Simpify, Simplify

This school year, I am starting with a few missions, the first of which is family. 

Okay, so how does that look... and what am I talking about?  Here's the deal.  Every year, I LOVE my summer.  It is the best time for me to experience new things, and dig deeper into whatever interests and hobbies I'm into that year.  It's a refreshing, renewing time.  Ever since getting married and starting a family, my summers have been a bit different. 

As most parents know, family generally changes everything.  I love my job, even with the challenges and stresses, but I must say that I felt way better about my job when I was on my own.  Why?  Well, I can admit that my teaching job has a tendency to consume my life in many ways.  I really get into my work with the students and the school.  So, one could imagine that things would be very different when a couple of more pressing priorities enter the life of someone like me.  My family means more to me than my job, yet my job is highly demanding.  There's planning, preparing, the cumbersome act of teaching itself, staff meetings, additional duties toward school improvment, there's the grading piece... so much goes into effective instruction, and it's not all just about the curriculum being taught.  For me, it's about the kids. 

I work with a somewhat disadvantaged population, and I always feel like it is my job to try my best to give them what they need... filling in what's missing, even when I'm not sure what that is.  There are not enough teachers, in my opinion and observation, who still seem to actually care about the kids.  It's easy to forget about them, because they make it seem like they don't want or need anyone's help or support.  I keep trying to remember,"They're just kids, and I was a kid once... one day, my daughter will be in school; how should she be treated?"  This is my fuel.  Teaching is not an easy job if you actually want to make a difference. You get the picture.


Well, anyhow... this year, I have decided it is my mission to help the kids at school at absolutly no cost (or the absolute least cost) to my home life.  This means that I really need to work at it to get things in proper places and keep them there. I am tired of being too tired for everything during 9 months of every year.  So my plan is to simplify everything, not expecting so much of myself at work, and not letting work affect me so much at home. Of course, I have not mentioned how grad courses have also impacted my life at home, but thankfully, this is my last year of that!  Thus, I begin my thought process toward finding simplicity, and enriching life as a result.  Here goes!

Family

I'm sitting here with my family.  We are on the front porch, my husband and I.  He's relaxing, patting his foot to the music coming from my laptop.  I am (or was) working on the last assignment for my summer class (I'll get right back to it, I hope).  Our daughter is playing with her water play table, making 'soup' for her 'friends' out of water and leaves.  I thought to myself, how horrible it would be if I did not pause to notice this blessing... this moment.  It seems small, and it is.  But who said awesome could not be synonymous with simple?  Treasure your blessings, beloved. 

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained” ~Winston Churchill

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together." ~Erma Bombeck

A Month for Me

Tomorrow is August 1st.  Many people with summers off from work (like me) begin to do some thinking around now.  Has my summer been productive?  Did I accomplish goals I wanted to?  Did I have fun?  Did I take time to relax?  We all treat vacation differently.

I am a teacher, and what I spend my summers on is usually making up for lost time.  I try to hang with the fam, spend as much quality time as I can with my daughter and my husband, without the feeling of being pressured by other stuff from work.  I love that about summer!  No big pressures.  I also try to mix in some time for me… time to replenish, energize, and plot out new directions. 

At this point, I have figured out where I want to go, and how to get there.  I have even taken some steps in that direction.  Now, some who have summers off know the blessing it can be.  You have precious time to work with, wherein you can breathe easy, slow your pace, see life more completely, and take time to do what you struggle to make happen during the work-year.   I can only speak for myself, but it seems like I actually take leave from myself during the school year, while I’m teaching.  I’ve been trying to work on that, but that’s a separate entry, altogether. 

My life is not the same and neither am I, when I’m working.  I love my family, I love my job, and I enjoy learning through my graduate courses, but there’s a missing ingredient, when the focus is all on others, and outside elements.  What about me?  I’m here for everyone else, except me… during the school year.  So, this summer, I’ve decided to take time to strengthen my relationship with my husband, my daughter, AND MYSELF.  Life has many works in progress.   One work in progress I sat on a shelf a few years ago was me.  I am certain that a happier, more full self will result in a happier, more well-balanced life.  I’ll be better at everything I do (including being a wife, mother, friend, and teacher) when I become a better me. 

So, all that being said, I am feeling a bit anxious today – July 31st.  Some know the strange feeling that approaches with August.  It’s like, okay, this time is not over, but it’s more ‘over’ than not.  Two months down, one to go.  It makes me feel the need to sink in deeply, making sure I’ve covered the bases.  Things change for me in the fall.  So, here’s the deal.  I will be fasting and praying all of August, to seek direction and guidance, as well as kicking several resolutions into high gear.  I’m just fasting from ice cream and fast food, but believe me, that will be enough to serve my purposes.  My purposes  are all linked to self-renewal, including value of self, commitment to health and fitness, increased self expression, and a few other things, which easily blend into those categories.  So, here we go… one month of me… to hopefully prepare myself to be better, more readily available and prepared to serve the purposes God has predestined me to fill at this point of my life.  Lord, may I emerge from this fast more fit – mind, body, spirit, and soul – and ready…

Thank you, Amen.

Gratitude 8.3.09

I am grateful for my garden, and my family to share it with. I love the smallness of us, and the huge-ness, too. I'm just grateful for outdoors, and water, and plants and life. I am grateful for learning each day to release and allow life to exist, to be, to stretch and grow. I am grateful for my daughter's voice, her smile, her laugh, her eyes - full of wonder. I am grateful for my husband's compassion, his inquisitive nature, his natural tendency to nurture, his sense of humor, his at-home-with-me self that no one else knows, his undying support - so strong it's difficult to accept at times. I am grateful... for my garden, my family, for life, for us. Just what we are, where we are.