Reflecting on Teaching and Balance

My Wednesday morning yoga location.

Thursday and Friday of this week I'm going to be lucky enough to present to five groups of educators on a variety of topics. Through all of those presentations, one thing will remain the same, I want to leave them with gratitude. My gratitude to these teachers on the work they do. My gratitude to them for caring enough to get professional development during the summer when they could be with their families. My gratitude for fighting the good fight, caring about kids, and being a safe place for their students to land. I'm also leaving them with a word of caution...

Remember to always strive towards balance.

For years, my life was out of balance. I let my love of teaching consume me, consume all of my time. I grew to love writing, yet I only ever found time to write if it was about my classroom. I loved learning, so all of my free time was spent finding conferences to attend. I love children's books, but never found any time to read just for me. In everything I did, I looked for ways to use it to help me grow as an educator. Needless to say, this is not healthy for me.

To some, this might work fine. To that I say, more power to them. For me, I needed to find "me" again. The person I was beyond teaching. It reminded me of being a parent of a newborn. My identity was wrapped up in becoming a mom. Somehow, once my children didn't need me as much, my identity switched to that of a teacher. And I am a mom, and a teacher, but I needed to rediscover who I was beyond that.

Enter yoga. 
Enter dates with Chris. 
Enter time with my boys. 
Enter adventures with friends.
Enter writing a romance book. 
Heck, enter reading endless amounts romance books. 

2018 has been a year of discovery for me, and it has been hard, and it has also rocked. I'm grateful for it. I feel like my priorities are better in line with who I am than they have ever been. I'm still learning, still growing, but I'm getting there. 

As a result, I want to pay my gratitude for this year forward. Kristen Ashley is the writer of romance books that I credit for helping me on this journey. Reading her Rock Chicks series had me laughing and crying. It was a pleasure to read a book just for fun, with no need to find which kid I was going to hand it off to, no lesson to tie in, just read for the sake of reading. To thank her, and thank the amazing folks that read my blog and attend the sessions I'm giving at Scholastic and All Write's Summer Institute, I'm giving away six ebooks from Kristen Ashley. You pick the title, as long as it is by Ashley, I will send it to you. I will pick one winner from my blog, and one from each session I give. Enter on the form below. Winners will be selected on Monday, June 25th. 

Those of you in the classrooms and schools, thanks for all you do. This is a tough profession, but rewarding beyond belief. If you have time off this summer, please carve out time for you. You are worth it! 

Where Did the Time Go?

Goodness, I haven't blogged since May 10th! A lot has happened. Lacking the time and originality to write a lengthy post, I'll just do a recap here:

End of the School Year
Holy moly, the end of the year snuck up on me. Counting my two years teaching Kindergarten in a learning center, it was my twenty-second in the classroom. We wrapped up the year with my annual "purge the classroom library" day where I begged kids to take books to keep that weren't being circulated from my classroom. We talked about our favorite books, our favorite pieces of writing, and made summer plans.

On the last day, which was a shorter day, we watched The Greatest Showman and ate bagels. It's a rough life. While it seems like forever ago, today only marks the 21st day of summer. Crazy how much I miss those kids already.

Voices From the Middle
I'm part of a group that records podcasts for NCTE's Voices from the Middle. In May we got to record an episode with Jewell Parker Rhodes to discuss her amazing middle grade novel, Ghost Boys (Episode 33). Then four students read Cynthia Kodohata's fabulous middle grade book Checked and recorded an episode with her (Episode 34). They had a blast! You can check out those episodes HERE.

Kids
My boys are busy. Luke ran a special invite meet as a Freshman and got a PR for the mile, 4:36. Then the bad news came, stress fracture. So he's been out of running for six weeks and still has three more to go. Not easy when it is your favorite thing.

Needing to constantly tape his shin should have been a clue...

Liam began summer with a bang - chipping his front tooth at the pool, fainting at the pool, and braces. We're hoping that the rest of the summer remains calm. They will be in 10th and 8th grade next year, respectively.

Fiction Writing
I'm still plugging along!! I've reached 41,000 words. It is not easier, in fact it is likely harder the further I get. The idea of ever having this book published terrifies me. This is a romance book, so if I went that route I'd likely self-publish, but my inner editor, Helga, is not kind. Fortunately my friend, Cindy, took on the task of reading what I have so far and her kind words have helped. I still love my characters, Max and Emma, and I love creating their fictional world. 

Summer Conferences
One week from today I'll be presenting at the Scholastic Summit in Chicago. Then, next Friday, I'll be at the All Write/ Summer Institute conference presenting four times. I cannot wait! I wrote a blog post for the Summer Institute folks and it is up - you can read it HERE. And if you're coming to either conference, let me know! I'll love to say hello.

Thanks for bearing with me as my writing has been sporadic  I hope to get another post done before I take off next week.