Take some time...

A pleasure a day keeps stress away.
~Ethel Roskies

This school year has gotten off to a very rough start to say the least.  As a result, it has been one stressful moment followed by another equally frantic one.  There has barely been enough time in the day to catch one's breath.  I have felt the weight of the stress sitting on me and try as I might not to let it get to me, it has.

Deadline after deadline after another stinkin' deadline and the stress continues to pile on suffocating me.  I reached my breaking point this weekend (as fellow facebookers may have noticed).  In an attempt to regain some sanity back into my harried days, I rushed down to my school with a car full of soil, clearance flowers, and Basil.  We worked in the garden for an hour or so and I felt some semblance of peace returning.

This morning, I was determined to start the week of right.  Despite some emails that upset me, I took my first graders outside and introduced them to the garden (a slight deviation from the week's lesson plans).  We talked about the flowers and the parts of the plants.  We discussed what plants need and how these in the garden were going to get them.  They learned where the tools were kept and how to properly use them.  But most importantly, they got their hands dirty.

At 9 a.m. in the morning sunlight, 6 little first graders got their first experience planting life.  They probably even had their first experience being encouraged to get dirty during school hours.  Even I, in my ill-thought out ensemble (dress and heels), had dirty knees and hands by the time the endeavor was over.  I even found some dirt on the tip of my nose an hour later.

In that little moment of time, I saw true joy on their faces and felt peace in my soul.  My favorite photo of the morning captured their beaming faces perfectly and reminding me that this is why I teach.  Despite the politics, surmounting stress, daily grind, and constant hurdles-I teach to experience the rare moments of unbridled happiness in a child's eyes.

Now, if only I can remember that as the year continues its relentless march onward to the stressful tasks ahead.