A Wolf in Summer Clothing

I find myself struggling to catch up with my life. Summer is supposed to be a slower pace, with more gentle pressures than those of the school year. And yet here I am, scrambling to make it to each meeting on time, burning the midnight oil to finish grad school papers, walking around bleary-eyed with 4-year-old campers with way too much energy. This can't be summer; this is more like February or something. Good grief...

I'm taking a grad school class in which the professor thinks I have no life. (I'm pretty sure this is a requirement for the job. The university actively seeks professors with a similar perspective.) My summer job has started, and it's a hoot. We have 21 small kids this week. I always like this part. It's nice to be around a different age-group of kids than I am with during the school year. Four-year-olds are VERY different from 12-year-olds. We had a blast at the zoo, and next week we go to OMSI on our field trip.

Things have not changed on the home front. I have big plans for the spare room, currently full of boxes and stuff... but I always have big plans for that room. I would like to paint the bathroom... but I always want to paint the bathroom. I probably won't. At least our yard is nice. Back in March, Mr. Chandler and I set a goal for ourselves: to have our backyard finished by the end of May. We weeded and planted and watered and potted and trimmed and swept and whatever else, and except for adding some extra potting soil to existing plants, we actually accomplished our goal. It's a good thing, too, because now we're swamped and have no time to work on it. I had planned to sit around pruning things in pots whenever we let the dogs run around, but instead I'm trying to get through the reading for my class. Oh well. I have a parsley plant that's now 3 feet tall. It's kind of fun.

So this summer thing, this season that's supposed to be relaxing... I think it was kidnapped by aliens and is being impersonated by something evil, something that eats up schedules and time and sleep. I hope my students are having an easier time of it.