Synthesis Sunday: The Break Is Almost Over - What I Did and What I Did Not Do

Today is my last day of my first summer break. It was the longest break that we have had this school year - 16 days - and it is the longest break we will get in the next school year as well - all the others are 9 or 11 days long. I saw a social media post that reminds people that teachers do not get summers "off" but that teachers are unemployed when they are not at school. I get paid for 213 days per school year. The other days that I get "off" are unpaid days. I do not get paid for the extra time that I spend at work because that's not what the deal is for school employees. I am not paid hourly - if I was, I would qualify for 5+hours of overtime every single week at the least.

That's not the point of this post, though.

Over the past 15 days, I have spent lots of time in anxiety - about the state of my house, the weeds in my yard, the weather. I have also spent lots of time resting. I have spent some time working on putting things out of boxes and into more permanent locations. I have spent money to get storage for different rooms in my house (I have DVD storage and some yarn storage that I didn't have before this break!). I have finished a junk journal for one of my interns. I have tried (and failed) to replace the locking mechanism on my sliding glass door, but I will keep trying until I have succeeded in this task! I have baked a bit, shopped a bit, and been inside lots and lots. My kitchen and bedrooms are better than they were when I started but the living room is definitely worse. I have just pushed things into the living room rather than working on getting those things out and where they need to be.

So, I have set some quests for this week. I want to get back into a more structured evening routine for the sake of getting chores done and working more on what I love - making TMEs and visuals for myself and for others. This evening routine will include some cleaning specific zones of my home as well as some time working downstairs - webinars and visuals and TMEs and compositions and trying my best to figure out what I want to do with my time. I have included some time with yard care on the list, but Mother Nature has thwarted that plan this morning - it is wet out there and it is not the best idea to have extension cords happening in the wet. My Monday through Thursday evenings are scheduled. My weekend evenings are not - I get Fridays off from work during our summer session so Friday is included in my weekend. This is the first week that I am not going to my church job (they don't pay me for the summer months, so I don't go!). I woke up to rain which was unexpected. Perhaps I should pay more attention to the weather forecasts when I make plans.

Tomorrow is the first day of our extended school year (ESY). My interns are doing most of the music therapy sessions now. I am acting as an observer now more than anything else. I still have two sessions that I do - our intake classroom - but it's not the same as being the therapist. I am waiting to hear from possible intern #35 - I am hoping that I will have an answer sitting in my work email when I get back to work tomorrow morning. I will spend most of my time helping with behavior management and cleaning up my office space. I will come up with some tasks to do each day as my interns get to play with my students.

For now, I am going to spend time putting together my yarn and material shelves, wait for more shelves to be delivered, work on my Index Card a Day challenge, and set up my Boba Fett page in my Star Wars bullet journal. I also need to start putting together my July pages - I have appointments to put into those weeks already, so it is time to get those pages started up. Here are some of my previous pages in this journal. I'm working on drawing faces, so sometimes I draw and sometimes I use printed pictures in my journal. I have laundry on the list as well as the quest to empty at least one box from the living room by the end of the day. The last thing that has to happen is I need to get my mail and bring in the trash cans from Friday's pickup.

I am enjoying this casual dive into something I love so very deeply. I am devouring every bit of Obi-Wan Kenobi  right now - I've watched each episode about four or five times already. I get pleasure from learning about characters that I have never known or paid attention to prior to this point. I love how people put themselves so deeply into these stories - I am guilty of that same thing, but it is nice to know that I am not alone in my passion for this fiction.

I am getting ready to change my work journal, but I am stubbornly trying to fill up the work journal before I move into the new book. I hope that I can use my current book until the end of the contract year - June 30th - and then start the new book at the start of the 2022-2023 school year - July 1st. We will see if I have figured out the page use correctly or not. That journal does not really have a theme - it is just my work tracking book. I keep my notes and daily session plans and appointments in that book. My interns have a place and I keep a record of our consultation meetings in the book as well as anything that I need to track for their evaluations - that inspires me to add a list of assignments onto their pages. I can add two checkboxes - one for when the assignment is turned into me, and another when I review the assignment. Hmmm. I will have to think about that one, but that would be a good use of pages in my journal. Work smarter, not harder, right?

Overall, the break has been a good one, but I am still not bored with being at home and ready to head back. I am exhausted. This break has been fraught with emotion and anger with society and uncertainty with our professional organization and all sorts of things that have brought up my grief and frustration with myself. I haven't done much musicking this break. In fact, my fingernails are long and need to be cut off completely before I end up going back to work tomorrow morning. I wish I was to the point of being ready to go back to work with some enthusiasm, but I am not sure that I will ever get back to that point. At least I can start counting the years until I retire from this job or this state on one hand now. That's pretty exciting. I want to retire before I end up in a wheelchair! I want to be able to travel and move around a bit more, so I have to get some proactive stuff going with my health in the next five years as well.

For now, though, I am going to close this up, get going on my chores for today, and eat some breakfast. I think I may have a meatloaf sandwich this morning. I may even make some more sandwiches to grab on my way to work for breakfasts on work days. I hope that your Sunday is full of things that you want for yourself.