Yesterday we wrote about what we’d do on our first day of summer, that being the first day we don’t have to wake up and go to school. You know most of the responses including sleeping in for much of that first morning free of alarm clock or parents coming in to rouse groggy students from their beds.

Each day, we take turns sharing the writing we do as soon as the bell rings the start of class, and I was in the row to share that first day of summer writing. I wrote something like, “Summer Day One: I will wake up like usual and go for my run. When I return, I will not need to get ready and drive 54 miles to school. Instead, I’m going to take a pot of coffee and some kind of roll (hopefully cinnamon) with me to the barn loft and write to my heart’s content. Around noon or so, I’ll head back to the house and do my online work. I’ll go back to the loft with, yes, more coffee, and write until my hand can’t take it anymore. Then, I’ll saddle Indian and ride for a while in the late afternoon/early evening. After that, I think popcorn and movie will be in order, and, if I’m feeling really wild, I might have an RC Cola.”

My students laughed and said, “No one does that on their first day of summer, Ms. G.” I thought about that and then told them that the chances are I really would make that my first day of summer because I’d written it down. When I write things down, they tend to materialize much more readily than when I don’t. I really hope they think about that and go back and write down the things they want to do this summer that don’t involve sleeping it away. I have much to do and I don’t want to waste one minute!