Hair cut and color. Life changing? Maybe not. Attitude shifting, mindset changing, for sure.

Have been waiting for September to end, and it does, tomorrow. Monday starts a new week at school, and a new month.

Today, in preparation, I got a cut and color, a little shorter, a little deeper.

The shorter is easy to put to metaphor. My languid summer days are gone, my free time is limited. I have to make each moment count. I have things that HAVE to be done, so that the things that I WANT to do can still exist. I need to find the pockets of time, for my own children, for Tim, for friends and family, and probably most importantly, for me. Still, when time is more precious, sometimes it is better spent.
I go shorter.

The deeper is a tough one to admit. There is pressure, I am pressured. There is new - everywhere. New classroom, new schedules all around, new reading series, math series, and Common Core standards. Probably the most stressful and intimidating "new" have been the new teacher evaluations. Each and every one of these things has pressed my mind to go deeper into who I am as a person, a worker, a teacher. I have had to remind myself of what I believe in for children, for education, and, ultimately, how I am going to navigate this new and turbulent storm. I have 14 more years in education, I have to make it work, and I can and will. My mind goes deeper. I can make it work, for me, and in turn, for my kids.


I go deeper.
Time carries on.
Welcome, October.

My balance has been in extremes lately.

I noticed today when my iTunes downloads were the following...

Green Day...and Taylor Swift.

It made me think back on this September, and what it has been full of.

I've had some beautiful days, with what is shaping up to be the cutest class of fourth graders, contrasted with more days than I want to count with co-workers breaking down in frustration.

Weekends full of fun and family, and work on our house, have been contrasted with some time of extreme quiet, where the four of us seem to be existing in the same house, separately. We are a family of introverts, at heart, and are merely in self preservation mode, refreshing from the busy busy start of the school year. It hits us hard every time.

Nights where I sleep like the dead, and dream the strangest dreams, are contrasted with nights I wake up and can't stop thinking for one, two, or more hours.

Dinners of four star quality, where Tim and I comment about why we ever go out, contrast with nights of franks and beans.

Evenings where I have started back on a path I need, practicing yoga, balance, in the extreme sense, with nights where I am channeling Lloyd Bridges in "Airplane," saying "Guess I picked the wrong month to quit _____." Just pick a coping mechanism and fill in the blank, drinking, chain eating,"cocoon-ing" on the couch with my "Cymbalta Blanket" and my iPod, watching TV I don't even want to watch. You name it, some nights, that's where I am.

I know it will end. I know the extreme balance I have now, the highs and lows, will even out and we'll hit a groove. I know it will come, I'm just wondering when, and wondering how bumpy the journey to that point will continue to be.

Green Day says, "Wake Me Up, When September Ends," and I would seem to agree.