Unproductive Summer: Confessions of a Teacher

I’m a planner by nature. And when I don’t have a plan, not much gets done. I overthink things to the point that I won’t actually accomplish anything. Since I’m a teacher, I have a nice chunk of time each summer when I COULD get quite a bit done. I’ll have these thoughts every year that I’m going to have a productive summer, and in May, I’ll make a list of things I’d like to accomplish over the nine weeks or so before school begins again in August.

And inevitably, I do very little on my list.

It’s not intentional. I’m just tired. And I allow too much flexibility in my routine (or lack of). As much as the items on my list are things that I enjoy and would like to do more of during the school year, if they feel even the least bit productive, my summer brain says, “no thanks,” and I don’t get much done. Not even writing blog posts.

I did do stuff…just not what I’d imagined.

I wanted to knock off a few pounds by watching what I eat and exercising more. Didn’t happen. I’m pretty sure I gained a few pounds, but I’m afraid to check.

I wanted to actually start writing one of the books that I’ve outlined the past few years. I got 650 words and lost interest.

I wanted to read even more than I usually do. I think I’ve only finished two books this summer, which is really slow for me.

Then what did I do all summer?

The first week of June, I spent 7 days in Kansas City grading AP US History essays. I’d never been to KC, and I really enjoyed it. The weather was nice, and everyone that I came into contact with was kind and helpful. My friends and I visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the National World War I Museum, both of which were really well done. I ate more burnt ends in a week than I’d had in a lifetime. Not complaining. It was totally worth it. Speaking of…shout out to Burnt End BBQ at Crown Center. They have these fried cornbread bites. Fantastic!

A week after KC, the family and I took our camper to Garner State Park. This is our favorite state park by far, and we’re not alone. We had to book our stay months in advance just to get three nights. We found a relatively secluded spot along the river where, if we sat with our feet in the water long enough, minnows would start nibbling at our toes. Taking the kayaks out on the Frio River in the morning before the crowds arrived made the entire trip worth the six hour drive pulling the camper (not my favorite thing to do).

About a week and a half after we got back from Garner, we left for our final road trip. Destination: Siesta Key, Florida. Technically, we stayed in Sarasota since the hotels were much more affordable. We took two days each way and stopped in Mobile for the night both directions. The drive there was an adventure when the second leg (from Mobile to Sarasota), a drive that should have been at most eight hours, turned into an eleven hour drive. Traffic. Really bad car wreck (not me) that completely stopped traffic for about 30 minutes. Torrential downpour that kept me from driving faster than 30 miles per hour. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to arrive at a hotel. The rest of the trip went off without a hitch. If you’ve never been to Siesta Key, it’s a beautiful beach. It got a little crowded, but I’ve seen worse.

We got home from Florida on July 4th, and haven’t been on any other trips since.

But we did have a hurricane. That was fun. We were fortunate that we only lost power for a little over two hours instead of multiple days like many others did. Beryl managed to blow over two sections of our fence in the back and loosened up some of the shingles on the roof just enough that we have a slight drip from the ceiling when it rains…which it has been doing all this week. The fence I’ll fix when the weather cools a bit. The roof I’m hoping to get fixed before summer is over. At this point, probably not.

And then EA went and released a new College Football game for the first time in eleven years. I have wasted more hours of my summer on that game than I’d like to admit.

As of now, I only have a little over a week until I’m back in school to start year 23 in education. One of these days (in six more years), I’ll finally graduate from high school. Then I’ll have even more time on my hands to think about all of the productive things I could be doing without actually getting anything done. That’s what retirement is, right?

(As an aside, I was trying out the WordPress AI title generator. When it came up with the title of this blog post, I laughed out loud and knew I had to use it. So yes, the title is AI generated. The rest is me. Oh…one more thing. I’m not getting paid for any of the links, so click away!)