe that's a mistake. It's 2022, and the world is on fire. Nobody knows anything about the best path thorugh early adulthood, or what might lead to success. We're all just doing our best.