Starting Fresh!

Routine, Routine, Routine! I need it, want it, and love it. It's surprizing to me that each May I get so excited about school letting out. I love the summer...sunshine, vacation, mission trips, students hanging out at the church, swimming pools, interns, long summer nights, catching up on reading, and of course, mastering my golden tan (as tan as a Scotch-Irish white boy can get). However, as much as I love the flexability that summertime brings, as we move closer to autumn, part of me ends up longing for the structure from which I wanted a break just a few months earlier.

So when August rolled around this year, I think I was as "pumped" about the school year start as my daughter Harper, who was beginning kindergarten. The first day of school was on a Wednesday. So on Tuesday morning, Harper came out of her room dressed in her "first day of school outfit," with her backpack strapped on her shoulders, proclaiming to everyone, "I am ready for school!" Her eagerness and readiness to launch into a world that will become her norm well into adulthood caused my wife and I to laugh, as we thought cynically to ourselves, "If only she knew...." But part of my thinking is right there with my daughter. I, too, am ready for schedules, routines, planning, discipline, expectations, and yes, even deadlines! I find that I am at my best in those moments. So here we go!! But check back in late April, because I am sure I will once again be begging for some summertime relief.... but this time I may have a six year old little girl pleading just as hard!