Latest / Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies / 262. Crashing Isn't Resting: The Summer Teacher Mistake to Skip This Year

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262. Crashing Isn't Resting: The Summer Teacher Mistake to Skip This Year · Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies

0:00
Heidi: This is episode 262 of Teacher Approved.
0:06
You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
0:09
educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
0:13
Heidi.
0:13
Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
0:17
Window, where we give research-based and
0:19
teacher-approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and
0:22
more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources
0:25
from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
0:28
Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
0:31
the show.
0:35
Emily: Hey there, thanks for joining us today. In today's
0:39
episode, we are talking about what real summer recovery looks
0:42
like, and why crashing on the couch for two weeks isn't the
0:45
same thing as resting. Plus, we've got a teacher-approved tip
0:49
for thinking ahead to your digital organization for next
0:52
year.
0:53
Heidi: But first, let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we
0:55
share a quick win that you can try right away. Emily, what's
0:58
our suggestion this week?
1:00
Emily: This week, make a plan for what to say when someone
1:03
wants to talk about school stuff, and you do not. Someone
1:07
is going to corner you at a barbecue and want to solve their
1:10
kids' reading struggles, or someone will try to recruit you
1:13
for the curriculum committee that they're starting up, and in
1:17
that moment you will probably feel caught off guard. And you
1:21
might say yes to things that you don't actually want to do, or
1:24
get pulled into a long conversation that takes up an
1:27
hour, and you did not want to do that.
1:30
So make a plan for how you want to handle it. You could come up
1:33
with a phrase that you want to say, or a plan for how you could
1:38
change the subject. That would be my go-to, is, figure out a
1:41
way to transition out of that conversation in a way that feels
1:45
comfortable for you, but also does not end in you committing
1:48
to something you don't want to do or having a conversation you
1:52
don't want to have.
1:53
Heidi: Yeah, I've noticed this gets really bad at the start of
1:56
the summer when parents are finally like seeing the trouble
2:00
signs, and they want to make it your problem. Because they know
2:05
you are connected to a school, even if you don't have anything
2:08
to do with the grade that their kid is in, you must have all the
2:11
answers. And then I've also noticed that this concern really
2:15
plummets later in the summer. When I was a newer, sweeter,
2:20
kinder teacher, I would, I would, 100% make this my
2:24
problem. If someone wanted to talk to me about, like, how
2:27
their kid was doing, or, you know, some plans for that coming
2:31
school year, I would dive all the way in, and then they would
2:35
never, like, follow through, and so I just went up, like, all
2:38
this time and energy given, like, all of this mental labor
2:41
to something that the other person just dropped the ball on,
2:44
so.
2:45
Emily: Yep.
2:45
Heidi: I find it's not worth it.
2:47
Emily: Yeah, that's the frustration. Like, I think I'd
2:49
be more willing to give out that time to help someone if they
2:51
followed through on it, but we both have people in our lives
2:54
that repeatedly do this at the beginning of every summer when
2:57
they're panicking, and we know from experience that they're not
2:59
going to take seriously anything that we suggest, and so it's
3:03
just something they're doing to ease their anxiety, but they're
3:06
not going to follow through on it. So, yeah, it's just too hard
3:09
to keep putting labor into that. So, now I'm going for much
3:11
shorter, like, "Oh, you should just try this," you know,
3:13
because I know they're not going to do it. So, give them
3:15
something short and quick, and then not devote any more of my
3:18
time to it.
3:19
Heidi: Oh, yeah, don't make this your problem. I got cornered in
3:21
a bathroom once, so like people have no chill.
3:24
Emily: Man. Well, if you like this idea for avoiding
3:29
awkwardness or mental labor you don't want to do, would you take
3:34
a second and give us a five-star rating and review on Apple
3:37
Podcasts or Spotify?
3:39
Heidi: So, how was June treating everyone? A lot of you are out
3:43
already, but we've got a few stalwarts still in the trenches.
3:47
So, let's talk about what those early days of break might look
3:50
like.
3:51
Emily: In last week's episode, we gave you a framework for your
3:53
first seven days of summer, nothing rigid, just a bit of a
3:57
shape that you could add to each day if you want to. So go back
4:01
and check out episode 260 if you missed that one, but let's zoom
4:04
out now and look at the bigger picture of summer recovery.
