Spring Break: Garden Retreat Part 1

If you’ve been reading my blog, then by now, you know I am a teacher. So, unlike many professions I get spring break. A time to recharge right before the last big push to finish the school year. As I sit here at the beginning of my break I can’t help, but remember a year ago. We were sent home a week early for thinking that we would be home for 2 weeks and then go back to normal. Well, we all know how that turned out: global pandemic, Covid-19, quarantine.

This break feels different...On Monday my school district started hybrid learning, which meant all of this last week I was able to teach students in person. It felt exciting and exhausting, much like the first week of school. I definitely need the break, but I start this break with a heart full of hope. Things aren’t perfect, but things are improving. The last year has been hard on teachers, parents, students, and all of humankind, but there have been some pretty huge blessings. The blessing I can’t help but think about today is the excitement I saw on my students faces this week. I had a class full of students who wanted to be at school and who were excited to learn. As a teacher, I can’t ask for a better day than one where my students want to be there. It was an amazing week!

As I embark on this week of Spring Break all kinds of projects are dancing around in my head. I want to relax, go on a trip, do household projects, spend time with my family, spend time outdoors, and the list could go on and on and on. My favorite part of this moment is the inspiration I am feeling. The hard part will be to put that inspiration to good use. When I feel like so Inspired, but can’t decide what to do with it, I often lose inspiration and do nothing. My goal for this week is to not let my inspiration slip away.

I will be active, and creative. My house will get a good spring cleaning, and my garden will be started. Spring is a time for new beginnings, in some ways it seems fitting that life is starting to return to normal in the spring. This week we will be building a larger raised garden bed for my garden. A garden I have been dreaming about for some time now. The whole project is more than just 1 box, but I am choosing to focus on one box for now. If I think about the end result too much, I might get overwhelmed and give up, or feel disappointed that it isn't what I dreamed. So for now, I am going to take it 1 step at a time with a vague idea of what I want. In this way the garden retreat that I want will be given wings to grow into something better than I could ever imagine, or at least that is my hope. As the project progresses I will share pictures and eventually I will have before and after pictures. Today I share what the area looks like now before it is changed. Right now it is functional, but someday it will be beautiful! Please ignore the yellow of winter grass.

Until next time...keep on creating!