Goodbye summer, Hello stress

According to the calendar, there are still about three more weeks until Fall officially arrives. For me, summer has already ended. It stopped the day I had to start getting back up at 6 am and heading back to school.

I thought this summer I'd write a lot, but I actually discovered the opposite was true. Writing for me accomplishes many things, but one of the biggest is stress relief. And who needs to worry about relieving stress when you're on a 2 1/2 month vacation? Not this girl, that's for sure.

Part of what makes it great is that Tim also works in a school so we get to spend the summer together. This summer was a blast. We spent a lot of time being active--running, hiking, swimming. We also caught up on the entire series of Breaking Bad (thank you, Netflix). We went on few day trips, spent time with our families, hung out with our awesome dog Penny... it was just a great time.

The most exciting part of our summer had to be our vacation. We spent a few days in New Orleans and then cruised to Cozumel, Mexico. New Orleans was a lot of fun, though Bourbon Street was a bit of a culture shock. We basically got lunch and high tailed it out of there. City Park, though, is lovely, and I'd highly recommend checking it out.

Vacationers

The cruise was just about perfect--just too short! The food was delicious! It was also probably the most relaxing vacation I can remember having. We'd sleep in, eat some breakfast, and then head out to the rear deck to find a beach chair to read. After lunch, we'd take a nap and read some more until it was time to get ready for dinner and evening festivities. One night, we were even chosen to go up on stage and be part of the "Love and Marriage Show", where couples answer embarrassing questions to see how much they know about each other, like on The Newlywed Show. We had a blast, and now, it's fun to show that video to our loved ones (and by fun, I definitely mean embarrassing!)

Cozumel was gorgeous. We went scuba diving which I highly recommend. I'm not the strongest swimmer, so I was a little nervous at first. In fact, I somehow managed to get water down in my snorkel within 2 minutes of being in the ocean. But we had on a life vest, and after getting used to the equipment and water, it became a lot of fun. It was beautiful, seeing all the fish under the water.

Scubaing in Cozumel

 Unfortunately, not only did the cruise have to come to the end, so did summer break. And with returning to work, stress has returned to my life. So far, it has been very manageable, but there are a lot of changes this year. Changes always stress me out, even when they are positive changes.