So, summer is coming up.  Faster and faster every day.  Not fast enough, obviously, but also entirely too quickly.  I sat down last week and wrote up lesson plans for the rest of the school year (there’s some pretty excellent stuff on that schedule, too) and it turns out that there are only 14 weeks of school left!  But with the rest of the year more or less planned out, all I’ve got left to plan is my summer.

Now, for those of you who aren’t teachers who may think “Your job is so easy, you get a whole two months off in the summer!” I only say, leave now.  Just walk away.  Because I have neither the time or the energy to explain to you the amount of my heart, soul, time, and life force I pour unendingly into my job during the school year.  You aren’t there for all the days I am working steadily from 7 am to midnight, cutting endless paper circles or cleaning out pet tanks.  And you aren’t really going to care about all that, because you feel that you can judge me.  So, just walk away.

For everyone else, let’s talk summer.  Now, I know I’m gonna lose a couple of weeks to lesson planning and beginning of the year shenanigans.  I’m also gonna lose two weeks to the mission trips we take the Jr and Sr High youth on every summer (Did I mention I’m a youth minister?  I am.).  I’m also gonna lose one week to Vacation Bible School, of which I am the face.  Which is weird, because I really do none of the work for VBS.  Now, you may be looking at me quizzically and wondering how I can not know what I’m doing with my summer when it seems so full of activities!  And you’re right.  But compare those weeks to the rest of my year and they are a hilariously small amount of time.  What about those empty weeks in between?!  What will I do with all that empty time?!

Well, there are options, don’t you fear.  Obviously, I’ll be doing this.  I may also be making a Science vlog.  Or something.  AND I will be spending an excessive amount of time at various and assorted theme/waterparks.  And in between?  Who knows!  That’s the great thing about summers.  They’re full of sunshine, books, water, and doing anything or nothing.  They’re wide open and full of possibility.  And I love them for that.