4:08
Heidi: And if you're anything like Emily and me, your summer
4:11
break usually starts with a well-earned collapse on the
4:14
couch.
4:15
Emily: But then somehow you're three weeks into summer and
4:17
feeling more tired than you were the day school ended, for some
4:21
reason. I don't understand why it works that way.
4:24
Heidi: Well, it happens because it turns out that crashing is
4:28
not recovering, and most of us have spent years confusing the
4:32
two. Think about how a hard school year ends, your nervous
4:36
system is fried, and then when summer finally hits, the natural
4:40
response is to do absolutely nothing for as long as possible.
4:45
Emily: There's nothing wrong with keeping things low key,
4:47
especially at the start of summer. Sometimes you really do
4:50
need to lie horizontal for a while. That isn't the problem.
4:54
The problem is when lying horizontal becomes the entire
4:57
recovery strategy.
4:59
Heidi: And it's a problem because that is not actually
5:01
rest, it's collapse, and collapse and rest are not the
5:04
same thing. People don't burn out from working hard, they burn
5:08
out from never recovering, which means that recovery is not
5:12
optional.
5:13
Emily: Yeah, it's not a reward for surviving the year, it's the
5:16
thing that determines whether you can keep doing this work.
5:20
Heidi: The reason that collapse doesn't help is that real
5:23
recovery is active. It's not the same as zoning out.
5:26
Emily: Now, zoning out feels like grass because it is the
5:29
opposite of work, but it doesn't actually restore you. Active
5:33
recovery means doing things to refill what got drained.
5:37
Heidi: This is the trap I fell into pretty much every summer. I
5:41
collapsed like all my bones had melted, and it was me and the
5:45
couch for weeks, because I don't have kids, I could do that, and
5:50
it was lovely. But as I started getting a bit of energy back, I
5:55
took that as my go sign. If I could string two thoughts
5:58
together, that meant it was time to dive back into prep. I had
6:02
color-coded to-do lists decorated with floral clip art,
6:05
of course, because it was summer, and I went full
6:08
throttle. Unpaid hours on the computer and in the work group,
6:12
just all of it. I knew how hard the school year would be, and it
6:16
felt like if I didn't solve every problem in the summer, I
6:20
wouldn't be able to deal with it once I was in the thick of
6:22
teaching again.
6:23
Emily: Yeah. And to be honest, some of the prep was fun. Some
6:27
personalities like ours enjoy prep. We did enjoy having school
6:31
projects and getting to work on our classrooms together. That is
6:34
one of my favorite memories, but it's true that a lot of our prep
6:37
was driven by panic.
6:40
Heidi: Definitely. And because we didn't have a way to identify
6:43
which tasks were most valuable, everything felt equally urgent,
6:49
which is how two days before school started, I did have my
6:52
writing lessons planned for the year, but my desks were still in
6:55
a heap in the middle of the room. Ugh, my stomach is
6:59
literally in knots just thinking about it.
7:02
Emily: Yeah, because we didn't have a system for determining
7:05
what deserved our energy, and we didn't understand why recovery
7:09
was needed. We just tried to do it all, which is how we would
7:13
start the year already drained.
7:15
Heidi: If you aren't careful, it's easy to spend your whole
7:17
break doing summer wrong in two completely different directions.
7:21
There's the over collapse and the over prep.
7:24
Emily: And if you're an overachiever, maybe you do both,
7:27
but those two responses have the same underlying issue. There's
7:30
no framework for what's actually needed, so everything feels
7:33
equally important or equally optional. You end up reactive
7:37
instead of intentional.
7:38
Heidi: So that is where our summer framework comes in, we
7:41
call it recovery and readiness. It gives you four different
7:44
lenses to look at recovery and guide you to set gentle,
7:48
prioritized boundaries around work.
7:50
Emily: As we mentioned earlier, recovery is active, but that
7:53
doesn't have to mean training for a marathon active, unless
7:56
that's your jam.
7:57
Heidi: And if it is, more power to you. We will be cheering you
8:00
on from our air-conditioned houses. But we just mean that
8:04
recovery has to have a direction to be beneficial. So, we have
8:08
split it into four different types, and the first type of
8:11
recovery is to relax.
