Let's start with Skeet

 It's summer again. School let out on June 29, 2022. This sounds like I am beginning a dystopian novel, but I wouldn't do that. Life is hard enough without imagining something worse. The past two years I have been working as an elementary school librarian with my sidekick, Skeet. We had some good times. We made people laugh, we read some great books, and then the show ended. If I had had the resources I would have finished program year, with Skeet launching into the atmosphere to return home to Planet Snurp. I have thought about doing birthday parties. Anyway.

It's summer again, and I will be teaching at a different school in the fall. A school where I got my first job in a library. A school where I will be Auntie librarian. This is great in theory. 

But the summer again. A blank canvas? A comeuppance? It's a challenge for me to slow down so abruptly. My mind has a chance to catch up on all the wondering and worries I hadn't had time to consider during the school year. But I am trying to rewire a few things. I want to build patterns of thought that are uplifting to myself and others. Others, meaning the people living in my home. All 700 square feet of it.  There isn't much extra room to blow off steam. Yes, we moved again. Raising teenagers is SO HARD. 

Their minds and their persons are beautiful to watch flourish and develop on the good days. But, Lord on the needs-improvement days, I feel like punching my hand through drywall. I didn't realize how repetitive parenting would be. I am saying the same things I have been saying for over a decade, just louder. Deep breath. My summer mantra is: Present Moment. Beautiful Moment. And my prayer is: May we be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection. Yes, i have started praying again. I need all the unseen musings to help me believe that it won't always be this hard. Parenting, not life. I have given up on thinking that life gets easier. 

For what it's worth:

• Skeet's Unofficial Summer Reading List
• I'm reading my college professor's new book that he had been working on for DECADES!
• I just finished, Beautiful Country. it was BEAUTIFUL. 

Me and Skeet.