Summer Joys - #SOL June 16

Thanks to the wonderful ladies at Two Writing Teachers blog for hosting the Slice of Life Tuesdays. Though I have been a very infrequent participant, I love that this community exists and supports one another!!

This past week was my first full week of summer break, and I embraced it as a time to begin to get my life in order and try to feel a bit more organized. I had some coaching work and a meeting to attend, but other than that, this week was my own.

Here are a few things (okay - 10 things) I enjoyed about the gift of time this past week:

1. Reading!!! Since school has ended on June 2, I have read 14 books. Some of them great children's books, some great adult books, and some just plain fun adult reading.

2. Time with friends - I've had the opportunity to have breakfast with one friend to plan an upcoming trip, had brunch with a group of friends, and I had dinner with yet another friend. 

3. Work - crazy, I know! But the ability to work whenever I want during the day in the summer is very liberating. The intermediate literacy coaches even met at my house for an entire afternoon, and that was fun as well. Though focused on work, it is much different when being able to sit on the screened porch to talk, or to gather the entire group in the family room in a comfortable setting.

4. Write! This blog and any other types of writing I typically do needed to be dusted off and revisited. I forgot how much I enjoy the process of composing.

5. Pampering - getting my hair cut and colored one day and the next day getting a pedicure - both during morning hours. Loved it!

6. Exercise - meeting with my trainer once a week, 2 days of water aerobics, 2 days of yoga, and a few days of walking as well. I know this is the time to really take care of my physical fitness and to build great routines that will carry into the school year.

7. Organizing around my house - I spent two entire days last weekend cleaning, rearranging furniture, and purging things from our living room/my study. It felt great to take 3 bulging full garbage bags to the curb for the trash collectors to pick up.  I can't wait to tackle the other rooms in the house next!

8. Cooking - I cook year round (kind of...) but this past week, I had some time to try recipes that I had  collected because they piqued my interest. They were all yummy!

9. Naps - I don't think I can say enough about the restorative power of a nap.

10. Phone calls - the ability to make phone calls that are needed whenever works for me - what a lovely thing that is. Setting doctors' appointments, planning travel, conversations with family, setting appointments for things that need to be done around the house - all of that is done at my leisure.

I don't take any of these things for granted, and I look forward to an entire summer of joys such as these. Hope your summer is full of some restful things as well.