“Young, scrappy, and hungry, just like my country” - Alexander sings this as he is first meeting Aaron Burr, the Marquis de Lafayette, and several other of the main characters. He’s singing about not throwing away his shot at life and at making a difference. As an immigrant and young man with practically nothing to his name, he knew he had to be young, scrappy, and hungry to make it. And he did. As of today, America is 249 years old. Compared to other countries, we are a toddler or at best, a moody teenager right now. I think in order to see change that benefits all people, we’ve got to get a little more scrappy and hungry. 

For me, coffee shops are special places where deep conversations can be had, work can get done, relaxing with an amazing book can happen, and a little refresh for your soul can be found. Whatever type of “Coffee Drink Mom” (or person!) you are, take time this next week to slow down and find your own version of Casa Costa. I promise, it’s worth it.

Summer for any type of family brings a different schedule but not always a different change of pace. Add in a hefty scoop of neurodiversity and you quickly learn that summer is going to look different for your family. And please keep in mind, friends, around here different is NOT bad. Different is just that - different.

Let’s be real: the idea of self-care when you’re deep in the trenches of parenting, working caregiving and trying to keep everyone alive (including yourself) feels… Laughable.

I feel like for the last two weeks specifically, so much of the conversations at work and at home have been focused on what’s going wrong, what we don’t like, what negative things need to change. And there’s a time and a place for that to help with identifying challenges and what improvements can be made. I certainly understand that! Reading and then really sitting with the idea of being more vocal about what we are for, what we can imagine the outcomes to be, and what behaviors (hello, parenting!) we are wanting to see vs. what we’re currently struggling with changing.

Well, we’re a week into summer break here in Central Texas and is anyone else ready for school to be back on Monday?! I know FOR SURE the teachers are not (and truthfully, neither am I because those early mornings were getting real rough!). For our family, camps of any kind weren’t accessible until next week and even with calling in the reinforcements of out of state grandparents, this week has been a special kind of chaos. Every summer, I just forgot how tough this transition from school to summer is!

But when it’s literally your job, you (me) get really, really comfortable not just talking about elephants in rooms, but advocating for help. Advocating for change at a systemic level. And most days, just plain advocating. And while I realize this really is a blog about motherhood, working, the chaos that comes with life, and that life changing cup of morning coffee, I wouldn’t be true to who I am, how I’m wired, and what I believe part of my purpose in this life is - hoping for and actually working towards true change with people and in systems - if I didn’t also write about these things. So let’s talk about hope and the elephant in the room.  

For the first 18 years of my adult working career, I worked in the education field. I started out teaching in a portable trailer classroom in Clearwater, Florida in the 9th Grade Academy at Countryside High School. It was amazing and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. That was the year that I learned so much about education, public schools, and how incredible students are. CHS was not perfect - no school (public, private, or charter) is. But what I really learned was how much the little things matter.

One of the reasons I started writing here at Just Chaos and Coffee was to share pieces of my story around my experience with burnout the last few years. Truthfully, this is the stuff I don’t want to write about. It’s not funny, although I know myself and I’ll try to make it humorous because that’s how I cope. It’s uncomfortable for me because I’m choosing to be vulnerable in a way that’s new for me.

I am not, most assuredly, energetic all the time. I also don’t drink coffee just for the caffeine. Let’s get into why I named my blog “Just Chaos and Coffee”! The Chaos part is kind of self-explanatory. The coffee part, maybe not so much…

Much of what I want to share today isn’t all my story to tell. Our child, who has a dual diagnosis of Autism and ADHD (often seen as AuDHD), is old enough for me to want to protect and honor that this is their life - their story - that they get to tell in their own time, if they choose to. But what I can and will share are a few things that the last 7 years of parenting our kiddo, advocating to change systems instead of changing our child, fighting (hard, at times) for support to leverage the field of education have taught me. And what I wish RFK, Jr had used his considerable influence to focus on instead. 

If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me, “you really should write a book”, I could almost retire. Well, maybe not quite yet, but at least take a really nice vacation! I’m not ready to write a book, but after the last few (checks notes: actually, 10) years of managing a growing career, side business, family, and just plain life (throw in a pandemic, a move, growing family, health challenges, the list goes on), honestly, I just hit a wall.