A little less conversation, a little more action

Summer is finally over and school is here. Hurray! Hurray!

So I promised to blog every day. I made it three days. I think the last few days (and the lack of blogging) illustrate the core of my problem. I have been telling myself all summer that the projects and personal stuff I want to work on can all happen when the kids go back to school. As soon as school started, I wanted to do IT ALL. Right NOW. Suddenly I have so much to do and so little time after a summer of so much time and so little to do. Or at least so little actual doing.

I ran into a friend at my son’s soccer game this morning and she was all “you’re so lucky! I had to work all summer and you got to go to the beach all the time!” Meanwhile, I spent the whole summer saying “ugh … I guess I’ll take the kids to the beach again.” I know, I know … I shouldn’t complain … but sometimes I still do. I think the problem is that I don’t feel I am “relaxing” at the beach, I feel like I am waiting and waiting and waiting to get to the ideas that rattle around my head.

It was cool and rainy on the last day of summer vacation and it soon turned into the rainy day - closet cleanout organizational freak-out. I guess I need my deadlines if I pick the last day of summer vacation to do what I have needed to do for months. I pulled everything out of my closet, my son’s closet and the downstairs closet where we keep everything from jackets to shoes to sports equipment. My nine-year-old daughter pointed out that we start a lot of big projects when we don’t have the time to finish them. We always have to stop for one reason or another before they are done, so nothing ends up being organized and we are always re-organizing the stuff we already sorted through. We need to be able to start and finish the job in one go. Very astute.

Aimee planning how to organize my life.

Now we are in the organizational in-between phase — where things seem worse before they get better. Every organizational blitz seems to give rise to more projects I want to take on. Should we build shelves in the closets? Do we even use any of this stuff? I am feeling really motivated. The summer seemed to be one long motivation suck … nothing got done. Nothing. Now the kids are off at school for six hours a day and my mind is full of possibilities, ideas, revelations, and regrets.

Besides making a mess in my attempts to organize and streamline everything around here I have made lots of lists and come up with lots of ideas for artsy, Etsy-able projects. I need to find more paying work. It is amazing how much more creative I feel without the constant “Mama!?” all the live long day. I can put my thoughts together and make a plan, rather than trying to grab at the random ideas that float and bounce through my mind like balloons. I have lists of what I want to do, what I need to do, what I wish I could do, what I wish I could stop doing … lists and more lists. I am really trying to write ideas down before they evaporate away, which I think will have to entail me walking around scribbling into a little notebook like a TV private eye.

I feel a little guilty and a little gleeful about my kids being at school all day. I don’t want feel like I wish I was away from them more, but after three months of never being away from them at all, I am glad to have my time back. It still doesn’t feel like enough time. The second I pick up my kids from school, the chance for me to do any of my stuff is done for the day. I need to figure out how to turn my time into productive action. I need to move from planning to doing.

Extreme makeover

Two days ‘till school starts and I am trying to get ready. Towards the end of the school year, we got pretty lazy with breakfast and lunch around here. My 11 year old daughter has to be out of the house by 7:15 am, so breakfast was often Nutella sandwiches and a cup of “coffee milk” — hot milk with a splash of coffee. I may as well give her a Snickers bar and send her on her way.

My other two are in elementary school and don’t have to leave the house until the more civilized hour of 8:25, so they usually get a better breakfast. My kids also bring their lunches to school, which presents a plethora of problems. I have one kid who is a vegetarian, one who doesn’t like sandwiches, one who will only eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches and a strict “no nuts” policy in all the schools. Ugh.

The summer has been an endless stream of chicken fingers, fries, ice cream, and popsicles so this seems like a good time for a nutrition makeover. 

Sausage-tomato fritatta, potato&onion fritatta and apple cinnamon muffins. They look better in person, I promise.

I am trying to get a head start this year by making homemade muffins (gluten free! – that’s another story) and fritattas to have on hand so I don’t have to scramble too much to get these kids fed and packed and off to school.  I am also trying to cut down the junky, carby, processed crap they all eat too much of — all the Goldfish and crackers and chocolate chip granola bars and Pirate Booty that seem to be all my kids want to eat. I need to figure out how to make packable nut-free, sandwich-free, junk-food free lunches that all my kids will like. Back to school time is going to be back to healthy eating time! Watch out, kids!

Happy Mothers' Day

Big Love

Today my kids did a “pretend Mothers’ Day” and woke me up with coffee in bed and showered me with paper hearts and homemade cards. More importantly, they promised to be helpful all day and not to squabble. My husband and kids emptied the dishwasher and set the table and made breakfast. We finished our back-to school shopping and made s’mores in the backyard firepit. There has been no squabbling. Kinda weird. And kinda great.  I am always torn at the end of the summer with this guilty/bittersweet feeling of wanting to hold on to my kids while they are still pretty young and wanting them to get the hell back to school so I can have some time to do something other than be full time mommy/referee. The end is near.

Enough, already.

Making the Family Calendar for Fall ...

I love back-to-school time. It always feels like a fresh start. Time to shake things up. Try something new. The kids are all excited for school to start. I am excited to have six hours of kidlessness every single day. I have to say that my plan to have a carefree, relaxed, unstructured summer really bit me in the ass and I am glad summer is just about over. I don’t know about your kids, but mine can’t wait to go back to school. They love school. They neeeeeeeeeed school. And they really, really need to get away from each other. They have had all the summer fun they can stand and now will bicker all the live long day about anything and everything.

I am ready for some new things as well. Back in June, when I was in Las Vegas with my husband, I met up with my friend Jennifer, who lives near me in New England, but was in Vegas for a conference. Jennifer owns her own design company and I have done some freelance work for her in the past (and hopefully more in the future!) As we chatted and caught up over drinks, she casually mentioned that my days would “start to evaporate away once the kids were out of school.” Boy oh boy was she right. She meant it in the “long, relaxing days where one day runs into the next” kind of way, but in reality it felt like each day I tried to accomplish something, the day just poofed away — gone!

The finished calendar - ready to be filled up! Bring it on!

As part of getting back on track, I am back to blogging every day. Starting today. I want to enjoy the last few days of summer before the craziness begins, but truthfully, I prefer the craziness. After two and a half months of “relaxing” I am all relaxed out and now I am just itching to start something new. I will be revisiting my “thirty day plan” with some major changes … tune in tomorrow to find out more!