What I Did and Didn't Do This Summer

So, it's official. With today's weather calling for a high of 83 and high humidity - summer is over.

For me anyway.

Tomorrow begins yet another school year. For some reason I'm really looking forward to this year - not sure why, maybe because I totally re-organized my kitchen play area and am hoping this helps with the clean-up efforts in there. Ah, the kitchen play area - always my least favorite area of my classroom...

Now the block area, oh those blocks, I could play there all day - and cleaning up in there? I love it.

Anyway, as my summer comes to a crashing halt I've been thinking about all those things in May I promised myself I'd get to in the summer.

See, as a teacher, every May I find myself putting things off "until summer". Cleaning the floors, washing windows, organzing pictures, etc. etc. Some things are things I would normally do during the school year, but in May my life is crazy enough with work stuff I feel justified putting things off for a few weeks.

Of course the normal stuff got done - the floors were cleaned, windows washed, etc. But the big projects I had hopes of finishing, or at least starting... well, that's another story.

I didn't organize my pictures, I didn't catch up on my scrapbooks, I didn't get the basement looking good, I didn't redo our bedroom window treatments (though I did my some drapes), I didn't organize our bathroom shelves, I didn't figure out a good system for keeping junk off the kitchen table, and I didn't clear all the junk out of the attic.

That being said, we did accomplish a lot this summer. (as a side note, why is it for the stuff that didn't get done I say "I didn't" and yet for the stuff that did get done, I'm planning on using "we". interesting. Of course, Mike helped with most of this...)

We did have a garage sale and then donated everything that didn't sell. That felt good.

We went green. We got ourselves a compost bin, clothesline dryer, and a new air conditioner to replace our 30+ year old one. Of course, that last one, we had no option - our old one broke.

I relaxed. Naps were late or missed. Bedtimes were almost always later than usual. Lunches and dinners were served outside.

I took the kids to the pool. A lot. Even if just for an hour - we'd go.

I napped. Almost every day.

I found a good summer workout schedule that I'm totally going to miss.

I hurt my neck and found a chiropractor I can trust.

We saw friends.

We saw family.

We vacationed.

We grilled. A lot.

We ate hotdogs over the fire. A lot.

All in all - I'd say it was a pretty good summer. Sure, maybe I didn't get all the productive stuff done, but I can honestly say for the first time in a long time, we really did enjoy our summer.