Balance

My days have taken a turn.

My messes are piles of teaching books on the table, scribbles in the planner I made up for our cascading schedule, lessons printed & modified & printed again.

I love it.

I'm doing what I love.  

I'm teaching.

and yet.

This is my first full-time job.  I mean, I've worked full-time before, but it was always two part-time positions cobbled together.

So I'm learning how to balance everything.  How to find time to open this lovely book that I found at Half Price and how to find time to open my journal.  How to focus some of my creative energy into self-care, into creating for myself, and not only into lessons.  And perhaps I need to have a short season of pouring my creativity into my teaching.  

Because here's the thing that struck me this weekend: last Saturday, I woke up early to drive halfway across town (okay, that's not terribly far in Louisville, but still) for a professional development session.  And because I was up early, this view filled my rearview mirror, and I captured it while waiting at a ridiculously long stoplight.

In the last two years, I've learned a million and one useful (and occasionally not-so-useful) instructional tools and tips and strategies.  Now, though, I'm learning what works for me and this particular group of students (and not just what worked for my students last year or for someone else's students).  And that will take time and energy and focus.

But then I wake up early one Saturday and see this incredible sky, and as long as I can pause a minute and embrace that beauty, that richness, the pinks and yellows and blues and golds and the shadows, well, then...

I'm still taking the time to pause, balance, and remember that nothing is ordinary.  And so while I may not be creating quite so much in my journal or home, I am still filling my well.  I am still looking for the art in the everyday, still an artist.

And that works for me.

and on a nitty-gritty-details note, I'm removing my full name from most of my social media and sticking with the blog title.  Even though I know that anonymity is more myth than fact and that anything put out there on the internet is there forever, I'd like to preserve more of my privacy, just in case--just for my own sake and for the sake of balance.