"What do you do all day?"

"Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscapeLay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood."
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


As I ease into the throws of summer, I am constantly asked how I spend all of my free time. I ask myself, what free time? It's easy to take for granted some of those luxuries that other individuals have like having an hour for lunch, having time to be in front of a computer to get a lot of personal work done, or are able to leisurely make phone calls throughout the day to make plans for an upcoming evening.

While it was certainly a sacrifice to give up some luxuries by not working in a cube anymore, I wouldn't trade them for what I have now. While now & then it's so easy to forget this each school night of the 180 days that I have to grade papers, spend extra time after school, or run errands in the name of getting supplies for a lesson plan--during the summer I cherish doing some of the things that I take for granted. Simple things like really spending time & petting my cat, finding new authors to read, spending time knowing actual lyrics to songs rather then just knowing them by their hooks, and cleaning out my car for christsakes!! Silly things seem like such a luxury for me. For instance, I can drink all I want throughout the day & don't have to hold it until I have gotten my class quiet enough to treust them to leave the room. ......hee hhee

Inevitably everytime that I am asked the question of "What do you do all day during the summer?", I have to smile because I am playing ahuge catching up game. I journal, I read, I go through all of my bills and try to muster up more money creatively in an effort to make beautiful memories of my summer. I live each day to it's absolute fullest. I look back at the winter and remember nights of falling asleep at 9 or 9:30 & sigh. It seems like ages ago that I was getting up every morning at 5:45, & it's only been three weeks that I have been off.

I relax. I breathe deeply. I think. I try to be more thoughtful. Yep, they're heady goals for only 10 weeks.........................but it's what I do all day.