8:13
Emily: And this might be where your couch collapse comes into
8:15
play. Relaxing is about slowing your nervous system. This is
8:19
what you need when you've been operating in overstimulated
8:21
chaos for 10 months straight.
8:24
Heidi: You probably know if you need this type of recovery, the
8:27
signs are pretty clear. You're down to your last nerve,
8:30
everything feels heavy, you can't sit still, but you also
8:33
can't focus. You may even feel anxious trying to rest, because
8:37
your brain just is not used to working in that mode.
8:40
Emily: That's a really specific kind of depletion, and the
8:43
recovery for it is also specific. Think quiet activities
8:47
and low stimulation environments.
8:49
Heidi: Just watch out for the massive pitfall that claims us
8:53
all now and then. Screen time. Most of us default to TV or our
8:57
phones, or both, when we need to relax. Though that feels like
9:02
low stimulation, it's actually keeping your nervous system
9:05
activated. Your brain is still processing input. It's just a
9:08
different kind of input.
9:10
Emily: True relaxation means you need some time to unplug. You
9:14
don't have to give up your phone entirely, but try to tame the
9:16
flood of constant content.
9:19
Heidi: And this is a place where Emily and I have landed in very
9:21
different spots. Emily's go-to for relaxing is jigsaw puzzles.
9:26
Emily: It's true, I love a puzzle. I was just puzzling
9:29
yesterday.
9:30
Heidi: It just cracks me up so much, because puzzles are unlike
9:34
anything Emily's ever been into before. I, it feels to me like
9:38
it just came out of nowhere.
9:39
Emily: Honestly, I don't even know where it came from, other
9:41
than I, I discovered I enjoy it at Christmas time, like just
9:45
doing a little Christmassy puzzle. But then I realized,
9:48
like, oh, I can do these at any time of the year, and I just
9:52
like having something available to walk by and be like, oh, I'm
9:55
gonna sit down and do this for a little while, and sometimes get
9:58
really into and break my back, you know, spending hours hunched
10:01
over a puzzle, because you're just so into it. I just like
10:04
that you're working towards a goal, the finished puzzle, and
10:08
so you get that satisfaction of having completed something, and
10:11
it's so easy to relax while you're doing that. So that's
10:14
when I love to listen to a book or music, or sometimes my kids
10:19
do it with me, and we just talk. Like, it is just a way, it is
10:24
just something that makes me feel like I am checked out from
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the normal stuff that's occupying my brain.
10:31
Heidi: Yeah, that makes sense. A nice way to make your time feel
10:33
different and more meaningful. I, on the other hand, have a
10:36
phone problem. I've not even gonna pretend I don't, and when
10:41
I am tired, I default to scrolling, which is the exact
10:45
thing we said doesn't work for relax. So I have been trying to
10:48
find ways around that, and one thing I did that I know I've
10:52
mentioned here before, but this has been so helpful, is to make
10:55
a second Instagram account. And I only follow calming content,
10:59
things like baking bread videos, calligraphy, garden accounts, no
11:04
news, nothing political or stressful. I don't even want
11:07
posts that show faces, so that when I just want to scroll, I
11:12
can scroll on that account and it actually does feel like low
11:14
stimulation.
11:16
Emily: That's so smart, and I've been meaning to do that.
11:18
Heidi: Yeah, well, maybe summer's your moment. But you
11:21
know it is still on the phone, so lately I've been trying to
11:24
branch out into more tech-free options. My current fave is
11:28
Sticker by Number Books. It's kind of like a puzzle, but I
11:32
don't have to think about it as hard. And Emily and our mom got
11:36
me a fun new one for my birthday. I like that it's just
11:40
low effort, and when I'm done, I don't have any like artwork that
11:45
I have to find a place for. I can just recycle it. It's done.
11:48
It's out of my hair, no clutter.
11:50
Emily: Well, it's a lot like a puzzle where you have a little
11:53
end goal that gives you a little hit of like, oh, I got something
11:56
done, but then you can just move on from it.
11:58
Heidi: We do like our productive relaxation.
