Hello, everyone! I’m really struggling with what to write about this week. I know I should give more advice to others living in long distance relationship situations. Publishing a post every week is a goal I set for myself, but this week, I just don’t have anything prepared. So, today’s post will be a variety of topics (or hodge-podge, as I like to say):
- Post-Visit Blues
- Jack's Training Camp
- Our Instagram Naivete
- Teaching English to Chinese Students
- Homemade Soap
Post-Visit Blues
As predicted, spending time together after our longest time apart was especially hard on all of us. But poor Dennis, who had to return to DC to a quiet apartment, suffered the worst. However, when he’s feeling lonely, it forces him to schedule his next trip home. So we’ll be together again soon. Post-visit blues also cause him to look for jobs in Colorado. He found a few government contractor positions that he would qualify for, but before he could even apply, they were pulled to supply funding to construct some really expensive wall somewhere south of here.
It wouldn’t have mattered, though, because those jobs would have likely meant a pay cut and not the career progression that he has planned for himself. But the process of looking occupies his mind with hopes of finding something that would bring him home once he’s back in DC after a visit.
Invite-Only Training Camp
We thought our travels were on hiatus for the rest of the year, then Jack was invited to a Talent ID camp that USAT (USA Taekwondo) is hosting. USAT is the national governing body for taekwondo in the US, and the Talent ID camps look for potential national team athletes and Olympic hopefuls that they can train (and fund!) for the upcoming year. Jack is currently ranked tenth in the US for his division, which got him on their radar.
The weekend camp was in Detroit, Michigan. Dennis is a quick 8 hour drive away (hey, an 8 hour drive is NOTHING to us anymore!) so Jack flew solo and met Dennis there. Jack endured a brutal workout from a group of high ranking coaches. Spectators weren’t allowed until Sunday. It didn’t matter to Dennis, he loved the opportunity to support Jack even if it meant missing part of it.
Dennis watched him spar in a couple of matches on Sunday, and returned him safely to the airport. Jack has flown alone before, and never has any issues. But this was the first time he flew with a plane-changing layover by himself. Since I’m the parent with Jack most often, I knew he’d be fine, but I don’t think Dennis was able to breathe a full breath until he knew that Jack was in the seat of his second flight, safely on his way back to Denver.
Unfortunately, Jack wasn’t asked back for the next round of camps, so it looks like we’ll be funding his training, tournaments and travel again next year. And as parents of any competitive athlete knows all too well, it’s going to ramp up even more next year. More training, more tournaments, and a lot more travel. Meaning we’ll be hemorrhaging substantially more money.
cutkick.com
This was part of the reason for creating a website and Instagram account for the boys. I mean, we think they’re the coolest kids on the planet. Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet’s haka-performing kids may be a close second. But we know how smart, hilarious, athletic and hard-working our kids are, so why not get their names and faces out in the world of martial arts?
The website is still under construction, but Instagram is an easy way to post daily and begin to gather followers. I’ve had my own Instagram account for a while, and recently started one for this blog. Dennis has never even seen Instagram, but wanted to have access since he has a lot of pictures and videos of them training on his phone and camera. He figured that it couldn’t be that difficult to figure out and I agreed.
Instagram 101
He called me one evening just as I’d heard that round 2 of the Talent ID campers had been announced, and I was frantically trying to find the list, read it, and process the results, to tell me that the boys had received a message on Instagram who wanted to use their photos. He didn’t have all my attention as I was still reading about the results from camp.
Apparently, the person ran a private Instagram page of photos of “camera kicks,” but before I could ask why would the page be a private one (red flag!), Dennis requested access to it. Access was immediately granted, and we looked at the mediocre photos of the page of about 800 followers. (Hello, I said red flag!!). While we perused the page, the eager owner even messaged us with an offer of “commission.” ??? Does commission mean money in the world of Instagram like it does in the real world? It seemed crazy to think that, but I honestly wasn’t sure!
