Designing Lorri

Projects and More

Too many people think that teachers get the summer off. That’s simply not true. You see, we are not employed for the days we are not working. My particular employer separates our yearly salary into 24 checks, so I’m getting paid twice a month all year. At the same time, it’s like the work never ends because there is always something to do to prepare for the coming school year.

I’m trying to embrace the summer, but the reality is I have so much to do. I know my roster is available to view in my portal already; I could be working on seating charts. I know I’m taking over 8th grade G/T; I could be taking my prep classes and lesson planning. I know I’m going to try a few new lessons I’ve never done before; I could be organizing notes.

All that aside, there is so much housework to do that I simply couldn’t get to during the school year that it is overwhelming, on top of that I am having to clean and rearrange my grandma and grandpa’s old room and I really do not want to deal with that. I don’t want to run into their old things, I don’t want to dust off memories, and I don’t want to breathe the dust either! I want to pretend they are still there and everything is going fine.

After much consideration, I realized if I’m going to procrastinate on all these things I really need to do, I might as well do what I actually want to do: paint, read a book, embroider. But in reality, I can’t focus on those things either because I keep thinking about everything else.

I started an acrylic cactus painting just before school let out. It’s been a slow process of taping and re-taping to get the angles right and the gold leaf sheets where I want them. My next step is to add thin strokes of paste and more gold leaf for the “pricklys” to the pears. Hopefully I get this done in time to enter into the state fair “mixed media” category. But, alas, I have this bedroom to deal with…

So, what are you putting off today and what are you finally getting started on? You know I’d love to hear it more that cleaning my house, so drop me a comment.