12:02
Emily: Yeah, and something like this really does check every
12:04
relax box. So, the broader point is your version of relax might
12:08
not look like someone else's. The test isn't whether it looks
12:11
restful from the outside. The test is whether your nervous
12:13
system actually settles.
12:16
Heidi: After relax. The second R of our summer recovery is
12:19
refresh. This is about rediscovering the parts of
12:22
yourself outside of teaching. This is the time to connect with
12:26
old hobbies, new interests, and spend time with friends that you
12:29
don't get to see during the school year.
12:31
Emily: You'll know you need to refresh when someone asks you
12:34
what you do for fun, and you genuinely can't think of any
12:37
answer, or when you realize you haven't read anything that isn't
12:41
a children's book in months.
12:42
Heidi: Now, the pitfall with refresh is that it gets confused
12:46
with self-care in the bath bomb and face mask sense, and of
12:50
course, those things are nice, but they don't necessarily do
12:54
the identity work. You can have a perfectly nice spa day and
12:58
still come out the other end wondering who you are.
13:00
Emily: Yeah, refresh is a deeper kind of restoration than that,
13:03
but you also may need our third R, which is refocus. Lean on
13:08
this when the school year was so all consuming that everything
13:12
else fell apart. Maybe your house is a disaster, and all
13:15
your routines have flown out the window.
13:18
Heidi: This one shows up as a low-grade anxious feeling about
13:22
how disorganized everything is. Maybe you can't relax because
13:25
the clutter is bothering you, or you keep thinking you need a
13:28
reset, but you feel too overwhelmed to start.
13:31
Emily: When something feels too big, it's best to make it
13:33
smaller. Instead of reorganizing your kitchen. Start by cleaning
13:37
out the silverware drawer or setting up a dishwashing
13:40
schedule. Think gentle ordering, not a productivity binge. You
13:44
need just enough structure that things feel manageable again.
13:48
Heidi: And the pitfall here is huge. Refocus can flip into the
13:52
productivity trap if you're not careful. You start with, I'll
13:56
just reorganize my closet, and three days later you're in a
13:59
bigger mess than when you started.
14:01
Emily: Yes, that is the classic MPRS, the mid-project regret
14:06
syndrome. I know it well. It's that thing where you decide to
14:10
clean out a closet and organize your cabinets, and so you pull
14:12
everything out, and then you look around and you're like, I
14:15
don't want to do this anymore. I've lost steam, but now I've
14:18
made it so much worse, and I have nothing left to get me to
14:21
finish this task.
14:22
Heidi: Oh, yeah, or you take everything out of your closet,
14:25
and then you can't get to bed at night because it's covered in
14:27
your clothes, but the last thing you want to do is spend three
14:29
hours putting them all back.
14:31
Emily: Yeah, or all your pots and pans are balanced on the
14:33
kitchen island, and now you're more stressed than you were
14:37
before you started, because at least you could get to the
14:40
microwave before.
14:42
Heidi: So if refocus is your R, the rule is start small, smaller
14:47
than feels worth it, one drawer, one shelf. Finish the small
14:51
thing before you move on to anything bigger.
14:54
Emily: And that brings us to our fourth R, which is recharge.
14:57
This is the fun one, because it's about rebuilding energy.
15:01
This is what you need when nothing sounds fun, nothing
15:03
sounds bad, you just feel kind of beige.
15:07
Heidi: The signs of recharge depletion are sneaky because
15:09
they don't look like exhaustion. You have time off, but you still
15:13
don't have any get up and go. Even sleep doesn't seem to help.
15:17
Maybe you're physically rested, but mentally empty.
15:20
Emily: The recovery for recharge is doing things that bring you
15:23
alive, which is different for everybody. For some people,
15:25
that's hiking. For others, it's a really good concert. For some,
15:30
it's a quiet morning with coffee or a book that's so good you
15:33
stay up late finishing it.
15:35
Heidi: And recharging could mean doing schoolwork, but only if
15:38
school projects are enjoyable for you. I'm someone who does
15:42
get a genuine thrill out of planning a new unit. I love that
15:46
stuff. It's like a drug.
