The Best Thing About Working Summer School

After 30 summers of working an extended school year as a music therapist, I can tell you that the best part of having to work all summer is that my school has Fridays off! This was something that came from a need to keep school as part of the daily routine of our students and led to less time away from the classroom, but having three-day weekends all summer long has kept me going during the hot, humid, depressing summer months this entire time.

This is my last three-day weekend during the summer.

Next weekend will be my first time as a retiree. I am both ready and not ready at the same time. I feel like the Schrödinger's cat experiment is my life right now. My life is the cat in the box where there are possibilities that cannot be known, and people keep asking me for definitive answers about things. Answers that I cannot give because I don't know what the state of the cat is at any given moment.

I wish I had more of a plan in place, but I am also needing to rest. I figure that I can rest for a bit before figuring out my next steps. It seems that I could be employed in my eventual destination, so that is a good sign, but I am not ready to pack up just yet. Not quite, but sooner than later.

I have taken a lazy morning this morning. I watched an episode of my most recent K-drama and worked a bit in my planner. I signed up for a creative class last evening, but I am not ready to start that course just yet. I have to plan what I want to start working on during my evening crafting in company with others. I have lots of ideas but nothing set in stone. I have to pack up and go this afternoon, so I will have to knuckle down pretty soon with that project. Going into the store without a plan is dangerous and detrimental to my budget because I buy EVERYTHING. When I go with a set plan, I spend more time crafting and less time browsing for things that I have at home already! So, I need a plan before I go.

It is always fun to go to these weekends. This will be my third such weekend of crafting and chatting and seeing what others are doing. It is advertised as a crop weekend which is scrapbooking parlance for making a bunch of pages, but the craft store does not require that we scrapbook. We can do whatever we want in our designated spaces. I often make journals and books rather than do any sort of scrapbooking, but I am thinking about bringing one of my smash books to do some scrapbooking type things. It's really a hybrid of junk journaling, memory keeping, and writing for me. Who knows if I will do that or not. It all depends on what I decide I want to do. I like to have options, so I will eventually load up all the stuff for several things...

I have to make a phone call about health insurance today which I am not looking forward to doing, but that's just because I hate making phone calls. I don't know what I will be doing for health insurance starting next week, so the call has to be made!

I found myself really missing my Dad this week when I was thinking about how much I used his experience and advice when he was alive. I could use his guidance right now, but I am having to figure stuff out without him. Fortunately, my sister and my mom are still around, but his voice is the one that I am missing the most during this major life change.

Another thing on my to-do list for this morning is to work on my task analyses for creativity camp. I have finished two of those, but I need to finish three more before camp starts on July 18th - one month. Eek! I also need to uncover the projects that I have finished to make a promotional video to increase sign-ups. Unfortunately, my desk rearrangement project last weekend covered them up someplace in the craft area, so I will need to get through that stuff in order to find what I need. There is always something else to organize and move around.

Always!

It is bad here, everyone. I feel like the upstairs is a maze of music therapy materials. I don't want to be up there because seeing the mess just makes me feel anxious and stressed about what I will be doing next week at this time. It is too much for my space, so I will have to deal with it - once I get ready to do so. That's what is keeping me from moving immediately - I need to make decisions about what will be valuable to me in the near future as well as the far off future. I need to think about how I can get the materials that I no longer need into the hands of people who will use them. 

I also have to remember my cleaning mantra of "it is okay to throw things away."

I struggle with the "what if I need it" thought when it comes to organizing my life. That is one reason why I have so much stuff. I have to remember that I can move things along and get them again, if I find that I need them.

Okay, enough writing. Time to get going. 

I might write tomorrow. I might not. It will depend how late I stay at my crop. I hope that things are going well for you!! Wish me luck in all the things that I need to do today. Luck to you as well...