It's Here!

My summer vacation begins NOW!  All the glorious, many days of it. I don't even know how many there are between now and August 31st, because I haven't spoiled it by counting them yet. Right now, on the cusp of summer, keys turned in, it stretches out almost to infinity. Of course, I know from 20+ years of experience that it will be the shortest infinity ever, but right now, today... it's that luxurious, wiggle-your-toes-in-the-sand kind of happiness to be done with another year. Today, right now, is the very BEST part of teaching - or at least the one I can see and feel the clearest right now. TWO MONTHS OFF. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well, there will be summer school 4 days a week for 4 weeks, beginning July 6th. And there is summer curriculum work to do. And 4 days of workshop work. But none of that matters now. What matters is, tomorrow morning, I am sleeping in. Til 9 at least. It's probably the only day all summer I will attempt to, and I will probably fail at that one attempt even, but it seems like I deserve to sleep in one day. We'll see.
Also on the short list for tomorrow:  go pick up wood for the chicken coop (yay), pick up my new glasses (yay), mow the back yard, make my summer lists (I love list making), and attend graduation (mandatory, without a good excuse, of which I have none, so I guess I will be going. UGH. No kids graduating of my own this year, so...boring, and hot, but, well, the last thing standing between me and TRUE freedom!)  After that, who knows.

I did decide my first BIG thing I want to do for summer vacation is clean my bedroom. It will take a long time, to do it right. But I'm super motivated, and looking forward to having a bedroom I will enjoy spending a summer in. Right now, it's serving as everyone else's storage room, and that is about to come to an end. Then there are those other projects, small ones, I would love to do, like repaint all three bathrooms, steamclean the carpets, clean up the patio, open the pool, fix the fences, work on my flower beds, write a novel or two, make 27 batches of jam - you know, all the usual things people want to do in the summer. We'll see.

Today did not end well. It was a day full of high drama in my room/hallway/wing at school - someone lost their job and was notified only by email on Tuesday night, a small going away party was hastily thrown together yesterday for today, the woman's daughter, my remaining "room-sharer" who also works there, was not notified til today because she is the CAUSE of much drama and spent all day yesterday crying over her mom losing her job in the first place (which really IS a terrible shame - she should not have, and someone should have had the decency to give her a call to tell her, not an email) , much accusing, yelling, crying, and then non-speaking ensued on the daughter's part because she was not in the loop - and all in all, a pretty disasterous day, for which I totally stayed on the outside of it as much as I could, thinking, perhaps I should rethink my decision to not move rooms next year. I am constantly amazed at how some people just seem to LIVE for as much drama as they can create, or be in the middle of, while I would like nothing better than to pass through my days on one level. Just level. I'd like my life to be happy, but level. Leave me OUT of the drama, please.
But hey, my vacation has started, so, you know what? I'm over it. SHE probably isn't, but I am, so... hmmm, who will have more happy days this summer? ME! YAY for happy summer days. YAY for summer vacations. YAY for mornings that start with coffee and a couple of chapters on my front porch and no stress or drama before 8 am (as long as my neighbor, the drama QUEEN, chicken-hating QUEEN, drinks HER coffee indoors and leaves me alone to drink mine, undisturbed.) And, I even have a plan for that - if she opens her door before my second cup of coffee, I will immediately retreat to my BACK porch, to drink the rest of my coffee and read another chapter before facing the world each day. Ahhhhhhhhh, summer, how I love thee.