Come again?
We scrolled through the page, and saw other athletes we knew. So we took a chance. I messaged the page owner and told him we’d send him some pictures. Then he asked if we could video chat while taking the photos so he could tell us what he was looking for. Again, the pictures already on his page were just okay.
Now, I’m no stellar photographer, but I know that it doesn’t take much effort for me or anyone to improve photos ten-fold with the quality of cellphone cameras and editing apps. We didn’t feel that the quality of photos we saw had any kind of creative director behind the scenes. (How many flags do I need?!) But next came the final clue that our suspicions weren’t unfounded. The video chat would only be on our end, because his camera and mic didn’t work. That’s all I needed to read to picture a room full of foot fetishees getting their jollies from my young teen boys dirty bare feet mid-kick.
I unfollowed his site, and haven’t looked at the messages since, hoping he has just quit asking. I’ll block him if I need to, but in the meantime, I’ve told Dennis (that sweet, summer child) that he can no longer entertain such messages without consulting with me and the boys first. He had only been on Instagram for one day and had gotten us mixed up with some foot fetish scam (or so we choose to believe based on ALL THE RED FLAGS!). I’m kidding about blaming him, of course, because I allowed myself to ignore the signs as well, but now we have a hilarious story to tell and know to be more diligent about future requests.
English as a Second Language
Until cutkick.com begins raking in the dough and endorsements (hey, a parent can dream), I’ve been brainstorming other ways to help pay for next year’s training and competitions.
It’s not easy for me to return to work with the kids’ unusual schedules. Ben attends a blended-learning school which requires him to be on-campus two days a week, and online from for three. Jack attends courses at the local community college with a varied schedule. Add drum lessons and taekwondo to the mix, and I’m really only home for a few hours at a time.
One thing I’m experimenting with right now is teaching English to Chinese students early in the morning before the kids wake up. I’ve read about other stay-at-home moms and teachers on summer break working for such companies to supplement their income. So I decided to give it a try. It’s actually quite enjoyable! The curriculum is provided, you’re only required to know English, and while teaching experience is preferred, what they consider teaching is quite broad. I was a training manager in the corporate world, and now help teach classes to children of all ages at taekwondo. I put that on the application as my “experience” and was hired. It helped that I have a college degree, but not all companies require degrees. They do require some kind of ESL (English as a Second Language) certificate, which I obtained easily through a course offered at a discount on Groupon.
So far, I’ve made some pocket change, but I haven’t really taken it as seriously as others. Apparently you can earn a lot more by hosting live reading sessions, creating how-to videos, and recruiting other teachers. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get there, but I definitely want to explore this a little more.
eCommerce Potential
Now that I’m confident I can create a website from scratch, I’ve also considered creating an eCommerce site. I learned how to make soap when we lived in Kentucky, and have experimented with all kinds of different fats, oils, liquids, colors and scents. I sometimes see homemade soaps and bath bombs in stores at astronomical prices and think, “Huh, I can do that, too.” Although I’ll admit that bath bombs are more frustrating to make than soap. Even though I’m using lye for the soap; a chemical that will eat through your clothes, burn off your skin and blind you if you’re not careful! (I’m very careful) Anyway, I may give that a go, too. As always, I’ll keep you posted!
If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me as I rambled on about a variety of topics that have no business being in the same post together. But I think they’re interesting, and if you do, too, which one would you like to hear more about? I can easily write an entire post on any of these. Well, maybe not foot fetishes. Without a lot of research, at least. And that’s not something I really care to research. 😉
Wow!! That’s so exciting about Jack!!
That photographer sounds like a big creep!
Loved your hodgepodge post!!
Thanks, Linda! Jack has been working very hard. He’s just too nice in the ring, so I can’t really complain about that 🙂
Creepy Instagram people! I do love this post! We should make soap together sometime! I love making soap, but that Lye can be yucky because the chemical burns are bad!