This summer has been good to me so far. I’m really relaxing and focusing on myself. I needed to take time for me after the school year I had.
Long vacation paragraph: We went to Lake George for vacation. Our first family vacation! It was really nice. We stayed one night with my parents at their camp site in the trailer, then rented a hotel room in a little cabin resort for a few days. So Friday we hung out at camp with my parents. We went in the pool (Freddie loves the pool!), played at the playground, had dinner, and made a fire. Celebrated my dad, my mom, and Dann’s birthdays with some ice cream cake. It was so nice to relax in the mountains. Saturday, Dann forgot to turn off his alarms, so his phone went off at 6:45am and woke Freddie up…so I ended up getting up and playing with Freddie early. Luckily, so did my dad. Dann, however, stayed sleeping…which did not make me happy…but everyone got up eventually and we went to the Magic Forest. For everyone who is not from upstate NY…the Magic Forest is a small outdoor theme park, kinda. It has old carnival rides (mainly rides for his under 8), some farm animals, a magician (who has been doing magic there for 35 years and I was in his show at the Magic Forest when I was 5 or 6), and a section where you walk through different nursery rhymes. The Magic Forest has been there forever…and I don’t think they’ve every updated it. The story land area is falling apart and the stage for the magician is small and the rides are old. Its charming, but its old. Freddie loved it and so did my niece, Annabelle. On our way back to camp, Freddie fell asleep, so Dann and I grabbed all of our things and went to our hotel. My parents kept Freddie overnight so we could have a night alone and they could have a night with Freddie. Dann and I unpacked, took showers, had some great vacation sex, then headed into the village on the trolley for dinner and drinks. We went to Dr. Morbid’s Haunted House first…which was super scary! Lots of people and things popping out at you and very dark. At the end, the actress broke character and was saying the smoke maker was malfunctioning and we had to run down the hall. Dann told me he looked back and there was a guy with a chainsaw chasing us. I didn’t look back, just felt Dann pull ahead and start running faster. I was laughing hysterically when we were done, it was so fun! We walked down the block, found a place to have dinner, then checked out the Frankenstein Museum. It’s a max museum with scary stuff in it. It’s always fun to go. Dann had a good time. Then we walked back down the strip and found a bar called DJs, sat outside and had a bunch of drinks before heading home. Really good guitar player was playing! Had some good stories and I liked his interpretations of some songs he did. Sunday, we headed back to camp to pick up Freddie midmorning, played at the playground and in the pool at the resort and made dinner, and then headed to the village again on the trolley to check out a free cowboy show. I got us some ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s (they had non-dairy ice cream for me!) and we sat and watched the show and walked around the village a little. We forgot to bring the stroller, so we had to cut our evening short. Monday we got ready and headed to Million Dollar Beach for a couple of hours. Freddie made friends with a kid with trucks and the boys exchanged trucks to play with and dug holes. We got some good pizza for lunch and Freddie fell asleep in the car on the way back to the resort. Hung out, had dinner, and got ready to go back to the village for another free show. Pretty good singer/guitar player. He had some loop pedals and a keyboard like thing that he played the bass lines on with his feet. Very interesting! Tuesday, we got up, packed up, and headed to my moms to drop off the blow up mattress my parent’s friends let us borrow for Freddie. I also had to wash the sheets and clean up a stain on the mattress from Freddie’s cup leaking. My grandfather came over to say hi and see Freddie and we let Freddie run around for awhile before being trapped in the car. Then we headed home. It was a great few days to get out of the city and connect with my men.
Since getting back, I took a the rest of last week to hang out and this week I’ve gotten to work. I’m reworking all of my unit plans for my kindergarten, first grade, and second grade lessons. We also hired a 3rd music teacher (yay!!!), so she will be teacher grades 3, 4, 5, and taking over chorus and glee club. (I’M SO HAPPY!!) so I’ve really got time now to look over what I’m doing, what works and doesn’t work, and reorganize my lessons. My week to week lessons are all in separate files, so I want to combine them into one file. My goal is to have all of these complete by the end of the summer so when the school year starts, my planning for my general music classes is finished and I can focus more on my orchestra rehearsals and lessons and all the other things that happen during the school year. I also started reading a book today called “Taught by the Students”. It’s all about cultural diversity and how to allow for student’s backgrounds into the music classroom. So far…very powerful! I had a few revelations today reading and I’m doing all the reflection exercises. I should be done with the book in another week. Trying to read a chapter a day.
I also did my Shred10 program with my JuicePlus friends. 10 days to cut out sugar, gluten, caffeine, and bad habits, replacing them with more fruits and veggies, working out most days, and more water. I am happy to say I’ve worked out 7 out of the 10 days! I need to add more water (not teaching really cuts back on my water consumption) and I haven’t done too well cutting out gluten, but I’ve cut back on my Starbucks consumption. All in all…it’s a win!
Summer has allowed me to reconnect with myself. I really got into a bad spot over the winter. The first half of the school year went great, then after January and everything with the musical, I really was in a bad spot. I wasn’t myself. I didn’t want to go to work, I was really anxious (I tried looking for a psychologist…very difficult to find one on my insurance apparently), and I just wasn’t myself. Looking back, I need to keep myself confident. I can’t put things off and I need to be upfront about everything. I’m hoping planning now will allow me to be more upfront and able to complete immediate tasks later on in the year. I’m also planning on sending out a packet for ensembles at the beginning of the year, with all concert dates and important information for my students and their families. Trying to be more proactive. I also want incorporate the 7 habits better into my every day lessons. My school is a leader in me school and we follow 7 habits: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win win, seek first to understand then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw (and yes I just did this from memory by singing the 7 habits song haha!) so I want to not only bring that into my lessons more, but bring it into my life more. I’m hoping it will help me stay focused and confident throughout the year.
Some other exciting news: Dann and I are definitely going to start trying for a second baby at the end of the summer! We agreed I’m going to get my IUD out at m next annual appointment and try for a second. So hopefully we will be welcoming another little one at the beginning of next summer!
Hope you’re all enjoying your summer!
~mana~
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