Relax, Reflect & Re-boot
Today’s blog comes from the desk of Hope….
For those of you who know me, I think you would agree when I say….I don’t relax very well. I am a high energy person that likes to get things done. I get a lot of satisfaction out of checking many things off of my list at the end of each day. As I face three months away from schools and a modified work day at ERG, I have to do some self talk that sounds something like this “just relax….go sit on the porch and enjoy the sound of the birds…take some extra time to drink your coffee and enjoy reading the paper instead of skimming it….pick up the phone and talk to the friend that is calling instead of letting the voice mail pick up and possibly never getting back with her”. I am not sure why relaxing is not on my list. Maybe I was just born this way. Nevertheless, in a couple more weeks I will have made the transition from the fast paced work we do in schools into a slower pace of life.
Reflecting is something I enjoy doing during the summer as I am “relaxing”. My body can be sitting still on the beach, at the pool or on my screen porch but I can still be using my mind to think, so it is kind of like I am still getting something done! Many times when I am reflecting, I feel like I am “connecting the dots” of events that took place over the year, generating new and improved ideas for ERG or perhaps thinking about, in hindsight, how I could have gone about a problem we had in a different way. In the reading world, we call this type of thinking “synthesizing” – such a fancy word for plain old thinking. One definition of reflecting – serious thought and consideration of ideas – doesn’t sound so relaxing when you write it down but somehow it works for me. (You are probably thinking….. girl, give your brain a break!)
Time seems to fly so September will be here before you know it. I will soon be researching the schools I will be supporting next year, packing my car with all the things I need to coach teachers and re-booting myself for the new school year. The “re-boot” gives me that exciting feeling I had when I was in school and was going to the next grade; a good kind of nervous, new opportunities, a fresh start.
It is time to get busy relaxing and reflecting. The “re-boot” is just around the corner!
~Hope