Playing Spring Catch Up...

Well, Spring Break is coming to a close....and as much as I'd like to say it was a "break," it was more 

of a time to catch up on life!

Cleaning the house, cooking for the husband (which I don't do often), spending a short time with family, exercising, sleeping, getting a puppy, finally using those Disney tickets we got for Christmas, reading, lesson planning, and on and on....whew! 

I have to say as much as I've enjoyed the catch up time, what I've enjoyed most has been those little pockets of time that I've had to read...yep...read! 

I finally finished these two gems...

        

And am about to finish this one...

Yep. I'm a nerd. I have a weird obsession with books about life/stress/health. All in all, finally finishing these helped me realize that my day to day life is not one of balance. Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw, is not one that I have mastered or think I will ever master, but it is one I have been convicted to work on! These two top books suggested by my pastor have really helped me gain perspective on creating balance physically, emotionally and spiritually. 

After the break is over I plan to jump into these two books! 

  

Thanks to my brilliant mother for suggesting these! These were her words when I asked for educational book suggestions, "Everyone who is on the "cutting edge" of education is reading these two!" 

Haha. Love her and I cant wait to jump in. 

I also came across a few AMAZING youtube clips of Eric Thomas...The Hiphop Preacher. Have you heard of him? Wow! I spent a whole morning watching every one that I could, but there was one that really stood out to me both personally and career wise. Check it out below! 

At the beginning of his speech he says that our values need to match our dreams. This really struck me as an current educator. While he used a marriage analogy, I thought about my classroom and my team! We have these grand goals and dreams for our students, but often our day to day lessons/activities/values do not match our educational dreams. We know that students need hands on, engaging, exciting lessons with depth and TIME to complete....yet we find ourselves bogged down by what we "think" we need to teach and cram in to one short day! Yikes. For whatever reason, our educational values have gone out the window and we are teaching in ways we wouldn't normally teach because we feel like we have to....

Maybe its the high stakes testing, the pay for performance, and/or the high pressure observations, but this really encouraged me to try and slow down, and do what's best for children. 

That should always be the basis of our values....

Personally, I LOVED when he spoke about being OBSESSED with improvement. While I find myself overly obsessed with work sometimes, this showed be that I need to be obsessed with balance and other areas of my life: family, health, exercise, my relationship with Jesus. Yep. This was powerful. 

All in all, this Spring Break was a fantastic time to reflect and get back on track! Feeling thankful. :)