Bustin' out all over...

It's June.

And it's ME who's wanting to bust out in a great big way.

Out of SCHOOL, that is.

Man, am I tired.  My practice is failing fast, and darn it, the kids KNOW IT.  They may have challenges, but boy, they're anything but stupid, and that's a fact.

I'm feeling particularly demoralized this evening, after a long day of EQAO exams, meetings, and certain persons breathing down my neck, to the point that I sweat bullets.

So, I thought to cheer myself up, I'd share a few things that I'm looking FORWARD TO-- things that will be able to begin in exactly eighteen working days!!

1.  My girls, and undivided attention to bestow upon them!  Mainly, not having to say, "Mummy's busy" whenever one of them dares tiptoe into my office.

2.  LOCKING UP MY OFFICE for a solid month!  As much as I love my tutoring, it's time to wrap a big ol' bungee cord around the handles of the double doors for a few weeks.  I'll be singing the "NO MORE HOMEWORK, NO MORE BOOKS..." song right along with all the students, and at double the volume of  those little varmints, too.  Hell, I'll steamroll over them to get out the door first, if I have to.

3.  Getting my garden in order!  Whoo-nelly...  In ten solid years, even the WORST of those years saw me digging up a storm, and all plants divided and trimmed  by the end of May.  This year...  well...  The back garden is dug, but nothing new has gone in.  Worst of all, I started edging out a new flowerbed in the grass a few weeks ago (the lawn was pretty patchy in that area, anyway), and took a break to do a few report cards...  Suffice it to say that the break turned out to be about three weeks long.  Embarrassingly, I believe my pitchfork is still sticking out of the ground in exactly the spot where I appear to have given up.

And the front garden?

You don't want to know.  

That is another blog post all its own.  Trust.

4.  KNITTING!  My God, it's been a long time.  Ridiculously long.  Someone pointed out recently that the root of a good deal of my problem right now is that I seem to have forgotten to knit for about the past three months.  It's so bad, I hardly noticed, myself.

Holy Hannah, I need a Holiday.

(And, an enormous yarn budget.)

5.  Sleeping with cats.

Oh, do I ever miss how I used to be able to sneak over to the couch every once in awhile after a good long dig in the garden, and lay my weary bones down for a few minutes, before roaring off to pick up the kids from school.  Inevitably, one or the other furry friend would mosey over, hoist herself up onto my stomach, and purr us both to sleep.

Just ten minutes.  That's all it takes for Fuzz Therapy to work, I swear.

6.  Pinning without guilt.

Pinterest is the second biggest time vampire I've ever encountered.

(RAVELRY is the first.  Naturally.)

This year, I learned the hard way that it was necessary to crank my alarm clock back another fifteen minutes, to give myself the delectable treat of enjoying exactly that amount of time to drink my coffee while perusing the latest DIY, Crafts and Humour segments.  The reason is simple.  Promising myself Pinterest was pretty much the only way I could stomach even the mere THOUGHT of making four packed lunches at five o'clock in the morning.

Call it "time off for good behaviour".  Whatever.  It works.

Soon, I can pin to my heart's delight, at a reasonable hour of the day!

7.  MAKING SOME OF THE STUFF I'VE BEEN PINNING.

Good lord, it's amazing how the bleeding obvious is so often overlooked.  Soon, I will actually have TIME to do all that stuff...  Although, admittedly, perhaps not ALL 5693 pins in one summer...

(BUT...  I plan on having a LOT of fun trying.)

8.  Work on the family tree.

Ancestry.com = time vampire number three!

Last Christmas, I totaled over 1000 members on my family tree, and have made some fascinating discoveries and connections.  That said, I've got so many photos still to scan and write up, it's mind-boggling.  I'm also determined to sort out all those Scottish relatives...  who all lived in the same tiny towns...  and belonged to the same dratted clan...  and named all their children EXACTLY THE SAME NAMES, over and over and over again, for a couple of hundred years...

Don't get me wrong-- I love my people.  I just want to make sure that the people I love are actually my people.

9.  EXERCISE.

I feel like The Return of The Blob.

The less said about that, the better.

10.  Laughter.

I miss my friends.  It's been too long.  Good thing I've got a flat-rate long distance plan!

And, finally...

I've saved the very best for last:

Do nothing.  

THINK nothing.  

Just BE.  

I can't wait.