It has been so long since I have chosen to Blog.  I guess life sometimes gets in the way :-)

  Working as a teacher, helping my students with their own personal needs and trying to educate them at the same time is exhausting.  Coming home to my own children who need me just as much is a joy, but just as exhausting.  Keeping up with the four of them (who all enjoy sports and extra-curricular activities) takes a lot out of me.  Not that I don't enjoy it, but once in a while I just want to stop and sit.

I glance up at the calendar and another school year has passed.  It takes most of June to recuperate.  By July I am going through my to-do list I have made for myself throughout the school year of things I want to accomplish in my time off.  Then August is here.  I look at my list and I have a few items scratched off, but not many.  It's time to get ready to go all over again.

Then I stop and think of all the ball games I sat through watching my children participate in.  Or the time we went to the lake or the pool, the time we sat outside in our driveway together and grilled hamburgers on my husbands new grill and ate them right there.  Together.  My entire summer has been spent together, with my family.

No, I did not get the van cleaned out.  No, I did not get the refrigerator cleaned out.  No, I did not get caught up on laundry (even though that is nearly impossible in this house anyway :-)  But you know what?  Who cares.  I read a few books, some good, some bad.  I have my next novel two-thirds of the way through...I wanted it finished by the time school started, but at least I worked on it faithfully and I can be proud of that.

I DID enjoy every single day with my kids.  We would stay up late and play or watch movies.  Sometimes they would crawl in bed with me and snuggle late into the morning.  I spent every moment possible with them.

Am I ready for school to start?  A little part of me is and a little part of me isn't.  That's how it is every year.  This is the profession I have chosen, the profession I enjoy, even with the ups and downs.  Now it's time to get out the calendar and the colored pens to organize our lives for the next school year.  All I can say is...

Bring it on!!!