Updates

Here I am teaching my favorite little people in the schoolyard garden. The picture doesn't capture the amazing bounty and beauty of the vegetable beds, nor my highlight of that particular class...when all the kindergarteners were exploring the garden pointing and going "buzzzz!!!" when they saw a bee, and "chomp, chomp, chomp!!!" when they saw a ladybug (if you didn't know, ladybugs eat lots of garden foes, particularly aphids in this case.)

Seems like work is going to be over before it began! School gets out in a few short weeks and I'm trying to decide whether to take on some summer hours watering and doing paperwork. Since someone is moving into my teaching position full-time in the Fall, I'm not guaranteed a position, but I'm hoping that some of the part-time opportunities they've been dangling with other schools will come to fruition. I'm still not willing, or ready, to go to full-time. The buddyO-baby is just too amazing and good daycare too hard to find (and so freaking expensive! Why work just to barely pay for someone else to hang out with my kid?)

I have been feeling the tug-o-war of part-time work and home life more acutely these days, as the pressure to wrap up work on a high note starts to bring the ever-precarious work/life balance to a boiling point. Sometimes I just don't feel like I'm doing anything extraordinarily well...when I'm at work I'm pulled home, and at home I'm pulled to work, and both sides end up with a tired, stressed, not-superbly-confident gal. But I think that's the nature of both beasts - part-time work never leaves enough time to accomplish anything as great as you want to, and everyone thinks they could mother better than they are, right? Luckily I get long weeekends for escapes. This time we tried to go camping...it was fun for the first two days, and then fevers and rains hits and we had to return home. But now we get to enjoy the comforts of downy beds and dvds. I think we finally struck a good balance!