Stress and stress relief

Today was certainly a stressful day at work.  Most days I LOVE my job and truly, today was no exception, however, we did have a few challenges today.  Without getting into the actual events   of the day, let me just say, there is never a dull moment when you are a teacher, especially when you are dealing with adolescent children.   I have to say that in the course of the day, I laugh many times, want to pull my hair out at other times, am surprised at the amount of new gray hair I get on a daily basis, sometimes want to cry, sometimes want to just give a child who needs it a hug, laugh some more, am challenged at how to "get through" to the reluctant learner, have to think on my feet, laugh again etc.  You get the picture.  Today was one of those days where I did all of the above and more.  We had a faculty meeting this afternoon and our principal brought up a major event that occurred in the morning and one of the teachers piped up and said facetiously, "that happened today?"  That was just the kind of day we had.  STRESSFUL!!!  And most likely, since the school year is starting to wind down, we will have many, many more stressful days over the next few weeks.

So, what do I do to relieve stress??  Here are some of my tried and true methods.

1.  Read the Bible and pray.  I really do get much wisdom, comfort and peace from reading the Word of God and spending time with my best friend, Jesus.

2.  Take a hot bath with a good book on my Kindle.  Now before you get shocked that I don't get shocked by having electronics in the tub, I put the Kindle in a ziploc bag and voila!  It's waterproof and best of all, the pages of a book don't get all soggy.

3.  I eat Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits.  My current weakness.

4.  I go for a walk to burn off the calories of eating the Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits.

5.  I drink a cup of Licorice Spice Tea!  Yummy!!

6.  I light a candle.

7.  I go to bed early.

8.  I write to process my thoughts and clear my head.

People often ask me how I can possibly be going to Grad School, single parenting to active boys, working full time and running a part time photography business without going insane. That's how I do it.  I have different things I do to deal with the stress.

On most nights I do only one or two of those things.

Tonight, I think I managed to hit them all...

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday.