Welcome to Monday! It is a day that happens every week. This week I am sharing my Michael’s Haul!
My youngest is heading to camp so I grabbed a few things for a care package. I also grab other things.
Because I am weak and a sucker for a 50% off coupon.
What’s going on this week for you? Is summer in full swing for you too?
This summer has been different for us. My son (17) has some part-time work keeping him intermittently busy, my middle daughter (14) has been a teen staffer for a couple camps… and the youngest has been a camper at those camps.
The youngest is at a sleep-away camp all this week, and the older two head out for theirs next weeK.
Basically, we have had no time to have a lazy summer. There hasn’t been a day when we all have had nothing.
In summers past, I’d find myself scrambling to make sure there was something to do. Now I feel like I am fight to have NOTHING to do so we can crash the local private beach.
But then I have to remind myself that sitting on a beach with kids in one’s mind is much different than sitting on a beach in reality… including but not limited to being asked to go in the water or having to hike up 47 stairs to go to accompany a minor to the port-a-potty. Then of course there is sand in sandwiches and sand in bags of chips and grapes and bleeding feet from barnacle cuts and the constant panic of not being able to find one of the 15 kids.
Because it takes a village.
And then there’s the asking for money to go get ice cream. And the ice cream that falls into the sand.
Despite it all… I really miss that this summer.
AM I INSANE?
Things are different in other ways too. Namely, we don’t live in the same home we did two summers ago, and to be totally honest… I miss it. Not the yard work. But the yard. Room for roaming and independence.
I do love living in a neighborhood, and in the heart of town. I don’t miss the driving and the dollars spent on gas.
I feel I am still trying to find our new normal. Or create it.
Plus, we are renting and frankly… it’s just a struggle to feel settled. I thought doing the renting-thing would feel freeing. In some ways it does, but my husband and I are constantly reminded that our creative little spirits struggle. From terrible wallpaper (I MEAN TERRIBLE YOU GUYS) (THINK CORAL SHELL THAT PEELS) to a deck that is in desperate need of repair (DON’T LEAN ON THE RAILING) (but it’s a lovely view from the deck!), to toilets that require you hold down the handle for at least 24.3 seconds in order for them to flush (I am not exaggerating), to lightbulbs that constantly burn out… to a backyard that needs a few bad fruit trees gone, and grass that hurts to walk on (is that really grass?)… And the roof. YOU GUYS. The last wind storm…
But the location is great. The neighborhood is great. The size of the home is perfect. It’s not a dump. It just needs TLC. A lot of it.
But it’s not ours to make sweet.
I do what I can. And I do fairly well, but…
All that to say… this summer is a weird one. I feel displaced. My kids are growing too fast, and I am missing the days when my kids we constantly underfoot.
AM I INSANE?!!!
Somehow, in that out-of-control chaos of little kids… there was less chaos. My kids aren’t emptying bags of flour on the kitchen floor and drinking bottles of syrup while I try to take a shower anymore. I guess that’s good.
But I kind-of miss those days. A lot.
Whoa. I need to snap out of this little sentimental trap.
Sorry guys.
Hoping you all have a great week ahead. Would love to read here or over on Facebook what you are doing this week to make it good for others, and therefore you. I love reading what everyone does to bring a little (or a lot) of good to their communities and people they love.
Peace and sparkles, friends….
