It’s hard for me to believe that just as I was getting into a great habit of blogging on here regularly…. almost a whole calendar year went by without one post. In the 2021-2022 school year, I published a new post almost every single month, yet in the 2022-2023 school year, I only posted 3 times… then, I ended up going completely silent on here as of Winter Break last year (until now!).

Last school year was difficult for me and my bandwidth; three new jobs (or pieces to my portfolio) within my school, a lot to learn, and not enough minutes and hours in the day. Through my annual performance review process with my Head of School, I spoke at length about the challenges I faced with my schedule and portfolio, which resulted in a few minor shifts for this school year. Rather than digging up all that I struggled with last year in terms of bandwidth and burn out, I have decided to see this as an opportunity to dust off my blogging shoes and focus on moving onwards and upwards.

This school year, I am pouring my love and energy into teaching Grade 3, as well as continuing to be the Student Life Lead. I am excited to be staying in Grade 3 again, this year with a new grade level partner to collaborate with! I am also thrilled that I will be able to use all of my detailed notes from last year into use after fumbling my way through my first year as the Student Life Lead. It’s already been a refreshing start to the school year, being able to dive right into student life planning with a much clearer understanding of my role and the tasks that fall under my umbrella.

Work-life balance has always been something that I have struggled with (even as a student who was juggling many hours of extracurricular activities). This school year, I have made a promise to myself to make more of an effort in striking the right balance that works for me. As someone who does love to keep busy working 2 jobs while also completing a Master of Education program this year, my work-life balance might look different than yours. I started this school year with two minor shifts and I can already see a difference in my energy! (Note: these are not major, life-changing, shifts… if you are struggling with work-life balance, I suggest making a few small tweaks to your routines and see how it makes you feel! For example, mine are: trying my best not to check / respond to work related emails after dinner time and making a plan for a weekend activity with my pup and fiancé every single week.)

The next shift I am hoping to bring back into my routines is blogging on here! Embarrassingly, this post has been sitting in my drafts since the end of September… I have added a few sentences here and there, and I even debating deleting the draft and not posting this at all! However, I would like to get back into blogging – so what better way than sharing out my long overdue and messy thoughts in the form of this post! Trying to blog regularly again might not seem like a shift towards more work-life balance… but I found that when I was blogging regularly and reflecting on my teaching / classroom happenings, I was feeling energized and excited by the work I was doing. My hope is that bringing this blog back to life will help reinvigorate that excitement as I shake off last year’s burn out!

With these small shifts in place, and a fresh start to a fresh school year (roughly 2 months ago), I am feeling balanced and ready to rock and roll!

To all my (11) subscribers, if you’ve made it this far into my muddled mess of a post, I’d love for you to comment and tell me what sort of posts you’d like to see from me this year!