Friday, November 8, 2013

One Week 'Off'

I haven't been at work since LAST Thursday.... Whoa! CraaAazY!! I have always been a bit of a workaholic, but I think that has been leading me down a very dangerous, burn-out-early road, so I'm trying to back off a bit. Plus, my 4 year old had chicken pox, which then spread to my 7 year old... so this was not a voluntary hiatus....

I have realized that my current daily routine/schedule has almost completely eliminated my chance at...having a life!
Sample Day:
4:45 - Finally get up after hitting snooze since 4:15
4:45-5:30 - Breakfast, Read, Pray (not enough time for all of those things!)
5:30-5:45 - Try to get ready before I wake up the boys (again, not enough time to get that done!)
5:45-6:30 - Finish getting ready, dress both boys, make lunch for Cameron (7) and try to get out the door (again, not enough time.... see a pattern emerging??)
6:50-7:00 - Get to Josh's daycare and get him unloaded
7:10 - Finally get to my/Cameron's school
7:15 - Finally get to my classroom
7:25-1:55 - Teach my heart out (with a million-mile long state-mandated list of everything we're supposed to be doing)
1:55-2:05 - dismissal duty
2:05-4:00 - Grade papers, enter grades, work on lesson plans, prepare room for the next day, copy papers for upcoming activities (Our official day is supposed to end at 3:00 - but I can rarely ever get everything done in that amount of time & on some days, we have staff meetings from 2:10-3:00)
4:00 - Pick up J from the daycare (Yes, that means 9 hours at daycare!!!!!!)
4:15-5:30ish - Running at the local Y (which means Cameron & Joshua are hanging out in 'Child Watch')
5:30 - Hopefully heading home (or to Walmart if we need something)
6:00 - FINALLY get home........The boys' bedtime is 8:30 - so we have a whole 2.5 hrs of 'family time' - which really is more like a crazy mess of trying to cook dinner, get everyone showered and try to put the house back together before we all crash

Something has GOT to give!! The only time that I feel like I can do something about, is that 2:00-4:00 window. If I can figure out how to get out of the school at 3:00, I can pick up Josh and hang out with the boys between 3:00-4:00 and feel better about the world.

Balance is something that has always been very important to me, maybe because it has always been so elusive!
Please share - how do you stay balanced?!?

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