Summer is coming...

Okay; third time is the charm I hope....

I have started writing this and have deleted everything twice now so I'm hoping I will now be able to write what I want.  It's not that I couldn't write what I wanted before; I just didn't like the direction it was going and I could tell that from the first few lines.

Tomorrow begins 8 weeks of summer programming in my building and I am trying not to freak myself out before it even begins.  This is the last week that I'll have my operations clerk on staff before she moves to her new promotion full time (she worked split shifts between the old/new job last week and will do the same this week until Friday when she's there full time).  I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do in the interim without her but I'm sure it will pull together somehow.  This week we have 45 kids in attendance and I have one staff on vacation all week.  Then next week, the numbers go up by about 10 additional children - luckily the staff member will be back from vacation and quite a few of the kids will be repeats so they'll already know the routines.

Anytime we have a programming change like this (the switch between after school programming to full day camp programming) it does add stress to the staff which I do try to relieve where I can.  I put together a little "survival bag" for the staff which contains hand sanitizer, sunscreen, bandaids, tissues, and chocolates which I will give to them tomorrow.  I'm hoping that it will not only help the staff out in the practical sense but I'm also hoping that it is whimsical enough that it will help defuse at least a little bit of the stress of the summer.  I'm hoping that I have enough energy to get through the first week of summer myself since I worked for 7 hours yesterday for a work event; a big handful of my staff worked it too but at least they got overtime pay for working it...

I'm not trying to come across as bitter over having to work yesterday since I did have an enjoyable time at our event.  One of our annual events is a kids fun run and yesterday we turned ours into a bubble run.  We had bubble machines, the staff had bubble shooters, and we had upbeat music playing to help encourage the runners - the kids and parents all seemed to have a fun time and so did the staff.  Other than having to work for free yesterday, my only other downside to the day is the bad sunburn I got on my back; I applied sunscreen but I guess I should have applied more and made sure I reapplied part way through the event.

Well, my dear readers, I know that this is a relatively short post this week but since I need to wake up early in the AM for work (like 5 am early), I should probably bring this a close and attempt to get some sleep tonight.  I hope each of you reading have a wonderful week ahead and have opportunities to be you!  =)