Peace Out

Today I start my sabbatical.

A sabbatical, by definition, is a period of paid leave granted to a college teacher for study or travel, traditionally every seventh year.

I am not a college teacher.

{And your kids are lucky for that.}

While there might be some studying {might? there WILL} and some travel {an airplane will be involved}, that’s not all I’m doing.

My employer, a couple of years ago, thought it worth taking the time to do some study on sabbaticals and their purpose.  After much time researching, it was proposed that our company would offer a four week sabbatical to those employees who had been with our company for seven years.

Thankfully, I will hit the 12 year mark this July.  Where has the time gone?!  And as you can imagine, there were quite a few of us who have been with the company for 7+ years, so we’re currently trying to play catch-up with the “old” folks so that the current seven-year-markers can take theirs.

So today is the first day of this four weeks….which I know will go by in the blink of an eye.  Today I am taking my time, not getting too crazy, but also making my plan…

I already presented my overarching plan to our executive team so that they know I’m not just sitting around my house watching tv and eating bon-bons.  {Who has time for THAT anyway?!}.  And I’m not taking a four week vacay down at the beach either.

No, today I am enjoying my day, much like a day off.  I got up at 6 this morning {that’s sleeping in…}, got ready, fixed bottles for the kids, daddy and I got the kids up and all of us out the door.  I dropped off the kids at daycare just like normal {and will every day of this sabbatical}, then instead of pulling into the work parking lot, I went to the next light and headed to Starbucks.  I got my frappuccino, pulled up a cushy chair next to a large window and opened up a book I’m reading, “The 5 Levels of Leadership”.

At 8:45, I packed myself back up and went back to daycare, where I hid from Reynolds and his classmates, while filming them doing their Soccer Shots!  That was the best 30 minutes I could have spent doing anything all day!!  What an absolute blast I had watching them all show off their skills.  I video-taped the entire class so that Andrew can watch it tonight when he gets home.

This afternoon I’m making shorter lists, to-dos for each day this week.  There are small projects and there are large projects.  There is quiet time, and probably loud(er) time.   There is time for reflection and purpose as well as time to stop and smell the roses.

As one friend put it yesterday, this could possibly be the greatest month of my life.

Maybe.  I guess it depends on how I use it.

Stay tuned…