Tuesday slice: First REAL day of summer break....not

I went in to work yesterday.

My last official day for the school year was last Thursday.  I had worked four ten-hour days, in accordance with the district summer schedule of Friday closures.  I signed off on teachers' checkout sheets, hunted down lost books, finished inventory, had my summative appraisal conference and reviewed my STAAR support (TX standardized testing) report with my principal, counted up the number of classes, read-alouds, lessons, and visitors in the library this year, filled out the end-of-year report, and closed out all the financial stuff--lost book and ID payments, donations, and purchase card report.

When I left Thursday afternoon, however, my desk was still a blizzard of paper, the circulation desk wasn't cleared off, and there were piles of books left to process.  So I went back yesterday to tackle those tasks.  Two dozen books got processed, the desks got cleared, I replaced a laser printer ink cartridge, and I helped the teachers who are providing special education extended school year services on my campus with working the projector keypads.

So today, I slept in until 545a (!).  I get to exercise in the daylight, take my son to an orthodontic appointment, do some laundry, and map out my summer.

The summer that includes reading 40 children's books for work, going to five (or more) days of professional development for work, lesson planning for work, and writing book reviews for work.  The summer that ends in 49 days, according to my countdown widget.

I'm not complaining.  Most of this work-related stuff I willingly signed up for myself.  The book reading could have happened over the last nine months, but I'm so tired after work that I tend to fall asleep after five pages.  Funny, in a job that surrounds me with books, I get more reading done when I'm away from them!

It will take planning, a conscious effort, to extricate myself from work-related tasks this summer and expand my horizons beyond my job description.  And if I hear one comment about how nice it must be to have summers off....