15:47
Emily: Oh yeah, I mean, doing those big projects we used to do
15:49
in the summer was very thrilling. I still think there
15:53
is a place for that in your summer if you get that kind of
15:56
excitement and thrill and motivation as well. But you do
16:00
need to be so careful that you don't let that enthusiasm become
16:03
a fixation. The pitfall here is confusing doing what lights me
16:06
up with doing all the things.
16:10
Heidi: And if you are going to open the door to school tasks,
16:12
boundaries are so important. Limit yourself to only prepping
16:16
the things you really enjoy and the things that are absolutely
16:20
essential, and hopefully those things overlap, but I found that
16:22
they often don't.
16:24
Emily: That means you need a system for strategizing your
16:26
back to school readiness, so you don't land in burnout before
16:30
August. We've got two things to help you with that. First, later
16:34
this week we are airing one of our Can't Miss Classic episodes,
16:36
all about how to set work boundaries to protect your
16:40
recovery while still letting you get your prep done.
16:43
Heidi: And our second help is this month's Teacher Approved
16:46
Club focus. We've got a bonus training to help you design the
16:49
type of summer that you need for recovery and readiness, and we
16:53
have a resource that I'm so excited about. We're calling
16:56
this our Tired Teacher Summer Planner.
16:59
Emily: Ah, it's so good. It is jam packed with goodies. It
17:03
takes you step by step through identifying which of your 4 Rs
17:06
you need most this summer, and then mapping out what that
17:09
actually looks like for you specifically.
17:12
Heidi: And that way you're going to walk away with a personalized
17:14
recovery plan instead of just a generic one. Maybe this year was
17:18
brutal and you need to lean really hard on relax, or maybe
17:22
you're feeling like your life is falling apart, and you need some
17:25
guidance around refocusing your routines. Whatever you need, we
17:29
can help you find it.
17:30
Emily: There's a link in the show notes if you want to join
17:33
us in the club, that way you get access to this month's summer
17:36
resources, plus all our other amazing fun club bonuses, and
17:42
we've got some really fun things going on with the club this
17:44
summer.
17:45
Heidi: But if you need some place to start right away, ask
17:48
yourself a couple questions. First, which of these four
17:51
descriptions made me feel, yeah, that's me. Sometimes the answer
17:55
is just immediate.
17:56
Emily: And the second question is, imagine yourself two weeks
17:59
into an unstructured summer. Picture the version of wasted
18:02
time that would bother you most. From some teachers, if what you
18:07
want to avoid is two weeks of scrolling your phone, think
18:10
about what relaxation looks like without screen time. If you hate
18:14
the thought of still feeling like a stranger to yourself two
18:16
weeks into the break, then that's a sign you need a
18:19
refresh.
18:20
Heidi: If the version that haunts you is your house still
18:22
being a wreck and your time feeling scattered, then you need
18:25
some refocus, and if it's nothing sounding fun and not
18:29
being able to get motivated, then you probably need a
18:31
recharge. The version of failure you're most afraid of is often
18:35
the version of recovery you most need.
18:37
Emily: And if you feel like you need a mix of Rs, that's totally
18:40
normal. Refresh might be calling to you, but you likely need
18:44
relax first before you even attempt to reconnect with life.
18:47
Heidi: Yeah, if you are so on edge that you can't sit still,
18:50
you're not going to be able to settle into a hobby that you
18:52
used to love. Your nervous system has to come down before
18:56
the deeper restoration work can actually happen.
18:59
Emily: So, a summer plan might start with a week or two of pure
19:02
relaxation, and then transition into refresh once you've
19:05
actually settled, or you might need to refocus first, because
19:08
the chaos around you is keeping you from being able to rest at
19:11
all.
19:12
Heidi: Another thing to keep in mind is that your circumstances
19:15
might force a particular form of recovery. For example, if you
19:19
have small kids at home relaxing in the quiet low stimulation
19:23
sense is just not happening, you were probably laughing when we
19:26
were even mentioning it. Your house is loud and your downtime
19:29
is constantly interrupted.
19:31
Emily: Which is ironic, because we just had to pause because my
19:34
child just came in to interrupt me while we were recording this.
19:39
But in that case, relax has to look different. It might be a
19:42
quiet 10 minutes on the porch before everyone wakes up, or
19:45
listening to audio books while folding laundry.
