The End of Summer

I'm supposed to start school tomorrow. I almost wish I had a few more weeks of summer left. Funny, it is my prerogative when school starts, I could delay and draw out the relaxed days of summer just a little bit longer. Alas, I am too dutiful, and tomorrow it shall be. (Sorry, m'dears. Don't you just wish I wasn't quite so dutiful?)

One time my aunt asked me if I liked teaching, and in summary my answer was; "yes, when I remember to." I'm a very task oriented person and it is very easy for me to see each days lessons as tasks to be checked off. Especially when I'm tired and my pupils are being difficult. It happens. That is I suppose one of the disadvantages of being the older sister as well as the teacher. That throws a whole new aspect into the teacher student relationship. They're pretty good, most of the time. But were all human, myself included, which I think adds to the problem. I do wish I were perfect.

Something I've learned over the years is not to be too ambitious. Sometimes you can I have so many good ideas and goals that you get overwhelmed before you even start. I feel it's better to set realistic and achievable goals, and then if you are being consistent in those, slowly expand. Uh, one of these days I'll learn to be consistent in the basics.

There is so much more I wish I were doing when it comes to curriculum, so much that I dream I might by some miracle work into the school year. Well anyway, it's one comfort to think that my siblings are likely to succeed in spite of me. :)

There is a part of me that is feeling slightly burdened by the start of school, and then there is the optimistic me that knows how much I can enjoy it, how much I'll learn and what a privilege I have to be able to impact my younger siblings in such a dynamic way.

Yes, summer break will officially end tomorrow, but the cooler days of late summer and early fall still beckon and I hope to sneak in some more canning and some enjoyment of the soft fall afternoons. And maybe I'll recruit my siblings to go wild plum picking and we'll have a canning lesson. It sounds like a good idea. Will it happen? I don't know.

I should make a note to myself where I'll see it frequently: Enjoy the ordinary moments. It's too easy to forget to enjoy every day life, and why waste a life in unhappiness or just bored acceptance?

Enjoy the ordinary moments. That is something I want to remember not just when I'm explaining a math problem to one of my younger siblings, but in every task I set my hand to do.

Here's to tomorrow and all tomorrows. May God bless them, all of them. (Didn't you know I had that Dickens streak in me?)

P.S. Teaching my younger siblings was my choice. I don't even recall that my parents asked me to do it. I just did it.