Since August 19.....

You know, I have been hitting so many 'firsts' since August 19.  

First vacation trip in September. 

First time to help Gary harvest in many years.

First time I actually made Christmas gifts (always had good intentions which never happened).

First time to go on a trip longer than a week.

First time to go on a cruise.

First time to go on a trip in early May (that one hasn't happened yet).

There has also been the 'more time for...' list.

More time for Landon, Tessa, Cooper, and Owen.

More time for lunches with friends.

More time for reading something that I didn't have to teach.

More time for quilting.

More time for knitting.

More time for spending time with family.

More time to prepare for holidays and entertaining.

Plus there have been the 'if I were still teaching, I wouldn't have been able to...' list.

I wouldn't have been able to help care for my dear mother-in-law during her hospice care.

I wouldn't have been able to spend several days at a time in Wooster visiting Mom, taking her to appointments, and cleaning out spoiled food and outdated stacks of magazines and newspapers.

I wouldn't have been able to help Gary with harvest, moving equipment, taking his folks to doctors' appointments, and now mowing.

But what has hit me the most the last few days has been this.

I am really enjoying spring.

Spring is my very favorite season. 

I love the sunshine, the flowering trees, the daffodils and tulips, the lilac bushes, the irises.  

I love the buds popping out on the trees.  

I love the green grass and the smell when it is mowed. 

I love the warm breeze and the puffy white clouds in the blue sky. 

I love seeing the birds hopping around the yard and hearing them wake up first thing in the morning. 

I love sitting in the sunroom and watching the day awaken. 

I love the promise of a summer ahead with outdoor activities, open windows, and campfires and picnics.

For many years, my entrance into spring was punctuated with end of school activities - field trips, senior awards night, prom, finals, research papers to grade, final grades to finish, graduation, and more than 30 open houses to attend.  Add Mother's Day, my birthday, Memorial Day, make up snow days, and the May calendar was always full.  Usually by the second week of June the final remnants of leaves would be raked, the impatiens and marigolds would be planted, and we could settle into summer by the Fourth of July, after which it seemed like Back to School ads began.  

After leaving West Central and moving to Ivy Tech, May opened up with a three week break!  Glorious!  I could now rake and plant and spruce up in May before returning to campus after Memorial Day for the summer semester.  If the weather cooperated and the planting were finished, Gary and I could leave for a few days, enjoying some spots before the deluge of families hit the vacation trail.

But now.  It is April 20.  I have raked leaves out of places where leaves have not been raked for many years.   Flower beds are clear (except for two) and hostas are beginning to look like just that - hostas.  Tulips are blooming where I had forgotten they were planted  (because they are usually covered with leaves).  The yard has been mowed twice already.  The air is warm.  The sun is shining.  The exterior of the house looks good.  The flower beds are ready to be planted.

I think this has been one of the best 'because I am now retired' moments for me.  I can DO these things because I am not teaching.  Going outside after breakfast to work in the yard usually is just a dream because a stack of argument papers always are waiting for me, and they never did grade themselves!  Not anymore! It felt SO good to mow today, to pull that yucky green cover junk out of the daffodils and from around the rocks (four trash cans full of that green stuff and leaves today).  Raindrops fell from the sky just before I came in, a warm splash of moisture that dotted my t-shirt, the truck, and the bricks on the sidewalk leading to the patio.  Loved it!

Many changes have happened since August 19, the last time I walked into Ivy Tech Community College in Logansport as English faculty and walked out as a retired Associate Professor.  Have there been regrets?  None.  Do I miss it?  Not really.  I miss people, but those I care about and who have cared about me are still in touch.  We text, we meet for lunch, we send emails.  Do I miss teaching?  The actual teaching - sometimes.  The prep work, loading documents into Blackboard, grading papers, checking grades, arguing about missed work and late assignments?  Not. One. Bit.   I spent 43 years in the classroom and met so many great, and a few not-so-great, people. I touched lives, and their lives touched mine.  But it is time to move on to new adventures.  

Enjoying spring is one of them!