19:48
Heidi: Or if you're really lucky, a long shower with the
19:50
door locked.
19:51
Emily: But maybe don't get your hopes up on that one. And it's
19:55
the same with the other forms of recovery. If your version of an
19:57
identity restoring refresh is a girls' weekend away, and that's
20:01
not on the cards this summer, find a smaller version. Maybe
20:04
you schedule coffee with one friend, or you pick up a hobby
20:07
you can do in 20 minutes between dinner and bedtime.
20:10
Heidi: You know, like a sticker by number book. The framework
20:13
doesn't care about the scale of the activity, it cares about
20:16
whether you're hitting the right kind of restoration for what's
20:19
actually depleted. A teacher with small kids doing 20 minutes
20:23
of journaling a week is doing more genuine refresh than a
20:27
teacher with all the time in the world who's just filling time.
20:30
Emily: So, think about the type of recovery you need to start
20:33
with. Do you need relax, refresh, refocus, or recharge?
20:37
And then give yourself permission to do it.
20:39
Heidi: If the little critic in your head starts trying to tell
20:42
you that you're not doing enough, remind yourself that
20:45
recovery is not selfish, it isn't lazy, and it is definitely
20:49
not something you have to earn. It's the thing that lets you
20:52
keep showing up. Without it, you're not bringing your full
20:55
self to your students next year, you're bringing the depleted
20:58
version, and those kids deserve the full version of you.
21:02
Emily: Now as lovely as the thought of summer recovery is,
21:05
wouldn't it be even lovelier to get to your summer break and not
21:08
need recovery at all? Wouldn't it be great if the school year
21:12
didn't drain you so much that you're left deciding, do I need
21:16
two weeks or three weeks of recuperating on the couch?
21:20
Heidi: And that is why we wrote our book, Structure and Spark.
21:24
The whole premise is that learning to work with the
21:26
rhythms of each season, instead of fighting them, is the actual
21:30
antidote to burnout.
21:31
Emily: What you're recovering from right now isn't a hard week
21:34
or a tough class, it's the slow accumulation of a year spent
21:38
pushing through every season the same way. Our hope with this
21:42
book is to help you not get so burned out next year that you
21:45
need a long recovery to begin with.
21:47
Heidi: Prevention is always easier than remediation. When
21:50
you can work with the seasons all year, knowing when to add
21:53
things and when to subtract them, you don't end up in June
21:56
running on fumes.
21:57
Emily: Structure and Spark is available for pre-order now. The
22:01
link is in the show notes. If you want to take a look and
22:03
support us with your preorder.
22:06
Now for our teacher approved tip of the week, where we share an
22:09
actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and
22:12
simplify the rest. This week's teacher approved tip is to start
22:16
thinking about your digital organization for next year.
22:19
Heidi: And we are saying start thinking on purpose. This is not
22:22
an assignment. Don't go into overdrive yet. This is a
22:26
low-stakes thinking exercise that you can do while you're
22:28
driving or scrolling your phone. You just need to turn over a few
22:32
questions in your head. First, what worked well with your
22:35
digital files this year? Second, what were the headaches? And
22:38
third, what can you do to prevent those headaches going
22:41
forward?
22:41
Emily: For some teachers, the answer is a more nested file
22:44
system, something that moves from term to month to unit to
22:48
week to lesson. For others, the answer is fewer folders and a
22:53
better naming convention, or actually using the search
22:56
function instead of clicking through 10 levels of folders.
23:00
Heidi: Like with most parts of teaching, the right answer is
23:02
really individual. There's no universally best digital
23:06
organization; there's just the one that works for the way that
23:09
your brain finds things.
23:11
Emily: But if you find yourself ready to do a small task
23:14
alongside this thinking, set up the folders now. You don't need
23:17
to start sorting files into them yet; that can wait.
23:21
Heidi: Just think, how happy future you will be when you can
23:24
find the writing unit that you taught last September on the
23:27
first try. That is the version of you we're trying to set up.
23:31
To wrap up the show, we're sharing what we're giving extra
23:34
credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?
