Why I love spring break

I love teaching. It's fun and meaningful.  It's also all-consuming and stressful.

I feel like I sacrifice so much time with the crew.  That's why breaks are so important. My squad gets all my time and I get to relax. Today is day 2/5. It's 9:20 am. I'm in bed. It's glorious!

Astronaut and princess left because they are teenagers and have lives.  Just kidding! They are with their grandparents. Nerds.  Yesterday, I had breakfast with mechanic bae & squirrel, took squirrel to 2 doctor appointments, helped the little girls clean their room, helped side salad go through his clothes and weed out the small stuff, had lunch with them at Chickfila, saw a movie ("Coco"), did laundry, and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

It's like my SAHM days, but temporary and  paid.  Today, I'm going to do more laundry-it never ends in a family of 7-and consider taking the kids to the pool. I organized my closet this past weekend.


I loved being able to do things with my crew but I don't think I'd want to be a SAHM now. For one, I have no kids at home. They are all in school now.  It's kind of purposes when they are this age.  Also, I truly LOVE my career, my students, and my school.  The balance part is hard, though. I leave before most of the kids.  There are days when I don't get off until 6:30 or 7. I don't get to chaperone field trips and I miss programs. It's stressful, too.  Extremely stressful . But it adds a different type of value to my life. 

In a perfect world, I would have a job with equal pay but half the hours and twice the flexibility. 

One day...

Roughing It-Post 100!

The kids are getting big.  The Astronaut will be 18 in 6 months-and graduating from high school next year.  Princess is turning 16 at the end of the year. Squirrel will be a teenager in the fall.  Side Salad hit double digits last month.  And Popcorn will be 6 this week.

 So in my quest to create lasting memories as well as do things I want to do, regardless of the opinions of others, we went camping.

It. Was. Awesome.

I had a lot of reservations. What do we need? Where do we go? How do we do it. And I'm not particularly close to anyone that is a camper. I like I know some people But I don't *know* them.

Luckily, the SC State Park system employees a crack team of mind readers and created a program called the Palmetto Campout . Apparently, it's been going on like a whole decade but who knew? [Actually, a friend of mine posted about it on Facebook and I stalked the park people until registration opened.]

So I applied and.....we got accepted! I paid my registration fee ($50) and now we're campers!

We learned so much, how to pitch the tent we got to keep:

The astronaut and the princess did an amazing job building and maintaining the fire. And encouraging the flames with their dance moves.

It was a super cool experience.  We cooked over the fire and on coals, we made campfire cobbler.  We survived a surprise cold snap (overnight low was about 37° and rainy). We weren't eaten by raccoons. We created epic memes.

But mostly, we had fun. We did something new. We learned things. We spent time together. We survived. And we made new memories.  

The lesson? Do that thing you were thinking about.   New experiences are amazing.  What's something  you've always wanted to do?