The Long Middle
The first-day energy is gone and winter break is nowhere in sight. This is the stretch that decides how June feels — so this issue is not a pep talk. It is a shelf of things you open at the exact moment you need one.
- No.2 Open when… — a shelf of envelopes, each one for a different kind of bad day.
- No.3 An honest audit of where your energy is actually going.
- No.5 Walktober — a month of movement, no fitness level assumed.
- No.6 Delicata squash & white bean stew, scaled to however many you are feeding.
- No.7 Open enrollment, and why it is the most valuable hour of your year.
Open the issue Wellness Committee Rush The Wellness Champion Playlist
Walktober starts Thursday, October 1 and runs the whole month. Free to enter, any pace, and steps are not the only thing that counts. Register for Walktober
Save the dates
What's coming up
The next few weeks on the TRACE wellness calendar, with a link wherever there's one to give.
- Oct 1–31 Walktober challenge runs A month of movement, free to enter, no fitness level assumed. Steps count and so does everything else. Register · Log your miles
- Oct 10 World Mental Health Day A Saturday this year, which is its own kind of permission. Where to get real help
- Oct 21 Unity Day Wear orange. National Bullying Prevention Month, and the one day students watch what adults do most closely.
- Oct 22 VEBA Wellness Summit VEBA Resource Center, Kearny Mesa. Covered by your benefits; times and registration still to come. CalVEBA calendar
- Oct 23 Big Smiles Dental Clinic at TRACE Main The mobile dental clinic returns to campus. Registration link coming soon from Nurse Stukes.
Free virtual classes run every day of the week through your CalVEBA benefits — yoga, strength, sound baths, mindfulness. See the weekly schedule.
Not another newsletter
Built to be used, not filed away
Every issue is a real interactive page, not a PDF. Nothing here needs an account, and nothing typed into it goes anywhere but your own device.
A different shape every month
October is a shelf of envelopes you open when you need one. Other issues take their own structural concept — a quilt you fill in yourself, a night shift. No two feel the same.
Tools you actually use
A breathing timer, a mile logger, a recipe you can print. Everything saves locally as you go — open it again next week and it remembers where you left off.
Private by default
No accounts, no analytics, nothing reported to the committee or the district. Whatever you save stays on the device you saved it on.
The year ahead
Eight issues, October through May
Each one gets its own concept and centerpiece. October is live — the rest are in progress, one month at a time.
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Oct 2026 Live
The Long Middle
The honeymoon is over and break is nowhere in sight.
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Nov 2026 Drafting
Enough
Gratitude done well, not gratitude as an obligation.
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Dec 2026 Drafting
Low Light
Short month, high load, running on fumes into break.
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Jan 2027 Planned
Small and Repeatable
Resolutions fail. Systems work.
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Feb 2027 Planned
Heart
The hardest month of the year, met halfway.
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Mar 2027 Planned
Waking Up
Spring forward, and the page brightens with it.
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Apr 2027 Planned
Under Pressure
Testing season meets Stress Awareness Month.
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May 2027 Planned
Last Bell
The emotional close of the year.