23:36
Emily: I'm giving extra credit to a cross-legged chair. Okay,
23:40
so my daughters needed office chairs to go with their desks,
23:45
and they wanted something comfy, and I discovered this
23:49
cross-legged chair, which is basically it's just super wide,
23:52
so you can sit crisscross applesauce.
23:54
Heidi: I was thinking the chair had crossed legs.
23:56
Emily: No the chair's legs are just normal. Your legs are
24:01
cross-legged, but I'm calling it cross-legged because that's what
24:03
the search term is. It's definitely not crisscross
24:06
applesauce chair if you're searching Google. So, I will put
24:11
a link to this in the show notes, but I would have loved a
24:14
chair like this when I was a teenager. It's just comfy and
24:17
wide, and it looks cute in their rooms, so I will put a link in
24:22
the show notes.
24:23
Heidi: Yeah, seems perfect.
24:24
Emily: What are you giving extra credit to?
24:25
Heidi: Okay, well, my extra credit goes to a random storage
24:29
box that I found on Amazon, and I'm only sharing it because it
24:32
solved a niche problem that I didn't find anyone mentioning
24:36
online. So I'm going to share this in case you also have this
24:38
problem. So I recently had to take possession of my 1988
24:43
Samantha doll that had been in my parents' basement, and her
24:47
original box is long gone. But she's now in like a banker box,
24:51
which is fine, but it has like the holes in the side, and when
24:53
I see holes, I think spiders, so I didn't, I wanted something
24:57
completely enclosed. And given the popularity of American Girl
25:01
dolls, I thought it would be easy to find a storage box that
25:03
was made for them. Now, maybe there's a whole industry out
25:07
there, and I was just looking in the wrong place, but I could not
25:10
find anything.
25:11
Emily: No, I have had the same problem. I have all my Molly
25:14
stuff just like in a big plastic bin, but then it's just like all
25:17
in there together, and I have searched for something and not
25:20
found it, so tell me what you found.
25:22
Heidi: Well, this is all everything is in there, but it
25:24
all fits. So, I ordered a bin that was 18 inches, because
25:28
that's how tall the doll is. But when it came, like, the width of
25:31
the box was huge. I know the measurements were on there, but
25:34
somehow I just didn't compute. And like, I only have a few
25:37
dresses for Samantha, so I don't have a bunch of her accessories,
25:41
but I had her little doll pram. I wonder where that is.
25:45
Emily: Oh no.
25:46
Heidi: Anyway, I decided to get a box that's 15 inches and
25:50
gamble, and it worked out perfectly. So she fits if I put
25:53
her in on a diagonal, and then there's plenty of room I could
25:56
just layer all of her dresses on top of her. Poor Samantha.
26:00
Emily: Well, you could put the dresses on the bottom and layer
26:02
on top.
26:02
Heidi: I guess I could do that as well. There is nothing
26:05
particularly special about this bin. I think any 15 inch box
26:09
would work, but I will put a link in the show notes in case
26:12
you want some direction for your own bin search.
26:15
Emily: Well, I like that it's a little more snug. I mean, that's
26:18
part of what I don't like about the big tub I have now that has
26:21
all her stuff in it, because it can just kind of roll all around
26:24
in there, and I want the doll to be a little more protected,
26:26
because her limbs are getting loose.
26:28
Heidi: Oh dear, yeah, this is all just well contained, it fit
26:31
on the top shelf of my closet for some future day, and then
26:35
all, like it's all sealed up, so there aren't any holes on the
26:37
side for handles. It actually came with a little tiny padlock
26:40
that I'm not even gonna bother to use.
26:44
Emily: Lock up your plastic bin with your girl doll in it. Hey,
26:48
it's vintage now.
26:49
Heidi: That's true, I could take it on Antiques Roadshow.
26:52
Emily: Apparently.
26:55
Heidi: Well, that is it for today's episode. Remember,
26:58
crashing is not recovering. Figure out which R you need most
27:02
this summer, and let that be your recovery plan.
27:04
Emily: And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a
27:07
teacher friend who could also use some support in this summer
27:10
season.
27:12
Heidi: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm
27:16
Heidi.
27:16
Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
27:20
or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
27:22
episode.
27:23
Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
27:25
Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
27:29
Bye for now.
27:30
Emily: Bye.