Balance

I realize that balance is very important in achieving peace in your life but what happens when life throws you curves and you get out of balance? This past week started with my son getting all 4 wisdom teeth pulled, I then started back teaching a new class in a new grade, my dog ran down our stairs and sprained his ankle and ended up in a cast for the next two weeks, and then my son had a late reaction to the antibiotics he had received! All this in a week! This on top of my second book just being released a few days before all this happened. So much for balance. All I could do was roll with the punches and give it all to God. He knows what is going on and has it handled before it even happens. I also have to sit back and think, I don't really have it all that bad. I still have my health, we still have our family and home, I still have my job, and I have each day to slowly get back on track and handle things. God never gives us more than what He knows we can handle, though sometimes it seems like a lot. As I felt overwhelmed, I read about a little girl who got hit by a car over the weekend and is in bad shape in the hospital. She is in pain and has months of surgeries and recovery to go through. I realized at that moment I have nothing to feel bad about. That is one way to quickly get back into balance-look at what other people are going through and realize you're not going through things all by yourself.

End of Summer Whirlwind

The past two weeks have been so busy! We have been out of town with our other 5 iLead charter school partners doing staff development, then on a two-day team-building retreat-this year on the Queen Mary! The last couple of days have been spent at our site preparing our classrooms for when the kids come back, this Tuesday. Tomorrow is the last work day and I think I will be all set. I'm also getting ready for my second book to come out this weekend! 50 Things Your Parents Want You To Know is the second in the 50 Things series and is already getting great reviews! I think this will be a great year all the way around!

And so it begins. . .

Spent the last couple of weeks going through books and materials prepping for the new school year: refreshing and improving my feel for our Language Arts program, pre-planning curriculum unit ideas and projects, deciding on learning centers, and leveling the guided reading books. This week all of us teachers from the seven iLead charter schools here in Southern California have begun meeting for staff development. We conclude Friday and then get ready to go on an annual two-day retreat to someplace different every year for team-building exercises. This year is on the Queen Mary. The rest of next week will be spent in our classrooms preparing the class for the first day of school on the 23rd! We are welcoming four new teachers at our site so that will be fun to work with them and see how we all meld together. It's going to be a fun year!