The Calm Before the Storm

Well my week of relative peace is up. (That little window of time between when the stuff that goes on during the school year ends and when the stuff that goes on in the summer begins.) We start out the busy schedule tomorrow with Cody's High School graduation. (4 down, 2 to go! WooHoo!) then we have church on Sunday and Vacation Bible School starts on Monday. I volunteered once again to teach the 2-3yr old class (Clearly, I have lost my mind!) The following week is when KIDmunnity play rehearsals start. That will take up all of June and then in July we will have at least one week of dance workshop before relatives come to visit from out of state. By the time all of that is over I may get a week or two of peace before it all starts up again in the fall. No wonder my doctor just laughs at me when I tell him how tired I am all of the time. I couldn't tell you the last time I sat and did nothing but the late mornings have made up for the coming craziness. I think I was meant to live in a different time zone. If I could just sleep until about 8:30 or 9:00 every day I could probably conquer the world. Well I am off to the races so to speak!

Joy Junction in Crazy Town

I think in my first blog post I should say a little about myself. Well the title says it all. I live in Crazy town and am striving towards Joy Junction. Aren’t we all? Somedays I think that the struggle of finding the joy amidst the crazy is impossible and then other days the joy bubbles forth with little or no effort. Such is life I suppose. Anyway about me: I am married with two wonderful daughters and four (yes, I said four) step-sons. The sons are mostly all grown and in the Navy now. One is out of the Navy but has a wife in the Navy. The youngest boy is still at home but will graduate from high school next month and go in the Navy or go to college through the Navy ROTC program. My two daughters are 6 and 10 and I homeschool them. Of course, my kids are the most beautiful and talented in all the world! Keeping them fed with healthy meals, clothed in clean clothes, living in a moderately clean home, and getting them to all their different appointments on time is what puts me smack in the middle of Crazy Town sometimes. I often joke with my husband that we are going to live it up when the kids all grow up and move out, but the truth is I thrive on taking care of everyone and the craziness causes a nice little adrenaline rush that i’m pretty sure they don’t have 12-step programs for. So I guess in my case the only way to get to Joy Junction is to go through Crazy Town. I think that’s the only way I will appreciate and be able to identify the joy. I complain about the constant flitting about to get things done and to get to the places we need to go but then in the quiet moments I am pretty sure that I look like I have a nervous twitch because I am itching to do something…anything. I long for peace and quiet but at the same time on those rare moments when my husband is working nights and the kids are spending the night with friends and I find myself at home alone and I have the chance to relax and pamper myself, I end up at Wal Mart buying toilet paper and Fruit Loops!! I guess the truth is I like living in Crazy Town and I will get to Joy Junction when the time is right and then I will love it just as much.

My, how they grow!!

No Bon-Bons Here!

My husband sometimes has the habit of coming home from work and asking the completely innocent question,”What did you do today?” While I know he is just saying this by way of greeting, sometimes it gets under my skin as if he couldn’t look around and see what I did. I feel like saying,”You know those clean underwear you put on this morning? Well that’s because I washed 4 loads of laundry today (and yesterday and the day before…) And you know when you sat on the couch to put on your shoes and you didn’t have to clear off Barbie and her miscellaneous accessories? That’s because I cleaned them up at least nine times.. (apparently my couch is now Barbie’s Day Spa.) And did you think that the kids taught themselves to read, write, and do math…nope that was me too. In the spare moments I might have even snuck in a few lessons about manners and behavior. I did dishes and prepared 3 fairly nutritious and pretty darn tasty meals…and then did dishes again. Then I got the kids ready to go to whichever dance class is today. Next I delivered them to said dance class. Then I came home to be greeted with “What did you do today?” To which I usually just reply, “Oh, I just sat on the couch and ate bon-bons while watching my ’stories’.” Because by this point all of the hard work has been undone and Barbie is back at the Day Spa and has brought friends this time, someone cleaned their room and brought 3 arm-loads of laundry to the laundry room, the lunch dishes or snack trash have been left out so that it looks as though not only have the dishes not been done but some manner of swine rooted around on the bar or table. I wonder what would happen if I really did sit all day and eat bon-bons.
The above is just the short list as we are now also trying to start a home business, finish up a remodeling project that has been going on for over a year, organize and declutter a house that has about 10 different people’s belongings in it with soon to be only 4 of us living here! My poor husband is working overtime at every opportunity to help pay for all of this and you can see above to find out what I do all day, so at the end of the day if we got anything accomplished other than normal daily routine, then we get down-right excited! In my day-to-day life there is not much time for bon-bons (or sleep) but someday we will get it all done and the kids will grow up and leave and there will be no one to clean up after, taxi around, or teach to use a tissue not a sleeve. If you see me then I will be sitting on the couch thinking…”What the heck is a bon-bon anyway?!”