Check-in, long overdue

So if you were a faithful reader of my blog earlier this year, you might have noticed I started with a bang and ended with a whimper.  I have a few reasons for this.  (If you prefer to skip the excuses, jump down to "Now that it's summer...")

Last year, the job of media specialist continued to get more intense.  I had the same amount of teaching, administration and supervisory work as I'd had the year before, but 200 minutes less per week in which to do it.  I had trouble keeping up.  It took me a while to adjust, and by then, I'd lost most of the spring.

Mostly, though, I was feeling depressed about the future of my job.  To begin with, media specialists across the country are being cut from their schools. My state is in particularly dire straits; our district, along with many others around us, is facing huge budget cuts.  I think we still have a few years before our department is cut entirely, but many of my colleagues' positions will be reduced next year.

But that's not the reason for my personal concern.  Our union voted to make a change in the teacher's contract which specifies that media specialists must have a media endorsement on their teaching certification.  This is generally what I would consider to be a good thing, but unfortunately, I don't have one because I was a public librarian first.  So the district, in all its wisdom, has decided I'm not eligible to teach media anymore.  Instead, I'll be teaching first and second grade (which I've never taught before).  Thinking about how that is going to change the focus of my reading, and my purpose in having this blog, kind of got me stuck.

Now that it's summer, I'm sorting through my TBRs and trying to make some new goals:

• I'm reading a lot of professional books about teaching first and second grade, and blogging about them in another location.  If you want to read about my process of  becoming a classroom teacher, check out my other blog.  
• Thanks to the two readathons I participated in this spring (Clear Away the Clutter, which also encompassed the Dewey's 24 Hour Challenge, and the 48-Hour Book Challenge), I did get a good chunk of reading done, but I didn't write many reviews.  I do have some good notes from the CAtC challenge, so I plan to write up at least mini-reviews of those before the summer is done.
• I have been way behind on my two challenges involving books I own, because I've been trying to get through my stack of library books before Mock Caldecott season.  Specifically, I set some ambitious goals about historical teen fiction, and I'm not interested in quitting on that one because I lurve me some teen fiction.  So I've upped the ante to *gulp* one book a day throughout the summer.  We'll see how that goes!
• I still have a big pile of books, mostly picture books, but some graphic novels, middle grade and nonfiction, checked out from the public library.  I don't think that's likely to change much.  My goal is to keep it under 100 books for me and my two kids; I'm currently at 127.  My goal also is not to renew a book more than 6 times.  Currently I have several that have been renewed more than 10 times, so I've been reading those first and returning them.  
• I have continued to do Nonfiction Monday and Booking Through Thursday memes occasionally, and I'll continue those.  

Those are plenty of summer goals.  I hope to get caught up by fall (when I'll be overwhelmed all over again).