summer

In the US, the school year follows the calendar differently depending on where you live.

Mostly there is a “summer off” (misnomer; more like “summer break”) that lasts ~10 weeks, but even that has variation…again, depending on where you live.
Where I live and work, the school year ends every mid-June and starts up again in late August (for teachers), early September (for staff and students). I’m in the middle of back-to-school right now.

This is going to be my 2nd year as a reading specialist. In my classroom I have many other adults who help me teach reading interventions to small groups of students. We teach kindergarten (5 yrs old) through 5th grade (11 yrs old) every day.

After ten years teaching elementary special education, and then taking one year off, last year was my first time teaching something new to me where 1) I had all the training, 2) had a strong mentor guiding me and 3) had next to no idea what I was doing day to day for months. That last part is only kind of a joke.

This time around, at the end of the school year I was able to walk away and actually enjoy my summer break. All previous years I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed, then also had some major health issues, so I’d end up needing most of the summer break to come back to feeling present without overwhelm. Most of those summers I ended up with approximately two weeks feeling stress free…but I was also feeling out of it. That was dissociating, which is something I learned later. My mind/heart was past max-capace (nod to Johnny Rose on Schitt’s Creek) and I needed, but didn’t get enough, recovery time.

This summer I learned that, while I need recovery time at the end of a teaching year, I don’t need a lot in this new job. And I can feel recovery happening while I’m also doing something fun, so it doesn’t have to be a specific amount of hours/days taken for specific recovery in isolation. I was present most of the time (not dissociating, yay!) and could do self-checkins while making plans. Is this activity going to drain me, do I really want to do this, will this thing support me feeling rested while having fun adventures?

As the school year ended and I got through some appointments (that’s a big deal for anyone working in the US preK-12 school system) that I had to put off until I had “time” for them, I started planning.

The main things I ended up doing this summer happened because:
a) I decided I wanted to do it and followed through or
b) they came up as opportunities that I hadn’t considered and felt (intuitively) right
c) happened unexpectedly and I had to go with it as live/learn (only one, really, and I will start with that b/c the rest was so much better lol) were:

(Each of these might end up being it’s own post.)

~ got lice at the end of the school year, likely from bending over to hug a student with our heads next to each other. Oof.
~ launched StudioKatieB and started this blog quietly (soft launch?); no blogging routine set (obvs from seeing there are only 2 entries since May lol) and not ready for online scheduling; all pictures on this site are from 1.5 yrs ago and while they are beautiful work by
~ 1 week trip to Idaho (solo road trip) to visit a friend/coach (online coaching through GetAutoimmuneStrong.com) who founded a llama therapy farm
~ joined a local LMT (licensed massage therapy) group and began seeing infant craniosacral clients
~ receive pelvic floor (internal) massage therapy sessions (also considering training to provide this work, as well)
~ registered for AstroYoga teacher online training course continuing ed
~ training to become an online Sugar Detox and Addiction Coach
~ continued online Hebrew language school
~ Joined AshesYoga’s YouTube for Yoga Teacher’s “Summer Camp” and (soft) launched a YouTube channel with introductory homework
~ continuing education reviewing Science of Reading (my whole job is based on this research)
~ enrolled in Infant Cranoisacral Therapist Certification that includes a book study component (researched/ordered/now receiving the books)
~ two week road trip from:
OR->ID->MT->ND->MN to visit parents (with sibling),
then MN->IA->MO (solo) to visit in-laws and
finished with MO->KS->CO->UT->ID->OR (with husband)
~ after a few days back home, we welcomed my husband’s close friend, visiting from abroad for a sweet handful of days.
We hadn’t seen him for eight years…
Last time he had his family with him, this time solo.
I didn’t talk to him much the first time he visited but got to know his wife a bit and hang out with their kids. She and I got along very well (language barrier didn’t matter, even!) and have kept in touch since.
Back then, as soon as they left I immediately missed them.
This time, watching and listening to my husband and his friend engage with each other ~ connecting childhood experiences (since 3 yrs old) with parallel experiences in raising children and work life ~ was so interesting.
While he was here, he had video chats with his wife so I had the chance to reconnect/talk to her a couple of times ~ these moments brought a lot of joy into our home.
I was able to give him a craniosacral therapy session during his visit.
Doing that work with anyone, including infants, feels like a privilege, so I am grateful I was able to do it for/with him.

It was a really good summer break full of interesting and fun adventures.
A lot of the learning parts were “beginnings” that are now continuing projects.
There are things I thought I’d do more of but ended up not doing much/any of~
making art, practicing piano, mentoring, starting to write a 2nd book (or doing a rewrite of the 1st one), seeing more CST clients

Returning to the next school year, I’m recognizing a lot of what I need to do ~ tasks to get organized and planned for the start of my program.
This is in contrast to not knowing what I was doing at this time last year.

There’s a lot of mindful-ish stuff happening right now – noticings, wonderings.
I didn’t do much journaling this summer after doing it every single morning during the last school year.
When I reported back to work last week, though, on day one it felt right to resume daily journaling, so I started setting up my space to do that.