The Pleasures of Growing

What a long week! We had our annual testing marathon at school....the kids seemed relaxed and prepared.....the teachers seemed relieved for it all to be over.  Although we still have 9 official days left of this school year, plans are already in the works for the new school year!

I'm just ready for a break...some relaxation time....some mornings when I can sleep past 5 a.m. and slowly enjoy my morning coffee.  This summer I plan on doing lots of relaxing. However, I also want to do more writing....MoMe gave me a book about writing a novel which was put together by the people who do the Annual Novel Writing Month....and it has given me some great ways to organize my "novel" thoughts, so to speak.  Some of my time will be spent writing.  And some of my spare time will be spent developing my painting skills.....

My mural painting adventure is going rather well.  It has turned into a much bigger project than anticipated but I am having so much fun! I painted individual leaves for three solid hours and it felt like only moments...except for the fact, my feet were totally numb and I could hardly climb down off the scaffold.  There is still so much to do....But I can hardly wait. The funny thing is I have so many ideas in my head now....images to paint. And it doesn't even matter that I have no clue how to paint some of them....it will come to me.

It is so amazing to be my age....which according to my students ranges from 25(my favorite) to 87(not so favorite)....and still have the desire to learn new skills, have new adventures, travel to new places.  When I was oh so much younger, it would never have occurred to me that at my age I would feel this way.....but I do.  More importantly, I'm glad I do....because it means that my daily battles with pain have not slowed my desires to grow and learn and experience.....nor has it limited my belief that I can actually accomplish all these things!

It has been a long, somewhat stressful, and pain filled week.....but I have enjoyed it all.