Summer. I
made it through the last week of school with just a few tears. Ok, more than a
few. I said good-bye to a wonderful class and some fabulous colleagues that are
moving on. Turned in all of my end of the year paperwork, made a presentation
at our end of the year district meeting, and walked out of my classroom. I came
home and crashed.
I think in the last four days I’ve taken a nap, well, all of them. Exhaustion finally set in along with the stress of the end of the year. Fortunately, after fifteen years of teaching, I expect this. I need to give myself about a week to really distress before I will feel that I’m on summer break. Knowing this, I looked at my schedule for next week:
It’s
almost laughable. I do this to myself – no one makes me have a summer reading camp,
much less two. I do it for a variety of reasons – mainly because I enjoy it AND
the income allows me to attend All Write and ALA, these are not conferences my
district pays for. The camps allow me to attend without feeling that I’m taking
away from my family.
The boys’ schedules are filling up – and the following week with basketball camps will be even crazier. I haven’t even tried to schedule swim lessons yet! Goodness. To help keep some order, the boys have a check-off list for each day of what they have to accomplish – and so do I. We all have things that are on our “bucket list” for summer. On their list – have their friends over, go to the pool, see Superman, etc. On mine, work on the garden, have fun with the boys, dates with Chris, begin writing a book for teachers – yikes!
How about
you? If you are in education, do you feel like your summer is packed already?
How do you find balance? I love downtime, so I have to carve some out each day.
Reading time is added into my daily checklist – without it I feel stressed.
What are your tips? I’d love to hear them.
