Summer Lovin'

There's an old saying that we teachers love because it's true that goes something like this: "The three best reasons for being a teacher are June, July and August!"

Sadly, in this day and age, summers don't really last all three months anymore; however, we still get the majority of that time off from school. Thank the good Lord for that! Hallelujah and Amen! The people who like to bitch and give us a hard time about all our "free time" should be very happy that we get that time off as well; otherwise, the loony bins all over the country would fill up fast with teachers losing their minds.

We need those summers to regain our sanity after a school year spent cooped up with children. Don't get me wrong, I adore my students, but I only continue to adore them because I get to spend time AWAY  from them. As they say, "absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Every time I hear a politician or simply a whiny parent who doesn't really want the job of truly parenting his kid complaining that schools need to run year round, I want to whap that person upside the head and say, "Are you out of your flipping mind?"

Not only do teachers need summers as down time away from the students, we also need them as down time away from administrators and from the parents of the students. Sadly, the parents are usually more problematic than even the worst behaving kids. We need to get away and first unwind from a stressful year and then reconnect with ourselves because we lose ourselves to the needs of our students and our schools during the year, and then finally we need to rediscover why we want to teach.

Yep, every single summer we spend at least a day or two or perhaps the whole damn summer thinking about why we want to teach. Face it, we're highly underpaid, we don't get the respect we truly deserve and we're often the brunt of finger-pointing from those who love to play the "blame game" for the country's problems. So, why in the world do we even teach? That is a question with many different answers and those answers change as the years roll on, and we find those answers during the summers when we have time to think about our career choice outside of the stress that comes with the day-to-day job of educating our nation's children.

Knowing that the summer break is out there, just around the corner, waiting for me with open arms and a cold beer, is often what keeps me going during an especially difficult year. If my school years just rolled one right into another with no extended down time to recharge my batteries, I would have quit teaching after two or three years and not continued past twenty as I have so far.

Sometimes when I get really burnt out with teaching and the problems it brings to my life, I start considering other jobs I might like to do, but with every singe one of them I end up ultimately thinking, "nope, that job's no good." Why do I think this? Because every other job I consider would only allow me two or three weeks of vacation time throughout the year, and that's just not something I can handle anymore.

I can't imagine working on a beautiful day like today. It's a lovely 80 degree low humidity cloudless afternoon. There's no paycheck or benefit package that would coerce me into working on a day like today when I could be working in my yard, reading a book outside, walking in the park with my dog, sitting in my porch swing, swimming laps or writing this blog instead. Granted that today is actually a Sunday, but there are people out there in all sorts of fields of business who are working at this very minute. More power to them, but I'm glad I'm not one of them.

The majority of teachers also use their summers to further their own educations as well as take some time off from teaching. I've done it myself in the past while working on my Master's Degree. It's not something I really want to do anymore, but I know many teachers who are studying like mad this summer to improve themselves and their teaching, so when the new school year begins, they are doubly ready for the students.

I'm older (and I'd say wiser), so I prefer to simply enjoy my summers now. June is coming to a close today, but July and about half of August are still waiting to be opened, and I plan to make the most of what is left of my time off from teaching, so when I return to my classroom, I will return a nicer woman than the one that told the kids to get lost at the end of May. Face it, when you are tired, you are grouchy. In May, I am tired.

Summer is like a long much-needed sleep that refreshes you, so you can face a new day. For a teacher, a new day is a new school year and new students.

So that you don't think that I'm just a big slacker and being completely selfish with my summertime, know this: I teach reading, so I read all summer to expand my literary base; I teach Spanish, so I travel to Mexico to expand my cultural and lingual knowledge; I direct plays, so I read scripts and watch quality movies for ideas; I coach flags, so I teach baton twirling to keep my hands nimble; I coach speech, so I keep a sharp eye out for pieces that would work well for oral interpretation, etc.

And for anyone who thinks that a teacher shouldn't have summers off, I invite you to Shtick This! where the summer sun does not shine!

I'm a Garage Sale Hypocrite

I admit it -- I'm a garage sale hypocrite. I absolutely hate going to garage sales, but I love it when people come to mine and buy the stuff I need to get rid of. Yes, yes, I know, I know. I already said that I'm a garage sale hypocrite, so get over it.

It's not that I wouldn't buy a used item from somebody else; it's that I don't want to spend the time driving from garage sale to garage sale and looking through piles of stuff for that one thing I might actually treasure. I have way too long of a list of projects that need to be completed and places I'd like to visit to spend my valuable weekends looking through other people's castoffs.

However, I know that there are a lot of people out there who actively seek out garage sales every weekend of the summer and go looking for bargains on barely used clothing (or in the case of a bunch of things I recently sold that were my son's -- NEVER worn! Grrr.), old items they can restore and sell for big bucks and whatever other oddity that sets their hearts to beating.

I think that avid garage sale shoppers view a garage sale the way I view used bookstores -- as treasure troves of things to be discovered. I also know that my preference for old, used books goes against my natural aversion to buying other things used. Again, I'm inclined to buy used items; I'm just not inclined to spend the time looking for the opportunities to do so -- after all, my cars have all been used, but I've actively shopped for them when I needed a new (to me) vehicle.

I recently held a garage sale in which I got rid of many things, and I will be having another one in a few weeks to, hopefully, get rid of the things I didn't sell on the last one and a variety of other things that I still plan to take out of my house. As I sorted out things for the last sale, I sadly realized that over half of my house is full of stuff that I either no longer use/need or stuff that has never been used/needed. That's what happens as children age and outgrow clothing and toys, and that's what also happens after a divorce.

A divorce is an enforced purge. Yet, it's a purge that is good for you. I not only unloaded a person who made me miserable for years, but in the garage sale I also unloaded things that reminded me of that misery. By selling them to strangers who will now put them to use, I've removed the stigma from my house while also giving new life to the things that were unwitting reminders of a person I just want to forget.

Of course, removing the reminders will never make me completely forget that person, but it's still been a wonderful cure for my soul. Where the offending couch that he always fell asleep on once stood is a cute little love seat I'm borrowing from my parents until I find the perfect piece of furniture that suits my taste and my new life. Knickknacks he liked and things from the wedding have been removed, and things I like have replaced them on my shelves.

I don't wish the items themselves a death in the local trash dump, so I'm glad that there are others willing to give them new homes -- I do, however, wish the memories associated with those items a permanent burial somewhere.

So, despite my inclination to avoid garage sales to buy myself or my children something, I'm glad that garage sales exist and I'm even happier that the country is full of people who do like to visit garage sales. They have allowed me to rid myself not only of the things my children no longer use, but also of the things that have left behind a nasty after-divorce-taste in my home.

Now I'm working little-by-little and day-by-day to make the house reflect my life, my style, my preferences. So maybe I need to revisit my garage sale aversion and check out a few for some treasures just waiting for a newly-divorced and blissfully happy woman to come by and give them the new life she's recently been given.

After all, I do need a ladder, more tools and a good buffet for my newly repainted dining room, so . . . anybody up for a garage-sale-shopping Saturday with me?